| Then everyone waited to see what would happen. When it didn " t rain for a few months, people just thought that it was a bit unusual. But when it didn " t rain for three and a half years until Elijah told the King «go down before the rain stops you»; and a strong rain came, then everyone knew that Elijah was a true prophet of God who must be feared. The second test is to evaluate the teaching of the person claiming to be a prophet and consider whether his doctrine contradicts previous revelation. In the Torah, Yahweh, the Eternal One, guides Moses to say, «If a prophet, or one who foretells by dreams, appears among you and announces to you a miraculous sign or wonder, and if the sign or wonder of which he has spoken takes place, and he says, us follow other gods» – gods you have not known – " and let us worship them», you must not listen to the words of that prophet or dreamer... « It is the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) you must follow, and Him you must revere. Keep His commands and obey Him; serve Him and Hold fast to Him.» Deuteronomy 13:1–4. Miraculous signs are not enough by themselves. If the person " s words contradict previous teaching, he is not to be believed and accepted. These two points are shown quite well in the next example where two men are both claiming to be prophets of Yahweh Elohim but are giving contradictory and opposing messages. The true and the false Prophet This striking example is to be found in the life of Jeremiah. While living in Jerusalem he had to prophesy that because the people had forsaken God, the Eternal One, and worshiped false and powerless idols, God was going to destroy the city using Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon. God ordered him to wear a yoke like the yoke of an ox on his neck and then to speak to Zedekiah, King of Jerusalem, with these words, «Bow your neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon; serve him and his people, and you will live. Why will you and your people die by the sword, famine and plague with which the LORD has threatened any nation that will not serve the king of Babylon?» |
| In the Judean kingdom all the kings came from the line of David, but few of them were kind or pious. The people, imitating the impious kings, sinned much before God. To make the Hebrew people, both the Judeans and the Israelites, come to their senses, the Lord sent many prophets. Note: See I Kings, chaps. 12–15; II Chron., chaps. 10–13. 37. The Prophets The prophets were people who, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, prophesied, that is, foretold what would be in the future, especially about the coming Saviour of the world. They announced the will of God, taught the people true faith and piety, and performed various signs and miracles. They exposed the idolatry of the Hebrews and called them to repent. Some of them preached only orally, and others, in addition, left behind sacred books, written by them under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. The most famous of the prophets living in the Israelite kingdom were, Elijah, Elisha and Jonah, and of the prophets living in the Judean kingdom, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Micah, Ezekiel and Daniel. The Prophet Elijah. The Prophet Elijah lived during the reign of the impious Israelite King Ahab, who worshipped the idol Baal and also forced the people to do so. Elijah came to Ahab and in the name of God announced to him, eBecause of your godlessness, there will be neither dew nor rain during these years except by the word of my mouth.» So it came to pass. A terrible drought began. Even the grass died and there was a famine. Elijah, by God? will, settled in the desert by a stream where ravens brought him bread and meat, and he drank the water from the stream. When the stream dried up, God ordered the Prophet to go to the pagan town of Zarephath in Sidon to a poor widow and live with her. This widow, who lived with her son, had only one handful of flour and a little oil. Going to Zarephath, Elijah told her to bake bread for him and promised that the flour and oil would not diminish as long as the Lord did not send rain to the earth. The woman trusted the Prophet of God and did as he told her, her flour and oil did not diminish. Soon this widow? son fell ill and died. The Prophet Elijah for three days prayed to God for him and the boy came back to life. |
| From the captivity at Babylon, which took place in the time of Jeremiah the prophet, was fulfilled what was spoken by Daniel the prophet as follows: Seventy weeks are determined upon your people, and upon your holy city, to finish the transgression, and to seal sins, and to wipe out and make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal the vision and the prophet, and to anoint the Holy of Holies. Know therefore, and understand, that from the going forth of the word commanding an answer to be given, and Jerusalem to be built, to Christ the Prince, are seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; and the street shall be again built, and the wall; and the times shall be expended. And after the sixty-two weeks the anointing shall be overthrown, and judgment shall not be in him; and he shall destroy the city and the sanctuary along with the coming Prince. And they shall be destroyed in a flood, and to the end of the war shall be cut off by desolations. And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week; and in the middle of the week the sacrifice and oblation shall be taken away; and in the holy place shall be the abomination of desolations, and until the consummation of time shall the consummation be assigned for desolation. And in the midst of the week shall he make the incense of sacrifice cease, and of the wing of destruction, even till the consummation, like the destruction of the oblation. That the temple accordingly was built in seven weeks, is evident; for it is written in Esdras. And thus Christ became King of the Jews, reigning in Jerusalem in the fulfilment of the seven weeks. And in the sixty and two weeks the whole of Judæa was quiet, and without wars. And Christ our Lord, the Holy of Holies, having come and fulfilled the vision and the prophecy, was anointed in His flesh by the Holy Spirit of His Father. In those sixty and two weeks, as the prophet said, and in the one week, was He Lord. The half of the week Nero held sway, and in the holy city Jerusalem placed the abomination; and in the half of the week he was taken away, and Otho, and Galba, and Vitellius. And Vespasian rose to the supreme power, and destroyed Jerusalem, and desolated the holy place. And that such are the facts of the case, is clear to him that is able to understand, as the prophet said. |
| Finally let us remember that Christ was condemned to be crucified precisely because He formally admitted His divinity. Indeed, when the high priest Caiaphas asked Christ under oath: «Art Thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?» Christ responded: «It is as you said» ( Mark 14:61 , Matt. 26:64, Luke 22:70, John 19:7 ). Here Christ had responded using the prescribed form of an affirmative answer. Now where did Caiaphas, many of the Jews, and even demons (!) get the idea that the Messiah was to be the Son of God? There is just one answer: from the Holy Scriptures of the Old Testament. Its intent was to prepare the Jews and the whole world for this belief. Indeed, King David , who lived a thousand years before the birth of Christ, referred to the Messiah as God in three of his psalms; Psalms 2, 54 (55), and 108 (109). The prophet Isaiah , who lived seven-hundred years before the birth of Christ, revealed this truth even more clearly. Foretelling the miracle of the Incarnation of the Son of God, Isaiah wrote: «Therefore the Lord Himself shall give you a sign: Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel» (which means «God with us,» Isaiah 7:14). A little later the prophet reveals more precisely the character of the Son who would be born: «and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace» (Isaiah 9:6). These titles cannot apply to anyone other than God. The prophet Micah also wrote of the eternal character of the Child who was to be born: «But thou Bethlehem Ephrathah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall come forth unto Me He that is to be ruler in Israel, whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting» (Micah 5:2). The prophet Jeremiah , who lived about two hundred years after Isaiah’s time, calls the Messiah Lord: «The Lord our righteousness» ( Jer. 23:6, 33:16 ). Surmising Him to be the same Lord who called him to preach, Jeremiah’s disciple, the prophet Baruch , wrote these remarkable words about the Messiah: «This is our God, and no other can be found to compare to Him. He has found the complete way of knowledge and has given it to Jacob His servant, and to Israel His beloved. Afterward He was seen upon earth, and spoke with men» ( Bar. 3:35–37 ). In other words God Himself would come to earth and live among men! |
| About Pages Проекты «Правмира» Raising Orthodox Children to Orthodox Adulthood The Daily Website on How to be an Orthodox Christian Today Twitter Telegram Parler RSS Donate Navigation Message of His Beatitude, Metropolitan Tikhon, for Sanctity of Life Sunday 2020 Source: OCA Pravmir.com team 19 January 2020 January 19, 2020 To the honorable Clergy, venerable Monastics, and pious Faithful of the Orthodox Church in America, From ancient times, all who have believed in the One God have believed that He takes special care in the formation of each human being. As God Himself expressed to Jeremiah: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you” (Jeremiah 1:5). In the moment of conception in the mother’s womb, a human being comes into existence. Yet even before being conceived and formed, this human being is known by God. God exists outside of time, and already knows and loves each one of us personally, knowing what we will do and who we will become both in this life and in eternity. As Solomon proclaims, “God did not make death, and he does not delight in the death of the living. For he created all things that they might exist ” (Wisdom of Solomon 1.13-14). God wants us to be alive, and certainly, this is why we must speak against abortion and its legalization in our country: it is in opposition to God’s loving plan to bring a human being into the world to live. For just as He consecrated Jeremiah a prophet so that he might speak God’s word, God brings each human being into the world with a unique purpose of speaking a unique word to the world, to reveal something to the world that will bring it closer to Him. Our lives are intended to be a period of sanctification, each one of us helping in the salvation and sanctification of our neighbor, and in this way being sanctified ourselves. Whatever occupations we have, together with the universal human callings to be loving children, siblings, parents or friends, can thus be holy and life-giving. For the purpose of all of our lives’ activities is ultimately to become sanctified images of God by imitating God in caring for others. Because of this, we must give every human being the opportunity to live their life and work toward sanctification, just as we have been given that opportunity. |
| It is the task of the clergy to pontificate and preach on the individual moral issues. It is the task of the laity to strive with the complex political issues and decide which stand they should take and how they will vote. Clergy of course also decide and vote. But they do so privately in the voting booth, and should not make their private political conclusions a part of their public preaching. Christians as individuals should be intimately involved in politics and political discussions. The Church as Church should stay clear. I admit that it is all very difficult, and that it is tempting for us clergy to step into the pulpit and thunder, “No person of integrity could ever vote for the Happy Rhinoceros Party with its immoral theft of land from the already oppressed indigenous people.” Or perhaps, “Every person of integrity will vote for the Happy Rhinoceros Party and give a helping hand to the downtrodden poor who desperately need a place to stay and get out of the rain.” Especially during these divided days when feelings (and tempers) are running high, it is easy for us clergy to combine the timeless Gospel with the challenges of the current crisis, and think that we are preaching the Gospel when we are in fact simply picking a side in a complex debate. It is easy for us to believe that part of our task as clergy is to call our country back to God, as if each of us were the prophet Jeremiah. Let us remember that: 1. We are not Jeremiah, and that 2. Jeremiah functioned in a nation which was under solemn covenant with God in a way that no other nation was or is. It is sadly true that Canada, America, and the West generally are immorally departing from God and are going down the tubes. But it is not the Church’s job to prevent that. It is the Church’s job to say to the world, “The Kingdom of heaven is at hand; repent and believe the Gospel”. The job of trying to impede the West’s slide into secularism belongs to individual Christians, not to the Church as Church. This does not mean that the Church as Church should not address moral issues in society. The Church may still declare to the State that abortion is murderous, that marriage is only between a man and a woman, and that racial discrimination is sinful and wrong. These issues are clear, simple, and unambiguous, unlike many political issues. These are moral issues, not political ones, even though they have political ramifications, and the Church should not shrink from speaking to society about them. A moral issue is not the same as a political one. |
| This vision speaks of the final fates of the world, of the termination of the existence of the earthly kingdoms, of the last judgment of the nations, gathered before the throne of the Ancient of Days, i.e. God the Father. and of the beginning of the glorious time for the Kingdom of the Messiah. The Messiah here is called “Son of man,” which points to His human nature. As we know from the Gospels, the Lord Jesus Christ often called Himself the Son of man, with this name reminding the Jews of the prophecy of Daniel (Mat. 8:20, 9:6, 12:40, 24:30 and so on). The prophecies of the other two great prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel are found in the appendix, where the prophecies about the Kingdom of the Messiah are listed. To conclude this chapter we present only the prophecy of Baruch, pupil of Jeremiah, in which he writes of the coming of God to earth: “This is our God, and there shall none other be of in comparison him. He hath found out all the way of knowledge, and hath given it unto Jacob his servant, and to Israel his beloved. Afterward did he shew himself upon earth, and conversed with men” ( Bar. 3:36–38 ). Unfortunately, in the times of the Babylonian captivity the Hebrew original of the prophet Baruch was lost, which is why the Greek translation of his book was placed on the list of non-canonical books. For this reason, the prophecy of Baruch does not receive the prestige it deserves among Biblical experts of other faiths. Prophesies of the “Lesser” Prophets B esides the books of the “great” Prophets to which belong the books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel, there are among the Old Testament Holy Books some other 12 books, i.e. of the lesser Prophets. They are called “lesser” due to the fact that their books are significantly smaller in proportion and consisting of only several chapters. Some “lesser” prophets who wrote about the Messiah were Osee, Joel, Amos and Micheas, – contemporaries of the prophets Isaiah who lived some 700 years B.C., as well as the prophets Aggeus, Zacharias and Malachias who lived following the Babylonian captivity during the 6 th and 5 th century B.C. During the time of the last three prophets there was a second Temple of the Old Testament being built in Jerusalem on the site of the demolished Temple of Solomon. The Old Testament Scripture ends with the book of Malachias. |
| The final clause of this paragraph is also deceptively formed: Jeremiah 25:11 the exile but with the servitude of ‘these nations’ under Babylon, and 29:10 Babylon and to no one else! Actually, RF admits as much in the very first clause after the quotations, saying, ‘... but the text does not say explicitly that it refers to an exile for the Jewish nation’! Of course it doesn’t, for that simply would not have been true. Aside from the poor syntax of parts of these paragraphs this statement is a gem by which the author actually casts aspersions on his own argumentation right from the outset! His grammatical analysis ‘of (not ‘in’) Jeremiah 25:11 clause in which the subject is ‘this whole country’, ‘will become’ is the verbal, and ‘a desolate wasteland’ is the subjective complement. Then, of course, ‘these nations’ is the subject of the latter clause, and ‘will serve’ is the verbal, while ‘Babylon’ is what is usually called the direct object (the term ‘patient’ used by the author belongs to the so called ‘Case Grammar’ and is not commonly used in connection with Hebrew which lost its case endings in antiquity. However, his use of it makes no difference whatsoever for the analysis of this Hebrew text). Moreover, he states quite correctly that according to the grammatical analysis ‘“Babylon»... is the nation that should experience the period of 70 years’, after which he blows it by falsely claiming that, ‘Nevertheless, the writers of Daniel and 2Chronicles understood the words of Jeremiah to imply a 70year exile for the: Jewish nation’! Now, it may be said with absolute certainty that they could not have understood Jeremiah’s words to imply anything like that, simply because the prophet never stated that with even a single word anywhere and so, if anyone ‘understood’ them in that way it would be either a gross error or, even worse, a deliberate misrepresentation of the inspired message. Barring extreme sloppiness on the part of the writer, the latter may well be the case! |
| 11 og hele dette land skal blive til en Ørk, og disse Folkeslag skal trælle for Babels Konge i halvfjerdsinstyve Aar. 12 Men naar der er forløbet halvfjerdsinstyve Aar, straffer jeg Babels Konge og dette Folk, og gør det til evige Ørkener. (Cf. the English rendering below): 11 and all this land shall become a desert, and these nations must slave for the king of Babylon for seventy years. 12 But when seventy years have run their course, I will punish the king of Babel and this people, and make it into everlasting deserts. Now, these two eminent Hebraists are most certainly not the only ones who have rendered Jeremiah’s words in this way; facts are, I haven’t been able to find a single translation or commentary opting for the solution suggested by RF, i.e., to regard the ‘et prefixed to melekh (babhel ) in verse 11 as the preposition meaning with’, and I take it for granted that RF has failed in this regard too, or else he would no doubt have told us about it. Consequently, we shall disregard RF’s very unorthodox idea as a mere figment of his imagination and stick to the natural and straightforward sense of the Hebrew text of Jeremiah, exactly as the real experts in Biblical Hebrew have rendered it. What about the LXX and the Old Ethiopic? As for the LXX, preferred by RF, we agree with the view expressed in the Watchtower publication Insight on the Scriptures, vol. II, page 32 (in the article about the Book of Jeremiah): The majority of scholars agree that the Greek translation of this book is defective, but that does not lessen the reliability of the Hebrew text. As it is, the LXX lacks about one seventh of the Hebrew text and the translators have taken many liberties with it, omitting words and phrases here and there, adding others not found in the Hebrew, and it is generally unreliable. After all, it is a secondhand text, a translation into an IndoEuropean language, made by people who may not have been too well acquainted with Classical Hebrew, and who admittedly made many mistakes. Regarding the Old Ethiopic, which RF also favours, it is an even weaker witness; no one knows when it was made but apparently it took centuries to complete, and the oldest manuscripts are rather late, no earlier than the 13th century CE. Moreover, it is to a great degree influenced by the LXX, and it cannot really be regarded as an independent witness. After all, Jeremiah was an inspired prophet and his original prophecies taken down in Hebrew and preserved in that language to this very day are the best evidence we have about these matters. The Hebrew text is also supported by the ancient Semitic translations, the Aramaic Targum Jonathan and the Syriac Peshitta, which are much closer to the original Hebrew than the Greek LXX. |
| Indeed, this higher form of prose by such eminent speakers as the great prophets, e.g. Jeremiah, whose book is written for a large part (more than half) in poetic form (cf. NIV), and who also penned the allpoetic book of Lamentations, often used a structure resembling parallelism, but we must remember that simple syntactical parallelistic structures do not on that count alone qualify as true parallelisms; for that the sense, the meaning must be parallelistic, and the form follow the rules of this special style of Semitic poetry (for this, see R.K. Harrison, Introduction to the Old Testament, London 1970, Part Twelve, I. Hebrew Poetry; pages 965975, and similar works). Apparently, Ross E. Winkle was well aware of this when he wrote the above, for he did not claim that he was dealing with genuine poetic parallelisms, but designated the form of his ‘parallel clauses’ a ‘quasipoetic style’, and in this he was correct because that was all that they were. It seems as though RF overlooked this and so made another one of his typical mistakes; this he also does when he intimates that Winkle’s argument ‘puts the text upside down’, because he himself is the one who does that, misinterpreting the clear messages of Jeremiah, Daniel and the Chronicler. Moreover, it seems that he also borrowed something else from Winkle who says in the last few lines on page 211, that ‘modern translations of vs. 2 [ Dan. 9:2 the seventy years is concerned.’ This is, of course, correct, as Winkle’s examples (and several others) prove, but it is one thing to point out that some of the ‘modern’ translations are ‘ambiguous’, disturbing the sense of the text by their poor rendering, and then to claim that the inspired words of Jehovah uttered by the prophet Jeremiah to God’s chosen people are ambiguous and need interpretation by somebody living many years later, who had seen their fulfilment. RF adds to his errors when he says that Winkle takes for granted that both the Bible and the traditional New Babylonian chronology are true’, not on the basis of linguistic knowledge, but ‘by appealing ... to more elusive reasons’, because this is just the other way around the only elusive reasons presented in this connection are ‘Made by RF’! |
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