Matthew Chapter 23

XXIII 1 Then Yahshua spoke to the crowds and to His students 2 saying: “The scribes and the Pharisees sit upon the seat of Moses. 3 Therefore all things whatever they should tell you, you do and you keep. But according to their deeds you do not do. For they say and do not do.

The seat of Moses is the seat of authority in Judaea. Many Christians, being rebellious, do not like this, but Yahshua Christ was indeed telling His students to submit to the worldly authority. One lesson which is fully evident throughout the Old Testament is that God uses worldly authority to punish a sinful people. And when that happens, even the good people among them suffer on account of it. The children of Israel did evil before Yahweh on many occasions, and He gave them over to both wicked rulers and other nations. 

Judges 10:7-8: 7 And the anger of the LORD was hot against Israel, and he sold them into the hands of the Philistines, and into the hands of the children of Ammon. 8 And that year they vexed and oppressed the children of Israel: eighteen years, all the children of Israel that were on the other side Jordan in the land of the Amorites, which is in Gilead.

Deuteronomy 28:28-34, and the consequences, or curses, that result from disobedience to God warn us of these things: 28 The LORD shall smite thee with madness, and blindness, and astonishment of heart: 29 And thou shalt grope at noonday, as the blind gropeth in darkness, and thou shalt not prosper in thy ways: and thou shalt be only oppressed and spoiled evermore, and no man shall save thee. 30 Thou shalt betroth a wife, and another man shall lie with her: thou shalt build an house, and thou shalt not dwell therein: thou shalt plant a vineyard, and shalt not gather the grapes thereof. 31 Thine ox shall be slain before thine eyes, and thou shalt not eat thereof: thine ass shall be violently taken away from before thy face, and shall not be restored to thee: thy sheep shall be given unto thine enemies, and thou shalt have none to rescue them. 32 Thy sons and thy daughters shall be given unto another people, and thine eyes shall look, and fail with longing for them all the day long: and there shall be no might in thine hand. 33 The fruit of thy land, and all thy labours, shall a nation which thou knowest not eat up; and thou shalt be only oppressed and crushed always: 34 So that thou shalt be mad for the sight of thine eyes which thou shalt see.

Whether it happens from without or within makes no difference. In the times of the Judges the Israelites were ruled over by outside nations as a punishment from God. Judaea was ruled over by Rome, but that is not what Christ refers to here. Even before Rome, in the centuries before Christ, Judaea was infiltrated and its government was usurped by the Canaanite Edomites. Edomite rule under the Herods greatly oppressed the people. Rome may have actually helped to preserve the country. Romans chapter 13 speaks of earthly authority, and Peter in his epistle states that same thing, at 1 Peter 2:13-17: “13 You must be obedient to every authority created by mankind on account of the Prince, whether to kings as if being superior, 14 or to governors as if being sent by Him for the punishment of evil-doers but for the praise of those doing good. 15 Because thusly is the will of Yahweh: doing good to muzzle the ignorance of foolish men, 16 as free men yet not as if having freedom for a cover for evil, but as servants of Yahweh. 17 You must honor all, love the brotherhood, fear Yahweh, honor the King.” Remember that it is the children of Israel who demanded an earthly king, when they had a theocracy. Yahweh promised them seven times of punishment for their disobedience, which, it can be argued, is a prophetic 2,520 years. While there are also other prophecies in play, and while the times of punishment are evidently not uniform for all of the tribes of Israel, the first advent of the Christ came only around 6 centuries into that promised period of punishment. Therefore the advice of the apostles is certainly sound – there is no escape from the judgements and the Word of God for the children of Israel.

To repeat part of what Christ said here: “The scribes and the Pharisees sit upon the seat of Moses. Therefore all things whatever they should tell you, you do and you keep.” We do see that the apostles drew one line, and that is where their obedience to God was interfered with by the scribes and the Pharisees. Christ had said (at Matthew 22:21) “Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's.” When commanded by the Pharisees not to spread the Gospel which Christ had commanded them to spread, the apostles responded: “We ought to obey God rather than men” (Acts chapter 5). So we see that the apostles would obey the worldly authorities only to the point up to where it infringed upon their ability to be obedient to God. The jews, looking to persecute Christians everywhere, constantly agitated Rome – the worldly authority – against Christians. For this reason Paul wrote to Timothy (2 Timothy 2:12) that “If we suffer, we shall also reign with him: if we deny him, he also will deny us ”.

4 And they bind burdens heavy and hard to bear and lay them upon the shoulders of men, but they with their finger do not wish to move them. 

Today our modern governments do likewise. Because the Edomite jew again controls the world today, we once again see a period of bureaucratic control and endless regulation created purposely for the oppression of men. What we see in government today is modern Pharisaism, endless and burdensome regulations. And the government lifts not one finger in order to assist men attempting to comply with those regulations. Rather, they have made tens of thousands of ways for the lawyers and accountants – their fellow scribes – to steal the wealth of the nations, like parasites on a cadaver. In some industries, they have made such a web of endless regulation, that they can make a case for illegal activity against any one at any time, and defraud that individual of his livelihood, because there are so many extant regulations that it is impossible for someone to keep track of them all and comply with them all.

5 And all their deeds they do for which to be observed by men, for they broaden their phylacteries and make great their fringes, 

If the rulers and leaders and wealthy men of this world do anything good, it is only for which to be seen by men, so that they can appear to be good, while in the eyes of God they are evil. So when they make a gift or a pledge, it is often accompanied with a banquet or a press release, or a large plaque. This is so that they can magnify themselves, to make themselves seem to be great. Bill Gates has given hundreds of millions of dollars away for vaccine distribution in third-world countries, and then in a separate venue he announced in a seminar that world population would be reduced by 15% or so, through the use of vaccines! And they get away with such criminal activity in the name of good, right in front of our faces. Thus Yahweh said in Deuteronomy, that His people would be oppressed “So that thou shalt be mad for the sight of thine eyes which thou shalt see. ”

The fringes of garments were to be decorated according to the law in this manner which we see commanded at Numbers 15:38: “Speak unto the children of Israel, and bid them that they make them fringes in the borders of their garments throughout their generations, and that they put upon the fringe of the borders a ribband of blue.” Evidently the Pharisees were persuaded that a wider fringe made a man appear to be more pious.

Phylacteries were strips of parchment with pieces of the law written upon them, used as amulets. The famous silver scrolls of archaeology are a probable example. The jews of today take Exodus 13:9 and Deuteronomy 6:8 literally, to a ridiculous degree.

Deuteronomy 6:6-9: 6 And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: 7 And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. 8 And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. 9 And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates.

Exodus 13:9 And it shall be for a sign unto thee upon thine hand, and for a memorial between thine eyes, that the LORD'S law may be in thy mouth: for with a strong hand hath the LORD brought thee out of Egypt.

The jews actually take small portions of the law and place them in little boxes which are then tied to their foreheads! All of this is an attempt to display righteousness outwardly, while in reality there is no righteousness in them. Pretending to be pious, they make caricatures of themselves and in effect they actually mock God rather than honoring Him! We can imagine that the first century Pharisees were seen by Christ in much the same way. Outward signs of piety should be useless to a true Christian. Real piety should be exhibited in love and good deeds and services performed for the benefit of our brethren.

6 and they love the best seats at the dinners and the first benches in the assembly halls 7 and the greetings in the markets and to be called by men ‘Rabbi’!

Job 32:20-22:  “20 I will speak, that I may be refreshed: I will open my lips and answer. 21 Let me not, I pray you, accept any man's person, neither let me give flattering titles unto man. 22 For I know not to give flattering titles; in so doing my maker would soon take me away.”

The Pharisees loved the honor of men. Real Christians should not care about the honor of men. Real Christians should eschew the bestowing of titles and the pretense of authority, recognizing that all men are fallible and prone to err. While we are conditioned by the world and perceive things differently today than we actually should, in reality the bestowing of a title upon a man is a stark form of flattery.

“8 But you should not be called ‘Rabbi’, for One is your Teacher, and you are all brothers.

While we all have different gifts, and we all shall have different rewards in accordance with our labors, and while some of us are given much greater worldly tasks to perform than others, this does not make us better than our lesser brethren: for we are all equal in the eyes of God, each of us being one of His children, if indeed we are His children – true children of Israel and of Adam. Therefore, while we may learn from our brother, or while we may receive assistance or even sustenance from our brother, the ability of our brother to do that is also a gift to him from Yahweh, and he uses that gift for the purpose of Yahweh.

1 Corinthians 12:4-30: 4 Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit; 5 and there are diversities of services, and the same Prince; 6 and there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God who operates all things in all. 7 And to each is given manifestation of the Spirit towards that which is advantageous. 8 While to one through the Spirit a word of wisdom is given, then to another a word of knowledge, down through the same Spirit; 9 and to another faith, in the same Spirit, and to another gifts of the means of healing, in the same Spirit; 10 and to another operations of power, and to another interpretation of prophecy, and to another dissolution of spirits, to another sorts of languages, and to another interpretation of languages. 11 But all these things one and the same Spirit operates, dividing personally to each just as He wills.12 For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, being many, are one body, so also the Anointed. 13 For also in one Spirit all we into one body have been immersed, whether Judaeans or Greeks, whether bondmen or freemen, and all one Spirit have been watered. 14 For also the body is not one member, but many. 15 If perhaps the foot may say, ‘Because I am not a hand, I am not of the body’, because of this is it not of the body? 16 And if perhaps the ear may say, ‘Because I am not an eye, I am not of the body’, because of this is it not of the body? 17 If the whole body were an eye, where is the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where is the sense of smell? 18 But now Yahweh places the members, each one of them in the body, just as He wishes. [Under the Old Covenant, it is evident, the appointment of certain offices was given to certain tribes, again for our learning experience.] 19 But if all would be one member, where is the body? 20 And now indeed many are members, yet are one body. 21 And the eye is not able to say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you’; or again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you’ [if we disregard our brethren we do so at our own peril], 22 But still much more, those members of the body imagined to be too weak are necessary; 23 And those of the body which we imagine to be less valuable, upon these we confer more abundant dignity; and those unseemly of us have more abundant elegance. 24 But the elegant of us have no need. Rather Yahweh has tempered the body together, giving more abundant esteem to that which is wanting, 25 in order that there would not be division in the body, but the members would have the same concern for one another. 26 And if one member is affected, all the members are affected together; or if one member is honored, all the members rejoice together. 27 So then, you are an anointed body, and members by destiny. 28 And while Yahweh places these in the assembly: firstly ambassadors, secondly interpreters of prophecy, thirdly teachers, after that those with abilities, then gifts of the means of healing, supports, guides, sorts of languages. 29 Are all ambassadors? Are all interpreters of prophecy? Are all teachers? Are all able? 30 Do all have gifts of the means of healing? Do all speak in languages? Do all interpret? 31 Now you admire the better gifts, and yet I show to you a way just as excellent.

The “way just as excellent” which Paul describes, is the love which we should have for one another as Paul goes on to explain in chapter 13 of his epistle. The point here is that while some of us have greater gifts, we are all members of the same body, and the hand or eye are nothing without the rest of the body. Therefore we should esteem all of our kinsmen equally, whereby the bestowing of titles and the seeking of the recognition of men serves to separate men from the body, and distinguish them above their brethren. This we should never do – for that is what the Pharisees and the rulers of this world love to do. We should not even be called teacher or pastor, for we all have one teacher and pastor, and that is Christ.

[This is why I personally eschew titles, but I do not eschew my brethren when they use titles, because I understand that they do not have this same understanding which I profess to have. In fact, I am certain that those who would flatter me with titles are attempting to seek my gratitude and my favor – perhaps even in an attempt to manipulate me - and therefore they are doing me a disservice, rather than an honor, whether they do it consciously or not.]

9 And you shall not call your father upon the earth, for One is your Father, the heavenly. 

We have earthly fathers, those who sired us, and Christ recognized His Own earthly father. But in the time of Christ, and thereafter, it has been fitting for a man to be called “father” by others who patronized him. In fact, we get the very word, patronize, from the Latin word for father! In 2 BC Caesar Augustus was designated "Father of his Country" (Pater Patriae), and this year was the first year in the life of Christ. It is quite ironic, the Roman Empire being prophesied in the books of the Bible long before it rose to power, that the real father of Rome – God Himself - was born on earth in the lowliest of conditions at that very time when Caesar Augustus, a mere man, was being granted that magnificent title! Use of the word father as a title for a benefactor was a common practice in Rome.

The apostles used the word, father, for those who have sired us both biologically and in the Gospel. But they never intended for the term to become a title, which would be wholly contrary to what Christ states here. Therefore it is incredible, how quickly men ignored this admonition, and began granting the word as a title to other men! For instance, Eusebius Pamphilius in his Ecclesiastical History quotes the bishop Dionysius of Alexandria, who used the title as a title of respect for Heraclas, his predecessor in that office, who lived in the third century. The Romans did not use the title officially for their bishop until the 6^th century, however it is clear from the words of Christ that we should not use the title at all. We have one father, Yahweh, and no man deserves to be elevated above his brother. Their are plenty of other ways to show respect for our brethren, rather than elevating them.

10 Neither should you be called guides, because One is you[r] Guide, the Christ. 11 And he who is greater among you shall be your servant. 12 But whoever should exalt himself shall be humbled and whoever should humble himself shall be exalted.

Whether in this life, or in the Kingdom of Heaven, those who seek to exalt themselves shall indeed be humbled. The example of the Christ is that if we would humble ourselves and instead seek to serve our brethren, then we shall have a greater reward in the Kingdom of heaven. Servants do not typically wear crowns, magnificent robes, or titles of grandeur. And if we should not be called father, teacher, or guide, who is our Pastor?

“13 And woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! Because you shut up the kingdom of the heavens before men: for you do not enter in, nor do you allow those entering in to enter!

Christ means that they bar men from the Kingdom of heaven here on earth, where the kingdom of heaven should indeed be. The Pharisees, seeking control for themselves, prohibit those conditions which would lead to the natural occurrence of God's kingdom on earth, which happens when good men are allowed to rule themselves in peace. We saw glimpses of what life should be like for Christians living in conformance to the will of God in the so-called “Dark Ages”, and again in the beginnings of the founding of these United States.

Here is what Yahweh said of the Canaanites, in Deuteronomy 7:4, which is exactly what we also see here in Matthew, and again in our world today: “For they will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods: so will the anger of the LORD be kindled against you, and destroy thee suddenly.” At Revelation 3:7 Yahshua speaks of Himself where He says “he that is holy, he that is true, he that hath the key of David, he that openeth, and no man shutteth; and shutteth, and no man openeth.” While the enemies of God try in earnest, in the end they truly won't be able to keep us out of the Kingdom of Heaven.

While Matthew 23:14 is a verse favored by many, and I have referred to it myself, it does not exist in any of the most ancient manuscripts, except the 5^th century Codex Washingtonensis. It is wanting in the Codices Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, Bezae, and in the early extant copies of the Latin Vulgate, the Syriac and the Coptic manuscripts. I could guess from later manuscripts that this verse was in the Alexandrian manuscripts, but both the Codices Alexandrinus and Ephraemi Syri are wanting all or most of Matthew 23, so it cannot be told. For these reasons, the verse was omitted from the Christogenea New Testament. Here it is from the King James Version: “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation.” It certainly fits the behaviour of the scribes and Pharisees!

15 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! Because you go about the sea and the desert to make one convert, and when it happens you make him a son of Gehenna twice as much as yourselves!

Gehenna is an Anglicized form of the Greek word which is actually the Hellenization of a phrase which in Hebrew originally meant “land of Hinnom”. We get a picture of what Christ refers to from Jeremiah 7:31-32: “31 And they have built the high places of Tophet, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire; which I commanded them not, neither came it into my heart. 32 Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that it shall no more be called Tophet, nor the valley of the son of Hinnom, but the valley of slaughter: for they shall bury in Tophet, till there be no place.” The Pharisees, actually being adversarial to God, make their followers twice the children of Hell as they are themselves.

“16 Woe to you, blind guides who say ‘He who should swear by the temple, it is nothing. But he who should swear by the gold of the temple, he is obligated.’ 17 Foolish and blind men! For what is greater, the gold or the temple which sanctifies the gold? 18 And ‘He who should swear by the altar, it is nothing, but he who should swear by the gift upon it, he is obligated.’

Exodus 29:37:  “Seven days thou shalt make an atonement for the altar, and sanctify it; and it shall be an altar most holy: whatsoever toucheth the altar shall be holy.” Yet it is clear that the altar is esteemed to be greater than the gift which is offered upon it.

19 Foolish and blind men! For what is greater, the gift or the altar which sanctifies the gift? 20 Therefore he who has sworn by the altar swears by it and by all things which are upon it, 21 and he who has sworn by the temple swears by it and by Him dwelling in it, 22 and he who has sworn by heaven swears by the throne of Yahweh and by Him sitting upon it!

“23 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! Because you give a tenth of the mint and anise and cumin, and neglect the weightier matters of the law: judgment and mercy and faith. Yet it is necessary to do these things, and not neglecting those others.

It is necessary to uphold the tithe, since before the Passion of Christ we are still under the Levitical law, but it is also necessary to uphold the judgement, mercy and faith commanded by the law. The Pharisees only upheld those things which were visible to men, the rituals and the ceremony and the tithes and the gifts, and they neglected righteous judgement and mercy and faith. Those things which men could see were important to them, since by that appearance of piety and the pretence of righteousness were they able to hold their sway over the people. Yet upholding only a portion of the law, while claiming to be men of God and teachers of the law, they were indeed hypocrites and they broke the law regularly, disdaining most of it in favor of their own traditions and their covert criminal activities.

24 Blind guides, straining out the gnat, but swallowing the camel! 

They rule over men with the letter of the law, and neglect love and mercy and the spirit of the law. They sought to appear pious, yet had no care for anything but their own well-being.

25 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! Because you cleanse the outside of the cup and the dish, but the insides are filled from rapine and incontinence! 26 Blind Pharisees, cleanse first the insides of the cup and the dish, in order that the outsides of them shall be clean!

They fill their cups and their bowls with food bought from the wages of unrighteousness: lies and extortion and the profits on money-lending and bribes and whatever else they gained through greed and corruption.

“27 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! Because you are like whitewashed tombs, which indeed appear beautiful outside, but inside are full of the bones of corpses and all uncleanness! 28 Thusly indeed you also outside appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness!

They do not have the spirit of God in them, nor do they have the law of God written in their hearts. They never had those things, because they are not the people of God in the first place. Being white-washed tombs full of dead men's bones, they are just what Jude describes in his epistle at verse 12: “clouds they are without water, carried about of winds; trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots”. Many Scriptures converge here, the withered fig tree, which as Christ predicts in chapter 24 will again shoot forth its branches at the time if the harvest, and the bad trees which cannot bear good fruit, described by John the Baptist as recorded in both Matthew chapter 3 and Luke chapter 3. The parable of the fig tree in Luke chapter 13, which bore no fruit for three years and which was then torn up in the fourth, describes the ministry of Christ in Judaea. All of these scriptures, and many more like them, perfectly describe world jewry. By this we know, that any Judaean who was not a Christian by the time of the destruction of Jerusalem, would never bear fruit worthy of God under any circumstances. They are all to be rejected by Christians, without exception.

“29 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! Because you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous, 30 and you say ‘If we were in the days of our fathers, we would not have been their partners in the blood of the prophets! 31 Thusly you bear witness against yourselves, that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets, 32 and you shall fulfill the measure of your fathers! 33 Serpents! Race [γεννήματα] of vipers! How could you escape from the judgment of Gehenna?

We are not told how the prophets died explicitly anywhere in the Scriptures which are considered to be canonical. There are apocryphal traditions as to the deaths of some of them, such as the one that describes Isaiah being sawed in half. Where Paul describes many of the torments which fell upon the faithful of God's people he says at Hebrews 11:37 that “they were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented” even he makes no specific references. But where we do see the priests of Yahweh slain in the Old Testament, we see that it was commanded by Jezebel, a woman who may well have actually been a Canaanite, or by Doeg the Edomite, who slew the priests of Yahweh for Saul when Saul could find no Israelite who would perform the wicked task. While there are apparently exceptions to this, with this in mind, we shall read the next verses before commenting further.

“34 For this reason, behold! I send to you prophets and wise men and scribes. Some of them you shall kill and crucify, and some of them you shall flog in your assembly halls and persecute from city to city! 35 Thusly should come upon you all the righteous blood poured out upon the earth, from the blood of the righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharios who had been murdered between the temple and the altar. 36 Truly I say to you, all these things shall come upon this race!

[The words “son of Barachios” which are found describing Zacharios in the King James Version are wanting in the Codex Sinaiticus here, and are also wanting in Luke's account of this episode, at Luke 11:51. For that and for historical reasons, I therefore esteem them to be an interpolation, and have omitted them from my translation. After the writers of the apocryphal Protevangelion of James, I am also persuaded that the Zacharios meant here may well be the father of John the Baptist, who was also a temple priest and who very well fits the description given here. There was another Zechariah, who was a priest but who was not the Zechariah of the book of prophecy known by that name, who was slain in the Scripture, and that is Zechariah the son of Jehoiada, for which see 2 Chronicles 24:20.]

Christ called these scribes and Pharisees a race of vipers. This word for race is γεννήματα, and it is the same term for them which John the Baptist used as it is recorded in Matthew chapter 3. The word γεννήματα refers not only to race, but to offspring. Properly γέννημα is that which is produced or born. So Yahshua is calling the parents of these scribes and Pharisees vipers, and not merely these men themselves, and the use of the word race is wholly appropriate. It must therefore be imagined, that Yahshua is either engaging in unfair name-calling, which is slander, or He is stating a simple truth. The only race which could be held responsible for the death of Abel are the descendants of Cain. The descendants of Seth can by no means be held responsible for the death of Abel! It can be proven from Scripture that the Edomites and Canaanites – and certainly not the Israelites – indeed descended in part from Cain. In order for Yahshua's statement to be free from slander, these scribes and Pharisees had to be descended from Cain, the son of the Genesis chapter 3 serpent! Anyone who denies two-seedline doctrines plainly attempts to make Yahshua Christ a liar.

It is wholly evident, from Jeremiah chapters 2 and 24, from Ezekiel chapter 16, and elsewhere, that the old Jerusalem was just as corrupt, and for the same reasons, as the Jerusalem at the time if Christ:

Jeremiah 2:21-22 “21 Yet I had planted thee a noble vine, wholly a right seed: how then art thou turned into the degenerate plant of a strange vine unto me? 22 For though thou wash thee with nitre, and take thee much soap, yet thine iniquity is marked before me, saith the Lord GOD.”

Jeremiah 24:1 The LORD shewed me, and, behold, two baskets of figs were set before the temple of the LORD, after that Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon had carried away captive Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim king of Judah, and the princes of Judah, with the carpenters and smiths, from Jerusalem, and had brought them to Babylon. 2 One basket had very good figs, even like the figs that are first ripe: and the other basket had very naughty figs, which could not be eaten, they were so bad. 3 Then said the LORD unto me, What seest thou, Jeremiah? And I said, Figs; the good figs, very good; and the evil, very evil, that cannot be eaten, they are so evil. 4 Again the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, 5 Thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel; Like these good figs, so will I acknowledge them that are carried away captive of Judah, whom I have sent out of this place into the land of the Chaldeans for their good. 6 For I will set mine eyes upon them for good, and I will bring them again to this land: and I will build them, and not pull them down; and I will plant them, and not pluck them up. 7 And I will give them an heart to know me, that I am the LORD: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God: for they shall return unto me with their whole heart. 8 And as the evil figs, which cannot be eaten, they are so evil; surely thus saith the LORD, So will I give Zedekiah the king of Judah, and his princes, and the residue of Jerusalem, that remain in this land, and them that dwell in the land of Egypt: 9 And I will deliver them to be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth for their hurt, to be a reproach and a proverb, a taunt and a curse, in all places whither I shall drive them. 10 And I will send the sword, the famine, and the pestilence, among them, till they be consumed from off the land that I gave unto them and to their fathers.

Ezekiel 16:1 Again the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, 2 Son of man, cause Jerusalem to know her abominations, 3 And say, Thus saith the Lord GOD unto Jerusalem; Thy birth and thy nativity is of the land of Canaan; thy father was an Amorite, and thy mother an Hittite.

In 1 Chronicles, at the end of chapter 2, we are informed that the Kenites were the scribes in Judah, so there is certainly nothing new under the sun. Revelation 18:24 states, referring to Mystery Babylon, that “And in her was found the blood of prophets, and of saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth.” It is safe, understanding the true nature of Mystery Babylon, to lay the blood of the prophets at the feet of the Talmudic and Satanic jew. [There is also a word play in the words of Christ, which works in English but not in Greek. All the prophets from Abel to Zachariah seems to stand for all of the prophets from A to Z.]

“37 Jerusalem, Jerusalem, she kills the prophets and stones those being sent to her [which is descriptive of Zechariah the son of Jehoiada]! How often have I desired to gather your children by which manner a hen gathers her chicks beneath her wings, and you desired it not!

Psalm 91:4 He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler.

38 Behold, your house is left to you desolate! 

Let us see Daniel 9:24-27, which is Daniel's 70-Weeks Prophecy concerning the advent of the Messiah: “24 Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy. 25 Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks: the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times. 26 And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined. 27 And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.”

This may well give us insight into the “abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet” which Christ mentions at Matthew 24:15, and I shall reserve further comment until next week when, Yahweh willing, I cover that chapter.

39 For I say to you, by no means may you see Me from now until you should say ‘Blessed is He coming in the name of Yahweh’!”

Here in Matthew Christ makes this statement after his triumphant ride into Jerusalem on an ass. In Luke, it is recorded that Christ had made this statement previously, in Luke Chapter 13, in a different conversation, and then the procession of Christ into Jerusalem occurs as it is recorded in Luke chapter 19 So the words which Christ uttered here were spoken by Him on more than one occasion. And that is indeed what they say, when Christ enters Jerusalem on an ass the week before His sacrifice. This quote is from Psalm 118:26, where it also speaks of the “stone which the builders refused”.