Naomi, I would like to send you a book that I think you would find extremely interesting. It is called The Separation of Church and Faith: Copernicus and the Jews. I have given away a case of them and am now on my second case. It is excellent, and from the things you are saying, I think you will agree. Is there a way for me to send it to you?
I anticipate more discussion of this in the next segment, but there is nothing in the Bible about an angel (a word which is not a translation, but a transliteration from a Greek word) marking anything on the homes of the Israelites. Instead,
Chapter 12
21 And Mosheh called for all the elders of Yisra'el and said to them,
"Go out and take lambs for yourselves according to your clans, and slay the Pesah.
22 And you shall take a bunch of hyssop, and dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and strike the lintel and the two doorposts with the blood that is in the basin, and you, none of you shall go out of the door of his house until morning.
23 And יהוה shall pass on to smite the Mitsrites, and shall see the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, and יהוה shall pass over the door and not allow the destroyer to come into your houses to smite you.“
I sometimes attend a local chabad and am continually disappointed and disheartened by how little of Torah is talked about and how much stories and Talmud and things other than Tanach is talked about. Torah is read as quickly as possible, almost to just get it done. The books we follow along in have words added that are sometimes patently false and sometimes fanciful and useless or misleading.
Even in b’reishit/genesis, God separated out Abraham and his descendants through Isaac and Jacob. The distinction is mentioned throughout B’reishit/Genesis and Shemoth/Exodus.
Shemoth/Exodus 1:8-11. 8 Then a new sovereign arose over Mitsrayim, who did not know Yoseph, 9 and he said to his people, "See, the people of the children of Yisra'el are more and stronger than we, 10 come, let us act wisely towards them, lest they increase, and it shall be when fighting befalls us, that they shall join our enemies and fight against us, and shall go up out of the land."
11 So they set slave-masters over them to afflict them with their burdens, and they built for Pharaoh supply cities, Pithom and Raamses.
12 But the more they afflicted them, the more they increased and grew, and they were in dread of the children of Yisrael.
13 And the Mitsrites made the children of Yisra' el serve with harshness,
14 and they made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in mortar, and in brick, and in all kinds of work in the field, all their work which they made them do was with harshness.
This was done to the Israelites, not the Egyptians. The Egyptians recognized the Israelites were not part of them.
end of chapter 1…. It was only the Hebrew children who were killed. There was a distinction. It was not all one big happy group of people.
The initial plagues were inclusive, affecting both the Egyptians and the Hebrews/Israelites, but beginning with the fourth plague in Shemoth/Exodus 8, God made a distinction between the two peoples when He told Moshe to say this to Pharaoh:
21 "Or else, if you do not let My people go, see, I am sending swarms of flies on you and your servants, and on your people and into your houses. And the houses of the Mitsrites shall be filled with swarms of flies, and also the ground on which they stand.
22 "And in that day I shall separate the land of Goshen, in which My people dwell, that no swarms of flies shall be there, so that you know that I am יהוה in the midst of the land. 23 And I shall put a ransom between My people and your people. Tomorrow this sign shall be.”
In chapter 9, “Only in the land of Goshen, where the children of Yisrael were, there was no hail.” God “discriminated” (made a distinction) between the two people groups.
God did give the Egyptians warnings and options, as we see earlier in chapter 9:
19 “And now send, bring your livestock to safety, and all that you have in the field, for the hail shall come down on every man and every beast which is found in the field and is not brought home, and they shall die.
20 Those among the servants of Pharaoh who feared the word of יהוה made their servants and livestock flee to the houses.
21 But those who did not set their heart on the word of left their servants and livestock in the field.”
It is true that God was trying to reach the Egyptians and give them a chance to believe in Him and have a relationship with Him, but it would have to be according to His Word and His people.
29:20 The innocent suffer for the decisions and choices of corrupt leaders.
We see this everywhere now. It is all over the world. Evil, egotistical, powerful… people make decisions that they have no way to implement without their “servants” carrying out their wishes, and see how many people suffer. It’s true even here in the u s with the laws that punish doing right and promote doing wrong. And then there’s Hamas and the people who have been suffering under them for many years and who are now in a terrible situation due to Hamas’ actions. So true. So sad…. :(
Once again, I find this very interesting. I am “obsessive” about knowing the truth and having an accurate translation of God’s Word. I very much appreciate what you are doing.
Moshe’s rescue by pharaoh’s daughter was about 80 years previous to these interactions with pharaoh. Before Moshe returned to Egypt, God had told him that those who sought his life (40 years previously) were dead. This pharaoh was not the same one Moshe had known before, and there is no biblical documentation as to whether or not Moshe had known this particular pharaoh before. He could have been born after Moshe fled for his life 40 years before. It could be the grandson of the pharaoh that Moshe fled for his life 40 years previously. We just don’t know, except that all those who sought Moshe’s life were dead. I don’t see anything in scripture to indicate that Moshe and this Pharaoh had a close, affectionate, or intimate relationship.
Pharoah and Moses were raised together almost like brother's since the bullrushes story so in some respects this is also showing sibling rivalry. No wonder it was so hard for Moses and Pharoah to disagree about letting Israel go. There is also an Egyptian story that predicted two brothers in the house of Pharoah who would come into conflict and the younger (Moses) would win.
I was raised Catholic and even though we had to have a Bible to read certain passages during daily religion classes, we were never encouraged to read the whole Bible. Your reading of the original Hebrew is food for my soul. Somewhere along the way (I'm 72), I read that certain highly respected Rabbis have argued over the millennia the true meaning of the original. I probably got this idea in reading Michener or Uris or some other novelist. From your reading, it seems very clear what we are being told in the retelling of the story. Question: Why the laborious arguing over "meaning" of this or that word? Is it just man's folly and/or hubris?
I’m a recovering liberal democrat (PreCovid I saw the light!) and I’ve also come back to the Bible over the past 3-4 years… question… is there a pet eating & drinking in the background, or is that my phone or algorithm interfering with my listening?
White noise. Utterly asinine. The declivity into superstitious bronze age credulity as a means to address the empirical proposition before us is an intellectual and moral capitulation. This hokum only detracts from your otherwise excellent statistical analyses and understanding of the temporal forces aligned against world citizenry. The prism of persuasion is a pellucid lens, not a frosted opaque veneer of mysticism. Fatalistic rendering of tawdry fabulation as illumination for the road ahead is cultish mental annihilation that renders one unsound for the crucial judgements on which our 'salvation' depends.
So happy to get the Geneva bible posts, after watching your “Tucker Time” my wife asked me : Can we listen to her Geneva bible readings?
So I am a Substack supporter but is their a Naomi Library of sorts that have your Geneva Bible studies? We want to read God’s word but the1560 bible is so hard to understand
Naomi, I would like to send you a book that I think you would find extremely interesting. It is called The Separation of Church and Faith: Copernicus and the Jews. I have given away a case of them and am now on my second case. It is excellent, and from the things you are saying, I think you will agree. Is there a way for me to send it to you?
A beautiful Passover song:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lneADttxAHE
I anticipate more discussion of this in the next segment, but there is nothing in the Bible about an angel (a word which is not a translation, but a transliteration from a Greek word) marking anything on the homes of the Israelites. Instead,
Chapter 12
21 And Mosheh called for all the elders of Yisra'el and said to them,
"Go out and take lambs for yourselves according to your clans, and slay the Pesah.
22 And you shall take a bunch of hyssop, and dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and strike the lintel and the two doorposts with the blood that is in the basin, and you, none of you shall go out of the door of his house until morning.
23 And יהוה shall pass on to smite the Mitsrites, and shall see the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, and יהוה shall pass over the door and not allow the destroyer to come into your houses to smite you.“
I sometimes attend a local chabad and am continually disappointed and disheartened by how little of Torah is talked about and how much stories and Talmud and things other than Tanach is talked about. Torah is read as quickly as possible, almost to just get it done. The books we follow along in have words added that are sometimes patently false and sometimes fanciful and useless or misleading.
Even in b’reishit/genesis, God separated out Abraham and his descendants through Isaac and Jacob. The distinction is mentioned throughout B’reishit/Genesis and Shemoth/Exodus.
Shemoth/Exodus 1:8-11. 8 Then a new sovereign arose over Mitsrayim, who did not know Yoseph, 9 and he said to his people, "See, the people of the children of Yisra'el are more and stronger than we, 10 come, let us act wisely towards them, lest they increase, and it shall be when fighting befalls us, that they shall join our enemies and fight against us, and shall go up out of the land."
11 So they set slave-masters over them to afflict them with their burdens, and they built for Pharaoh supply cities, Pithom and Raamses.
12 But the more they afflicted them, the more they increased and grew, and they were in dread of the children of Yisrael.
13 And the Mitsrites made the children of Yisra' el serve with harshness,
14 and they made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in mortar, and in brick, and in all kinds of work in the field, all their work which they made them do was with harshness.
This was done to the Israelites, not the Egyptians. The Egyptians recognized the Israelites were not part of them.
end of chapter 1…. It was only the Hebrew children who were killed. There was a distinction. It was not all one big happy group of people.
The initial plagues were inclusive, affecting both the Egyptians and the Hebrews/Israelites, but beginning with the fourth plague in Shemoth/Exodus 8, God made a distinction between the two peoples when He told Moshe to say this to Pharaoh:
21 "Or else, if you do not let My people go, see, I am sending swarms of flies on you and your servants, and on your people and into your houses. And the houses of the Mitsrites shall be filled with swarms of flies, and also the ground on which they stand.
22 "And in that day I shall separate the land of Goshen, in which My people dwell, that no swarms of flies shall be there, so that you know that I am יהוה in the midst of the land. 23 And I shall put a ransom between My people and your people. Tomorrow this sign shall be.”
In chapter 9, “Only in the land of Goshen, where the children of Yisrael were, there was no hail.” God “discriminated” (made a distinction) between the two people groups.
God did give the Egyptians warnings and options, as we see earlier in chapter 9:
19 “And now send, bring your livestock to safety, and all that you have in the field, for the hail shall come down on every man and every beast which is found in the field and is not brought home, and they shall die.
20 Those among the servants of Pharaoh who feared the word of יהוה made their servants and livestock flee to the houses.
21 But those who did not set their heart on the word of left their servants and livestock in the field.”
It is true that God was trying to reach the Egyptians and give them a chance to believe in Him and have a relationship with Him, but it would have to be according to His Word and His people.
29:20 The innocent suffer for the decisions and choices of corrupt leaders.
We see this everywhere now. It is all over the world. Evil, egotistical, powerful… people make decisions that they have no way to implement without their “servants” carrying out their wishes, and see how many people suffer. It’s true even here in the u s with the laws that punish doing right and promote doing wrong. And then there’s Hamas and the people who have been suffering under them for many years and who are now in a terrible situation due to Hamas’ actions. So true. So sad…. :(
Once again, I find this very interesting. I am “obsessive” about knowing the truth and having an accurate translation of God’s Word. I very much appreciate what you are doing.
Moshe’s rescue by pharaoh’s daughter was about 80 years previous to these interactions with pharaoh. Before Moshe returned to Egypt, God had told him that those who sought his life (40 years previously) were dead. This pharaoh was not the same one Moshe had known before, and there is no biblical documentation as to whether or not Moshe had known this particular pharaoh before. He could have been born after Moshe fled for his life 40 years before. It could be the grandson of the pharaoh that Moshe fled for his life 40 years previously. We just don’t know, except that all those who sought Moshe’s life were dead. I don’t see anything in scripture to indicate that Moshe and this Pharaoh had a close, affectionate, or intimate relationship.
Pharoah and Moses were raised together almost like brother's since the bullrushes story so in some respects this is also showing sibling rivalry. No wonder it was so hard for Moses and Pharoah to disagree about letting Israel go. There is also an Egyptian story that predicted two brothers in the house of Pharoah who would come into conflict and the younger (Moses) would win.
Dr. Wolf,
I was raised Catholic and even though we had to have a Bible to read certain passages during daily religion classes, we were never encouraged to read the whole Bible. Your reading of the original Hebrew is food for my soul. Somewhere along the way (I'm 72), I read that certain highly respected Rabbis have argued over the millennia the true meaning of the original. I probably got this idea in reading Michener or Uris or some other novelist. From your reading, it seems very clear what we are being told in the retelling of the story. Question: Why the laborious arguing over "meaning" of this or that word? Is it just man's folly and/or hubris?
May not a dog lay harm on children, and may obliging with God save all of our souls.
I appreciated your interview on Tuckers podcast. It’s through my supporting truth sayer RFK Je that I’ve come around to you & Tucker again.
I’m a recovering liberal democrat (PreCovid I saw the light!) and I’ve also come back to the Bible over the past 3-4 years… question… is there a pet eating & drinking in the background, or is that my phone or algorithm interfering with my listening?
This is excellent, thank you Naomi.
https://www.revisedenglishversion.com/
This Bible version has some great notes that have been written by a Christian unitarian. I hope you will check it out also and be blessed by it.
White noise. Utterly asinine. The declivity into superstitious bronze age credulity as a means to address the empirical proposition before us is an intellectual and moral capitulation. This hokum only detracts from your otherwise excellent statistical analyses and understanding of the temporal forces aligned against world citizenry. The prism of persuasion is a pellucid lens, not a frosted opaque veneer of mysticism. Fatalistic rendering of tawdry fabulation as illumination for the road ahead is cultish mental annihilation that renders one unsound for the crucial judgements on which our 'salvation' depends.
So happy to get the Geneva bible posts, after watching your “Tucker Time” my wife asked me : Can we listen to her Geneva bible readings?
So I am a Substack supporter but is their a Naomi Library of sorts that have your Geneva Bible studies? We want to read God’s word but the1560 bible is so hard to understand
ty