This is a question I didn't even think I would have to answer. Its absurd. However, antisemitic Christian websites have abounded with such an argument utilizing the writings from Hosea 2:11, Amos 8:10 and Isaiah 1:14. Lets reason together about this. First of all, a background history lesson for viewers here. What do these three books have in common? They were both written around the same time period. When? Amos was written in 750 B.C., Hosea in around 715 B.C. and Isaiah in 700 B.C. Lets read what these three verses say. Hosea 2:11 - 11 I will stop all her celebrations: her yearly festivals, her New Moons, her Sabbath days—all her appointed feasts. Amos 8:10 states " 10 I will turn your religious feasts into mourning and all your singing into weeping. I will make all of you wear sackcloth and shave your heads. I will make that time like mourning for an only son and the end of it like a bitter day." Also Isaiah 1:14 " 14 Your New Moon festivals and your appointed feasts my soul hates. They have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them."
By now we should know the danger that occurs when cherry picking scripture. But lets take a look at all three of these verses and read them carefully. What do all three of them have in common? Two things. The first thing is that all three of these things are occurring around the same time that the oral tradition began, after the Assyrian captivity. The other thing very important. Not one of the three verses says God will do away with HIS appointed times. Instead it is Israel's appointed times that God hates because they are not HIS appointed times (interesting for Christians to think about who have decided to turn to Easter and Christmas, but just as significant for those who call Yom Teruah "The head of the year" to the Jewish side). So what is going on here? We can gain more insight by reading the verses in context.
Amos 8 says "1 This is what the Sovereign LORD showed me: a basket of ripe fruit. 2 "What do you see, Amos?" he asked. "A basket of ripe fruit," I answered. Then the LORD said to me, "The time is ripe for my people Israel; I will spare them no longer.
3 "In that day," declares the Sovereign LORD, "the songs in the temple will turn to wailing. [a] Many, many bodies—flung everywhere! Silence!"
4 Hear this, you who trample the needy and do away with the poor of the land,
5 saying, "When will the New Moon be over that we may sell grain, and the Sabbath be ended that we may market wheat?"— skimping the measure, boosting the price and cheating with dishonest scales,
6 buying the poor with silver and the needy for a pair of sandals, selling even the sweepings with the wheat.
7 The LORD has sworn by the Pride of Jacob: "I will never forget anything they have done.
8 "Will not the land tremble for this, and all who live in it mourn? The whole land will rise like the Nile; it will be stirred up and then sink like the river of Egypt.
9 "In that day," declares the Sovereign LORD, "I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight.
10 I will turn your religious feasts into mourning and all your singing into weeping. I will make all of you wear sackcloth and shave your heads. I will make that time like mourning for an only son and the end of it like a bitter day.
11 "The days are coming," declares the Sovereign LORD, "when I will send a famine through the land— not a famine of food or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the LORD.
The proper context needs to be understood here. The 2nd verse says that he will spare his people no longer. A better way to think of this translation is thus. He will not overlook their offenses is the proper way to translate this. So he's getting ready to punish Israel, not take away their feasts. This tells you what the people of Israel are doing with the gifts that God has given to them. But remember from Romans 11:28-29 that God never does away with his gifts, so these gifts will remain. But the abuse of them is what will end. His people WILL return to him, and as Yeshua infers from Matthew 23, Jerusalem will one day proclaim "blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord" and accept Yeshua. Yeshua won't come back until that day.
Hosea 2 says "1 "Say of your brothers, 'My people,' and of your sisters, 'My loved one.'
Israel Punished and Restored 2 "Rebuke your mother, rebuke her, for she is not my wife, and I am not her husband. Let her remove the adulterous look from her face and the unfaithfulness from between her breasts.
3 Otherwise I will strip her naked and make her as bare as on the day she was born; I will make her like a desert, turn her into a parched land, and slay her with thirst.
4 I will not show my love to her children, because they are the children of adultery.
5 Their mother has been unfaithful and has conceived them in disgrace. She said, 'I will go after my lovers, who give me my food and my water, my wool and my linen, my oil and my drink.'
6 Therefore I will block her path with thornbushes; I will wall her in so that she cannot find her way.
7 She will chase after her lovers but not catch them; she will look for them but not find them. Then she will say, 'I will go back to my husband as at first, for then I was better off than now.'
8 She has not acknowledged that I was the one who gave her the grain, the new wine and oil, who lavished on her the silver and gold— which they used for Baal.
9 "Therefore I will take away my grain when it ripens, and my new wine when it is ready. I will take back my wool and my linen, intended to cover her nakedness.
10 So now I will expose her lewdness before the eyes of her lovers; no one will take her out of my hands.
11 I will stop all her celebrations: her yearly festivals, her New Moons, her Sabbath days—all her appointed feasts. "
Again in context, there is no divorce from Israel. As Paul rightfully interpreted God has always kept a remnant. This is directed towards the 10 upper tribes that were scattered after the Assyrian captivity. They were also the ones who corrupted the feast days. So again, the ones committing adultery "her" festivals will stop! That doesn't mean Sukkot will stop, just the improper method of following them.
1 The vision concerning Judah and Jerusalem that Isaiah son of Amoz saw during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.
A Rebellious Nation 2 Hear, O heavens! Listen, O earth! For the LORD has spoken: "I reared children and brought them up, but they have rebelled against me.
3 The ox knows his master, the donkey his owner's manger, but Israel does not know, my people do not understand."
4 Ah, sinful nation, a people loaded with guilt, a brood of evildoers, children given to corruption! They have forsaken the LORD; they have spurned the Holy One of Israel and turned their backs on him.
5 Why should you be beaten anymore? Why do you persist in rebellion? Your whole head is injured, your whole heart afflicted.
6 From the sole of your foot to the top of your head there is no soundness— only wounds and welts and open sores, not cleansed or bandaged or soothed with oil.
7 Your country is desolate, your cities burned with fire; your fields are being stripped by foreigners right before you, laid waste as when overthrown by strangers.
8 The Daughter of Zion is left like a shelter in a vineyard, like a hut in a field of melons, like a city under siege.
9 Unless the LORD Almighty had left us some survivors, we would have become like Sodom, we would have been like Gomorrah.
10 Hear the word of the LORD, you rulers of Sodom; listen to the law of our God, you people of Gomorrah!
11 "The multitude of your sacrifices— what are they to me?" says the LORD. "I have more than enough of burnt offerings, of rams and the fat of fattened animals; I have no pleasure in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats.
12 When you come to appear before me, who has asked this of you, this trampling of my courts?
13 Stop bringing meaningless offerings! Your incense is detestable to me. New Moons, Sabbaths and convocations— I cannot bear your evil assemblies.
14 Your New Moon festivals and your appointed feasts my soul hates. They have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them.
In Isaiah 1, we still see no letter of divorce between the Lord and Israel. As a matter of fact that prophecy was never made in the Tanakh. Why? Because it will never come to fruition. Rav Shaul makes mention of the verse in Romans 11, he says he would turn away ungodliness from Israel and cause her to sin no more. God is a jealous God and he wants Israel to follow him. And God is not a breaker of covenants. He has had to renew the covenant on several occasions however. As Paul states in Romans 9 however, there will always be a remnant of Israel, so God will never totally destroy the entire nation of Israel or her inhabitants. This nation will be preserved for without this nation, and thank goodness for the Gentiles. Without her, the natural branches, holding up the wild olive branches, the Gentiles, the wild olive branches will fall, because they have no foundation to stand upon. Remember in our studies on Romans 11, the Gentiles are engrafted AMONG the people of Israel.
Its our job to stop turning to antisemitism. God is never pleased when people start talking about him divorcing his own wife. These are God's chosen people, but not favored. Gentiles have a role in the kingdom and if they fulfill this role, God will be pleased. What we do to Israel, will be done to us. So far, the nations have not treated Israel well. As a matter of fact, it has been the Gentiles for some 1700+ years who have boasted over the branches. This needs to stop. WE ALL must provoke Israel to jealousy/zealousness. Lets start this trend today!
No comments:
Post a Comment