Hebrew Gospel Pearls-Episode 18
Matthew 5:8
In Hebrew Gospel Pearls #18, Seeing God with a Pure Heart, Nehemia and Keith discuss whether Yeshua preached the Sermon on the Mount entirely for the benefit of future Christians in the West, what olive oil, frankincense and the human heart have in common, and how, according to the Tanakh, our thoughts come not only from our minds, but also from our kidneys!
Read the transcript of this episode
Nehemia (00:00):
So there’s this idea we’re hearing in second Chronicles 25, that you can fulfill perfectly the letter of the law. Follow everything that God commanded in the Torah. But if your heart’s not in the right place, you got a problem. Wow.
Narrator (00:18):
You are listening to Hebrew Gospel Pearls with Nehemia Gordon and Keith Johnson, exploring Hebrew New Testament manuscripts for yesterday, today and tomorrow.
Nehemia (00:32):
Shalom, welcome to Hebrew Gospel Pearls, episode 18. I’m so excited. We’re going to continue talking about the Sermon on the Mount, the section known as the beatitudes, the section that begins ashray, blessed is. And today we’re going to be talking about Matthew chapter five, verse eight. What you called the buffet of the biblical beatitudes.
Keith (00:53):
Look at all this stuff.
Nehemia (00:55):
I feel like, you know how you get to the buffet and first they give you the macaroni and they give you the mashed potatoes. And now we’re at the steak. That’s how I feel here. So the verse reads in Hebrew Matthew, um, [Hebrew]. Blessed are those pure in heart. (Hebrew) Elohim – for they will blank God. And I’m saying blank because it could be interpreted the way it’s written in most of the manuscripts of Hebrew Matthew in two different ways. Uh, I’ve talked in the past, those who follow my teaching about something called hollow verbs. I won’t get into that. It’s a bit complicated. But every verb, adjective and noun in the biblical Hebrew has a three-letter root and the three-letter root sometimes some of those letters will drop out and that creates what’s called hollow verbs. And because of that you don’t always know in a particular context, which root it is. And here it could be two different roots. It says, and they will ra’ah Elohim, ra’ah can mean two different things. It’s ambiguous. It can be from the root yod resh aleph – for they will fear God. Or it could be from the root resh alep heh, for they will see God. And certainly the standard English translations and the Greek translate based on the word see. For example, NRSV, blessed are the pure in heart for they will see. In the Greek [Greek] God.
Nehemia (02:20):
Um, they’re going to see God. But there’s a possibility of the Hebrew being translated for they will fear God. Now what’s interesting is there’s two manuscripts of Hebrew Matthew, uh, and Howard didn’t have access to this information. There’s a manuscript W and manuscript.. Actually manuscript B he did have access to. So I’m assuming it’s in his notes there. But I looked at the 20 surviving manuscripts and it has [Hebrew] Elohim – for they are those who fear God. And that’s unambiguous. So two of the copyists at least either had their source or they maybe made a mistake and changed they see God, or they fear God to they fear God unambiguously. Well, that’s interesting. And it’s the third manuscript J which has something like fear. Um, so there’s a possible way of reading it in the Hebrew, not in the Greek though.
Keith (03:11):
Now Nehemia, obviously this is, we’re in the public phase of things. We’re not at the hardhat section. Those of you that have not gotten a chance to go to the plus episode, you’re missing it, both at nehemiaswall and BFAinternational.com. But let me just say something. We got to give a little context of this. This is going to be a little touchy, just a little touchy. Say a little touchy. So we had some time between episode 15 (if you didn’t see episode 15, you got to go see it) and us taping this today. And so what I did is went further beyond the resources that we’ve used. We’ve used a number of resources. We’ve used Dalech. We’ve used your cousin. We’ve used Howard, et cetera. But I have my trusty English Bible. And something happened that I actually called Nehemia, folks, and I apologized to him for what I found in my Bible. So I have referred many people to this Bible because it’s a Hebrew Greek Key Study Bible, the New American Standard Bible. And I have to make a confession. I hadn’t spent much time throughout the Hebrew Gospel Pearls in this, other than to read in Matthew. To read, if Nehemia said “read a verse, read a verse.” I would do that. Mostly what we’ve been doing is staying within the sources and the reference material that we’ve agreed to. Because of the extra time I got into a little trouble. And as I’m reading, uh, there’s a note in my Matthew and it says, “go to this section”. So I go to this section and come to find out that the editor of this Bible wrote a book on the beatitudes.
Keith (04:38):
I’m thinking, geez Louise. I waited until episode 15 to find out that he has a book. I ordered the book. I had time. I went to click the click and I get the book. I start reading the book and my heart literally sank because, Nehemia, what he does, and I had no idea this actually was a Greek man. He was actually born in Greece. He has a Greek name. He believes that the Greek is the original inspired, no problem with that. But what he starts to do. And I want to use this verse an example. And I have the book here. I want to read this verse, uh, his culmination of the verse. There’s a whole chapter on the verse. But what he says is “therefore we might very well paraphrase this beatitude, blessed, that is to say, in dwelt by God are the pure in heart. So we’re talking about the issue of pure in heart, okay? That’s what he’s saying. These are pure because of Christ, God, the son. These, the blessed and the pure shall see the father and the father is made visible through the son. Isn’t this exactly what John 1:18 declares?” And he goes on, Nehemia, to do this. And he does this for each beatitude. I’m not going to go into great depth. He basically isn’t so concerned about what Yeshua said. And I say this all the time. Don’t tell me about what they say about Yeshua. Let’s hear what he says. And this book, I have to tell you. And I said I have to apologize to you. Because based on this book, you and I can’t do the series. If this is my only resource, his translation and his book, he’s the editor of the entire Hebrew Greek Key Study Bible in the NASB.
Keith (06:22):
The editor is telling me that if you’re going to have a conversation about the beatitudes, it’s gotta be theological and it’s gotta be theological from the perspective of the present day Christian or Western Christianity, which means that you, and I’ve said this many times, I don’t mind saying it live here. I believe that we could have been at the Sermon on the Mount, listening to the beatitudes. And I think that there was a message for us back then. And I think it’s for us today. The problem I have with the editor is he leaves what we call language, history and context. He left the language issue kind of, no history and no context. And he dives into theology and literally cuts out the opportunity for you and I to be in our 19 year journey. If I’m not doing what he wants me to do. And he says it in the beginning of his book. He says, it’s all about one thing. It’s all about evangelism, evangelism of his understanding of the theology that was created through the beatitudes. And I just had to say, I said, I apologize, because when I read it, my heart sank. I thought I could have never been in a relationship. We could have never had this conversation if that was the focus that I was using to speak to you. What have we done instead? We’ve come together on common ground to – think about this, to find out what the language history and context of the words of Yeshua are. If I go by his approach, I talked to you only about what they say about him theologically, not what he said. So that’s a big controversy, but I had to bring it up. I told you ahead of time.
Nehemia (07:51):
So I understand why he did what he did. Right? And I think it’s pretty clear. Um, so it’s almost like there are, it’s not almost like, it is. There are a bunch of things that Yeshua taught that don’t fit Christian theology. And it’s not that they are necessarily contrary to Christian theology in many cases, but they don’t fit the emphasis of Christian theology. The emphasis of Christian theology is, you’ve got one job. And that job is believe in certain theological doctrines or you’re going to hell. And those theological doctrines may come from the New Testament. It’s debatable whether they do or not. What’s not debatable is they were clearly formulated for the first time at the council of Nicea and later the council of Constantinople in 325 and then in 381. Um, the version we use today, we meaning not me, Christians, is, uh, from the 381 council Constantinople.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
And what he’s basically saying is, look, if this doesn’t fit the creed, the Nicene creed, or the Constantiople creed, what’s it doing in the New Testament?
Keith (08:56):
Oh wait a minute.
Nehemia (08:57):
So he’s taking statements that Yeshua taught to a Jewish multitude of 5,000 people at a mountain that we went to together, a sermon on the Mount. And he saying, whoa, this doesn’t fit our theology. It reminds me of when you were sitting in my parents’ house and you were sharing with my father about Isaiah 56. It’s a famous story. I won’t go into the whole story. But you’re showing my father what it says in Isaiah, how you’ve joined yourself to the God of Israel and the people of Israel and his response was “don’t care”. And what he was really saying is I don’t care what Isaiah said, whatever Isaiah said has to fit into our paradigm of rabbinical Judaism. And if in rabbinical Judaism becoming part of the people of Israel and the God of Israel requires standing before council through rabbis who have overseen you being educated in their doctrines. And then you pass literally a test, like an academic test. Do you know this information? And then you get immersed by them in the mikvah. Well Isaiah 56 doesn’t say anything about that. But we have to force Isaiah 56 to fit our doctrine. And it seems to me like, what he’s saying is, wow, these are beautiful things Jesus said, but they don’t fit what we’ve been taught Christianity is. Let’s make them fit. And if, if we have a definition from the council of Nicea, that to be pure in heart means you profess this particular doctrine in this particular way. And I’m not saying whether that doctrine is right or wrong. I leave that to, talk to your pastor, rabbi or priest.
Nehemia (10:30):
That’s not for me as Jew to tell you if it’s right or wrong. But Yeshua doesn’t mentioned that doctrine in Matthew chapter five. And it reminds me of another verse that we’ve talked about in the past. And it’s this verse that is very problematic to Judaism, whether it’s Kairite Judaism or rabbinical Judaism. And it’s the verse where God says in Psalm 145 verse 18, he says, (Hebrew]. Yehovah is close to all who call upon him (Hebrew) to all who call upon him in truth. Well, we know that’s not true. How do I know it’s not true? What if you call upon Yehovah, but you eat pork. What if you call upon Yehovah and you don’t keep Shabbat – talking from the Jewish perspective. Then God can’t be close to you. How about we let God do God? And we do us? I mean, you could say, well, I mean, think about this, in a sense this is heresy to say Yehovah is close to all who call upon him in truth. Well, now we’ve got defined truth as you’ve got to do these specific things and profess this specific doctrine. What if you have a different understanding of God than me? Well, no, then God’s not close to you. How about we take God at his word?
Keith (11:45):
Well, you told me something that – we’re in controversy already folks. So let’s just keep going. Uh, you told me something where someone said to you, they took the Apostle’s creed and put it in the Bible as a part of,
Nehemia (11:59):
Well, I was having a conversation with someone and he was explained to me. And look, I said to him, I filter everything through Deuteronomy 6:4 (Hebrew). Everything in the Tanakh, I filter through that. It’s got to fit that. And really I filter everything, I take the Torah and everything in the Prophets has to fit the Torah and everything in the Writings has to fit the Prophets and the Torah. And if there’s something in Amos that doesn’t fit the Torah, well I go by the Torah. And I say, either, I don’t understand Amos or I, um, or maybe Amos is a false prophet. I don’t think that, but I leave that open as a possibility. It’s got to fit the Torah, according to Deuteronomy 13. And this gentleman, I was speaking to opened up, he had a Bible and he turned it over to the beginning and he opened up the cover and he said, I filter everything through this. And he pointed to the Nicene creed. And I said, how interesting you had to paste that into your Bible. It was not in there. And he said, well, it wasn’t formulated clearly. Okay. So you’ve done a much better job than Jesus has.
Keith (12:59):
Here’s why I wanted to say this to you. And I want to say it to everyone that’s out there. The reason this has inspired me, and the reason that I’ve changed schedule, changed plans, done everything – everything stopped when the offer came for us to do this together is because looking at language, history and context of Yeshua in his language, history and context, is common again, just like it was when you said to me, Nehemia, let’s study the Tanakh together. You said, let’s, let’s study the Tanakh together. And we did that. And then you called and said, let’s take a look at the Hebrew gospel of Matthew. And we have found a number of things where, is it fair to say without going too far, where there’s commonality through what he spoke in its original language, history and context. I couldn’t do that with this approach. I just can’t. There’s no conversation. We don’t get through the first episode.
Nehemia (13:45):
Well, what he’s trying to do, I understand what he’s trying to do. He’s trying to say, okay, pure of heart. Well we have a definition of that. Definition of pure of heart is based on our Christian theology. You have, um, you’re in this particular theological walk. Okay. But here’s the question I ask? So there were 5,000, or something like that, Jews who heard Yeshua preach from a mountain side. They were down there in the valley. We’ve been there, but where we think, where I think it was, at least. I think you agree. And they heard him preaching. Was it just a bunch of jibberish he was speaking? I mean, imagine that. So he’s standing up there and he’s preaching chapters five through seven. And in his mind, he’s thinking this has nothing to do with you. We’re going to wait until the editor of the Bible 2000 years later. This is for the future people who have known the, um, the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It’s only for them. You in the audience, this has nothing to do with you. It’s maybe 12 of you, right? But the rest of you, this doesn’t apply to you. That’s the theological approach he is presenting there. And maybe he’s right, theologically. I’m not a theologian. My question is, and the approach of what I’m trying to do in the program is, what did those 5,000 disciples, maybe they weren’t even disciples some of them. Maybe some of those people were opposed to him, but they came to hear what the guy had to say. And what did, what could they have understood when they heard him preach from the mountain side? And maybe they didn’t always understand them. We see things where the disciples say, well, that’s what you told them, what do you tell us? Right? There might’ve been things like that, especially in the parables, but what did they have the potential to understand? And then based on the evidence that we have, what was he trying to communicate in the historical context, language, history and context.
Keith (15:28):
So let me say this. Let me state the obvious folks. Um, Yeshua didn’t 2000 years ago, teach in the King James English. Many of you already know that are listening. I would argue he didn’t teach the sermon on the Mount, the beatitudes in Greek. I don’t believe that he did that. The people that were in… If he would have done that, the people that were there, the 5,000, would have said it was jibberish. They wouldn’t have known what he was talking.
Nehemia (15:52):
Some people would have understood because some people are multi-lingual. Let’s say, let’s even say he did speak in Greek, right? Let’s not dwell on that specific point for this, for this purpose. Okay? Even if he spoke in Greek, he was communicating to them in a way that they would have understood what he was communicating. Otherwise, what was the point of what he was exactly. Right? I mean, look, and there are things where you could say, oh, well, there’s no way that people understood that. We have passages in Luke where it specifically says they didn’t understand what he was saying. That’s not the case in the sermon on the Mount. In the sermon on the Mount the assumption, I think, has to be that he was communicating in a way that they could understand. Otherwise, what was he doing? He was just reciting words for Matthew, Mark, Luke and John to write down for future generations? Or is he teaching something to those people who were present? And that’s fundamentally the question. According to that book that you cited, he was only preaching for the future church. Not for the people who were there.
Keith (16:50):
They’ve hijacked the message. They kidnapped Yeshua.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
Logically, it’s not for me to say.
Keith (16:55):
I’m just telling you.
Nehemia (16:56):
I’m asking in the context, what did it mean?
Keith (16:59):
I needed to get that. So let’s get into the verse. Thank you so much.
Nehemia (17:02):
So, so, all right, let’s talk about this. There’s two things we have to talk about. What does it mean to see God? And we said in two manuscripts, that’s the fear of God, but in all the rest, it’s either ambiguous or certainly in the Greek it’s to see God. We’re going to ask what that question means to see God. But before that, what does it mean to be pure at heart? According to him to be pure at heart means you’ve recited the Nicene creed.
Keith (17:24):
Can I read something? Can I read something before you before, because I really want to get to what you have there. There’s something that I wrote, Nehemia, some, a few years ago actually, a simple phrase and you can pick of these which you want to look at, but I want to just throw these out really quick. Okay? First two words. The two words that Yeshua connects for pure of heart are what in Hebrew?
Nehemia (17:45):
(Hebrew)
Keith (17:49):
So I would translate that as clean heart. And I’ll tell you why. I’m going to give you some verses. The verses are Ezra 2:9, Nehemia 3:20.
Nehemia (17:55):
My favorite book, I wrote it.
Keith (17:55):
Mm Naomi, a three 20
Speaker 1 (17:58):
Favorite book. I wrote it.
Keith (18:00):
Nehemia 7:14. If you could just look at… Hey folks, can I switch this around? Nehemia, I want you to look for this verse and I’ll look for that person. Okay? I want you to go to Ezra 2:9. And if you can read that and here’s what I love about our experience in the past is what really, really, really inspired me and caused me to be quite frustrated was when I was looking over your shoulder and you had the Hebrew Bible in front of you and you were reading in Hebrew, but you were translating in English. Would you do me a favor and take me back to those days of the Old City of Jerusalem? So I want you to go to Ezra tonight. I just want you to pick a couple of these and give me, and folks remember, can you tell them the two words that Yeshua is using? I’m sorry, that in Hebrew, these two words mean
Nehemia (18:44):
(Hebrew).
Keith (18:44):
Now can you read …
Nehemia (18:47):
So Ezra 2:9 is giving a list of different people who were involved in the return to Zion and it says the sons of Zaccai 760. So Zaccai was somebody’s name.
Keith (18:58):
Okay, excellent. Now go to Nehemia 3:20.
Nehemia (19:01):
And Nehemia 3:20 is a repeat of the same list.
Keith (19:06):
Go to Nehemia 7:14.
Nehemia (19:09):
Well 3:20 is interesting because here we have Baruch, the son of Zabbai. In the body of the text and in the margin, it says Zabbai. That’s interesting. And there we have clearly what is, I shouldn’t say clearly. In my opinion, what we have is clearly a graphic confusion between the letter bet and let her kof in the square Hebrew script.
Keith (19:29):
Excellent.
Nehemia (19:29):
Okay. What was the next one? Nehemia 7:14. And we here we have the sons of Zaccai. That’s the same as in the list in Ezra 3 or whatever. Okay.
Keith (19:42):
So I’m just giving you… So when you see that word, what does it, what does it say?
Nehemia (19:45):
So Zaccai, well, first thing I think of is rabbi Jokanon ben Zacci who was a leading rabbi at the time of the siege of Jerusalem in the year, approximately 78 AD. Went over to the Roman side. Zaccai was somebody’s name and it meant innocent. And it comes from, well, tell me where you’re going with this.
Keith (20:05):
I’m trying to get, you know, so I had a conversation with Rabbi Eliezer ben Yehudah two weeks ago. I called Rabbi. Rabbi ben Yehudah is the grandson of Eliezer ben Yehudah and
Nehemia (20:16):
Who is the original Eliezer ben Yehudah?
Keith (20:17):
I would argue he’s the man who resurrected the Hebrew language, as we know it.
Nehemia (20:21):
He is credited with helping to resurrect modern spoken Hebrew, not written Hebrew.
Keith (20:25):
So I called him on another matter and I was talking to him and he says to me, and he’s a wise guy. He says, well, Keith, you know, as I read, there’s something that happens. When I come across Hebrew names, it’s as if it’s the gunpowder of the verse. That the name actually sometimes gives you a chance to look at the name and what the name means can sometimes blow the verse up. So the idea of asking, well, what does this word mean? And what do these names mean? And what would be the root of that name? So that’s what I’m getting to.
Nehemia (20:55):
Okay. So we’ve talked in the past, even in this episode, I think, about how every noun and adjective verb has a three-letter root. And here we’re presented with a word with a two letter root. And the two letter root is zayin kof. And the assumption is that the third letter is either a heh or another kof. And in that case, it, because it’s hollow, one of the letters drops out or maybe that’s the definition of hollow actually. So, and what the third letter is, is debatable, whether it’s a heh or a kof. So Zaccai means pure. And so let’s give an example, Exodus 27:20. And you shall command the children of Israel and they shall take for themselves [Hebrew]. Olive oil that is zach, pure. Pure olive oil doesn’t have impurities in it. It’s probably what we would call extra-virgin olive oil. But that has a very specific definition. I don’t know if it has that definition in the Tanakh precisely that way. Um, that’s like a cold press olive oil, right? Um, and then Leviticus 24:2 [Hebrew], which again is olive oil. That’s pure (Hebrew), which has been crushed. So they crushed the olives and they put them in these bags and whatever oozes out in that first cold press, that is the pure. And the word ? added. And then, uh, which is the crushed. Exodus, 30:34, right? These are, there’s nothing theological here, right? We’re not talking about people’s hearts or their intentions. We’re talking about certain types of materials, right? A certain kind of olive oil. And then here in Exodus 30:34, we have, um, [Hebrew]. It’s the feminine form. Before it was zach masculine and here it is zaccah.
Nehemia (22:36):
So it’s pure frankincense, right? What’s non pure frankincense? You mix some other powders in with it. Why would you do that? It’s very expensive. So you cut it, you water it down. So they’re saying no, no, no, no. God’s saying it has to be pure frankincense. Leviticus 24:7 again has(Hebrew), pure frankincense. And then sometimes it’s used metaphorically and let’s see, um, Job 8:6. It says [Hebrew], if you are pure and straight-laced, your zaccah is literally straight. Right? But straight-laced in the sense of having integrity in biblical Hebrew. And so the parallel there is pure, right? And you said an interesting statement earlier. You said, my heart literally fell. Well, no, your heart didn’t literally fall. So this is interesting. You actually said that. And I paid attention because in modern English usage of today, literally is used metaphorically. They’ll say he’s literally Hitler. Obviously, whatever you think of him, he’s not literally Hitler, unless you believe in reincarnation, right? So, you think he has the attributes of Hitler. He’s obviously not literally Hitler, because you don’t look anything like Hitler, right? So people use that regularly in the modern usage. They use literally to mean metaphorically. Isn’t that ironic?
Keith (24:02):
Did I really do that earlier? Will the editors….
Nehemia (24:05):
Oh, no, they’re leaving it in. Leave it in guys. So, here zach is being used metaphorically. And in Proverbs 20 verse 11 it says [Hebrew]. If pure, if his action is pure and straight laced, the meaning is he has integrity. Um, but again, even straight-laced is a metaphor, right? What does straight mean? Doesn’t mean what it means in modern English. Straight means similar to straight-laced, that you’re walking the straight path rather than the crooked path. But metaphorically I’m not walking any path. Right? I’m sitting in a chair, right? I’m sitting in a chair. Am I doing things that are righteous or unrighteous? Righteous is straight, unrighteous is crooked in the biblical Hebrew. So we have this usage in the Tanakh where zach means for your actions to be pure. And it comes metaphorically from pure materials, like pure frankincense and pure olive oil. And the olive oil is strained out. Right? You don’t want kinds of impurities. You can add some water to it. So the pure olive oil is just pure. Right? So now we go back to this verse, [Hebrew] pure of heart, right? It means having a heart that has – meaning there’s no impurities in your heart. Right? Think of frankincense, the olive oil. There’s nothing, no bad stuff mixed in there. Right? You’re doing something righteous. That’s what it means, I think. Delitzsch interestingly translated it. Ashrey (Hebrew) those who have a clear heart. He used the word (Hebrew). And why did he do that? Uh, it was a reasonable translation, right? I’m not saying it’s wrong. It’s different than the way Shem Tov’s Hebrew Matthew has it. But he took that from Psalm 2:12, uh, perhaps potentially from Psalm 2, he interprets (whether you agree with him or not) he interpreted it as referring to the Messiah. Um, (Hebrew)
Keith (26:06):
We gotta slow down on that one. So let’s back up for a second. This is important, you guys, because what we… You can actually get this book, Delitzsch’s book, The Hebrew Gospels, where he’s taking the Greek and he’s translating it back into Hebrew. And an example where he used a different word, and you’re saying it’s possible. Can I use that word theologically?
Nehemia (26:26):
I don’t know that’s it’s theological here. He’s making, he’s using the principle of association, perhaps. I don’t know for sure. But in Psalm 2:12 in the King James has, kissed the son lest he be angry. And the son is understood by them to be, by the translators of the King James, to be the son of God who is the Messiah. Now, some Jews would agree with that and say, son of God, in the sense that Solomon was called the son of God, and that he’s the chosen. I think we’ll get to that later, hopefully in a future episode. But (Hebrew) also is translated by Jewish translators as kiss in purity. Like your heart should be pure and clean when you come to kiss and pay homage to the Messiah, wherever that is. Right? So JPS has pay homage in good faith, right? And what’s the good faith. That’s a paraphrase. What they would literally understand it to mean is kiss with purity of heart. Right? So I think (I could be wrong). My hypothesis is that Delitzsch is taking that word bar from Psalm 2:12 and using..
Keith (27:26):
Give us the translation one more time.
Nehemia (27:28):
So blessed are those who are pure in heart, but pure using the word from Psalm 2:12, that when you kiss the son, whoever that is, you’re kissing him with a pure heart. He’s kind of maybe taking a dual interpretation of it, which is possible. That could be the correct interpretation. So that’s Delitazsch. We have this idea of people doing things with the right heart in a number of places in the Tanakh. And I want to start with Psalm 51 (in the Hebrew verse 12) Here I think in the English, it’s a few verses off. 51:12. In the King James’ it is verse 10. Create in me a clean heart, different word completely for, for clean. But it’s talking about the nature of your heart. So it’s (Hebrew) right? So it’s a pure heart, but with a different word for pure. But it’s the same principle there. Create me a clean heart Oh God and renew a right spirit within me. So this first off is just a purely Tanakh idea. And it reminds me of another passage, which doesn’t talk about heart. It talks about spirit. But again, in the sense it’s sort of related. And I have a lot of people, I share this with Christians, and they’re shocked that this is in the Tanakh. They’re like, no, that’s gotta be in Acts somewhere. That’s in one of the epistles of Paul and it’s um, Ezekiel 18:31.
Nehemia (28:50):
I’ll read it in the King James. Cast away from all your transgressions whereby you have transgressed. Sorry, cast away from you all your transgressions, where you have transgressed and make you a new heart and a new spirit. For why will you die, oh house of Israel?I have no pleasure in the death of him that dies says, Lord, Yehovah, or therefore (or wherefor) turn yourselves and live ye. So here in Psalms, the prayer is to create me a new heart. And in Ezekiel, the exhortation of the prophets. He’s telling the people get rid of your transgressions and sins and make for yourselves a new heart and a new spirit. So this is a purely Tanakh idea of having the new heart, the pure heart, the clean heart. Get rid of your heart, which has sin, and take upon a new heart. Now we talked about in an earlier episode, II Chronicles 25. I’m going to put it in a little bit of context. For each one of the Kings of Israel and Judah, we have the statement in the book of Kings, 1 & 11 Kings, the book of Kings. In the book of Kings we have, meaning in the Greek it’s divided into first and second. Actually in the Greek it’s third and fourth, but we’ll leave that for a different discussion. So we have the book of Kings and in Kings for almost every king it’ll say he did that which was right in the eyes of Yehovah or he didn’t do right in the eyes of Yehovah. And then all of a sudden in II Chronicles, 25:1, which is taking information from Kings and adding more information, it says about King (Hebrew), Amaziah in English.
Nehemia (30:25):
It says Amaziah was 25 years old when he reigned. And he reigned in Jerusalem for 29 years. And the name of his mother was Jehoaddan of Jerusalem. (Hebrew) and he did that which was straitlaced, that which was right in the eyes of Yehovah. Could be any king, nothing special here. And then, that’s taken out of the type of information we get from Kings. And all of a sudden he says [Hebrew], but not with a pure, complete heart, not with a complete heart. So there’s this idea we’re hearing in II Chronicles, 25, that you can fulfill perfectly the letter of the law, follow everything that God commanded in the Torah. But if your heart’s not in the right place, you’ve got a problem.
Keith (31:19):
Now, Nehemia, I want to ask something because I’m trying to be sensitive folks, I’m trying to be sensitive. I don’t know if you’re ready for a transition or not.
Nehemia (31:29):
Oh, I want to finish this passage and we’ll go to a transaction. And we’ll talk about the really controversial stuff in the plus episode. I want to finish because this is the mild stuff. Wait till we get to the controversy. So I Kings 8:61, here it’s King David. I believe it’s King David speaking to his son and he says [Hebrew], and let your heart be complete with Yehovah, our God. [Hebrew] to walk in his statutes and to keep his commandments as this day. So there’s two aspects of this, keeping the commandments and doing it with a complete heart. You can have one without the other and you could have the other without the one, right? I mean, look, there’s this perception, well, I just have to keep these commandments perfectly. And this is actually something I was taught in rabbinical Judaism, that if all Israel keeps two Shabbats in a row, perfectly in accordance with rabbinical law, the Messiah will automatically come. Just two, because every Jew.. there are so many laws for Shabbat that the rabbis have created. So nobody keeps it perfectly. But if all of Israel would keep it just twice, it would be an accomplished fact that the Messiah would automatically come. And what we’re hearing here is not enough to do it perfectly or whether it’s according to God’s commands to the rabbinical, right? That’s a different question. But it’s not enough to do it perfectly. You have to have the complete heart. First Kings 15:4. And this is interesting because this is the exact opposite of Amaziah in the book of Kings. Amaziah did everything (Hebrew) straight-laced in the eyes of Yehovah. Straight, but not with a complete heart. Now it’s King Asa and the high places he did not remove, but Asa did, let’s see [Hebrew]. However, the heart of Asa was complete with Yehovah all of his days. So Asa didn’t fulfill the letter of the law. He allowed the high places to remain, but his heart was in the right place.
Nehemia (33:34):
And that’s, what? How can your heart be in the right place if you don’t do that which is right? Because God is the judge of all the earth. God decides, he looks in our hearts. That’s how merciful he is. And he knows what it is we intended. Psalm 24:3-5. I’m going to skip over that guys. Look it up. Psalm 73:10. And therefore the people turn in praise and find no fault in them. And they say, how can God know? Is there knowledge with the most high? So are the wicked also at ease, they increase in riches. All in vain I have kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence. So what’s happening here is the righteous are looking at the wicked and saying, wow, that guy is prospering. Why have I bothered to have a clean heart? I should just be wicked like him and I’ll also prosper. So the wicked look at the, sorry, the righteous looks at the wicked and he’s misled, thinking, there’s no benefit in keeping God’s commandments. I can just be a bad guy and I’ll thrive. So they’re misled like that. For all day long I’ve been plagued and punished every morning. So when bad things happen to good people, they can come to the wrong conclusions that I should just be bad in that case. Right? And of course what the Psalm was saying, no, be good. Cause in the end, God will judge all things. Proverbs 16:2, all the ways of man are pure (zachs same word as in Hebrew Matthew) are pure in his eyes.
Nehemia (34:58):
(Hebrew) but Yehovah is the measure of spirits. The measure of souls. In other words, Yehovah looks in your heart and he knows. And I’ll end with this. Psalm 44:21-22. Look guys there is also Jeremiah 17:10. I am Yehovah who investigates the heart, who examines the kidneys. It makes it sound like he’s some kind of surgeon. No, but the kidneys is, you know, we think of the thoughts having in your brain and you’re in your head, which they also had that idea, but they also have this idea of it being in your kidneys. So Yehovah says, look into your heart, look into your thoughts. Um, giving each man, according to his ways and according to his actions, right? So God judges you based on your actions, but he also takes into account what’s in your heart, according to Jeremiah 17:10. Also I Kings 8:39 guys, look it up.
Nehemia (35:45):
But now Psalm 44:21 to 22 is incredible. And I’ll end with this. And then we have to talk in the next part about the really controversial information. What does it mean to see God? So Psalm 44:20 to 21, uh, in the King James it’s actually verses 19 to 20, I believe. Yeah. Though you cast us, crushed to where? I mean, this is the JPS, it’s horrible translation. Here’s King James, though thou has sore broken us up in the place of dragons, (place of dragons, wow). I don’t have time to get into it. Not exactly what it means. It’s actually more like crocodiles. And covered us with the shadow of death. If we have forgotten the name of our God and stretched our hands to a strange God, and then verse 22 in the Hebrew, 21 in the English, God will surely search it out. For he knows the secrets of the heart. So it describes your situation of people whose hearts in the right place, right? Just like King Asa. But he does something wrong. It’s like we talked about in a previous episode, the king of the causers, the Kusari. His heart is in the right place, but he doesn’t know any better. And so he worships a foreign God. That’s addressed here. I raise up my hands and I call to the name of the wrong God. I called God, the true God, by the wrong name. We’re not even talking pronunciation here. It’s the completely wrong name, a different name altogether. God is that merciful. He can look in our hearts and see what we intended because we had the pure heart. So maybe Yeshua when he said blessed are those pure in heart, knew what he meant, meant what he said. And he wasn’t saying well, pure heart. But what I mean by that is you have checked the right boxes from the Jewish perspective, you’ve checked the right boxes from the theological Christian perspective. I don’t actually mean pure in heart. I mean pure in doctrine, pure in observance of theology and observance of commandments and rabbinical law. Maybe he meant what he said, pure in heart.
Keith (37:47):
Well, can I read one last thing? Just one last thing, folks. Proverbs 20 verse nine, who can say, I have cleansed my heart. I am pure from my sin. And I will tell you this, Nehemia, when we were talking about this, we actually, one of the things that has been a blessing folks is, is we got a chance to have some conversations back and forth. And I know we’re going to talk about this in the next section, which I’m excited about. But when I think about heart, I hate to, I mean, when you hear heart, I hear a picture. I’m thinking of this, Nehemia. Bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump. So if I had a pure heart and I physically wanted to give you my heart, would that make you, if it was,
Nehemia (38:22):
No, heart here is a metaphor for your heart.
Keith (38:26):
Of course. But why heart?
Nehemia (38:27):
Well, in other words, people get excited. They feel their heart beating fast. And when they’re sad, they feel it in their heart. Right?
Keith (38:34):
So there’s something that happens. In other words, when we see heart, it’s not like a picture that you can’t relate to. It’s like my heart starts to… For example. Let me just tell you something that happened. Today my heart fluttered folks. And let me tell you why my heart fluttered. My heart fluttered because Nehemia was in studio without a jacket for two episodes. I’m going to tell the story. I have to, my heart fluttered. I was excited about this. And I think your heart fluttered too. And you’re going to tell people about it before you go to the plus. So we’re in here and I’ve got my jacket. Cause I’m thinking Nehemia’s going to wear his jacket. I got to bring my jacket. But I couldn’t do with just the shirt. He had a shirt without a jacket. So we do two episodes and we’re going to do the third episode. We’re going to take a break. And all of a sudden here comes Lynelle. She walks in the room and she’s got a bag. I couldn’t believe it. My heart starts to flutter. What’s in the bag?
Nehemia (39:22):
This jacket. And you actually said – I’m not the kind of guy you can go shopping at Walmart for. I’ve got special sizes.
Keith (39:31):
She walks in and she gets the thing and she puts it on Nehemia and he puts it on and I could see him. And I said, you know, say Lynelle. Now, I mean, did your heart not flutter?
Nehemia (39:41):
Like, she’s an impressive woman, my wife. Um, I’ll tell you, we had this incident. We were in Washington DC and the flight was canceled twice. We finally get there on the third flight, but our bags aren’t there. And we were carrying thousands of dollars of equipment to go to the museum of the Bible, to photograph Torah scrolls. And we’ve come there. It had been planned for months and we’re there and we don’t have all of our equipment. And she says, well, what do you need? And I’m there with a colleague. And he tells her the name of the equipment. She says, I’ll get that. And we’re both like, you don’t understand. We have to order this equipment a month in advance. You can’t just walk into a regular store and buy specialized equipment. That afternoon she comes back with the equipment.
Keith (40:20):
Heart fluttering.
Nehemia (40:21):
Incredible. So, all right, let’s end with a prayer and then we’ll continue in the plus section. We’ll talk about the exciting part.
Keith (40:28):
What’s exciting? Are you going to tell us?
Nehemia (40:29):
We’re going to talk about what it means to see God. And we’re to talk about some really deep concepts that we’ve talked about in the past, but we never got into the nitty gritty. What it means to (Hebrew) glory. Amen. If you allow me to talk about that, it’s a bit controversial. It’s extremely controversial. Books were burned over this. Literally Jewish books were burned by other Jews. (Hebrew) father in heaven, thank you so much for blessing me with this amazing (Hebrew), this woman of valor that you’ve given me. Yehovah, thank you for giving me the opportunity to come to the studio and share these things with people. Thank you for the folks in this studio and the production group who have allowed us to come in and enable us to be able to teach these things and share it with the audience. And Yehovah, thank you so much for giving me the understanding of Hebrew so I can understand what it means and share with others this idea of a pure heart. Yehovah, I pray that you give me a new heart and a new spirit so that I can come before you, not for my own sake, not to be righteous in my own eyes or pure in my own eyes, but you who examines the hearts and the kidneys and the spirit so that it can be pure by your standard with a complete heart. Amen.
Keith (41:41):
And Father, thank you so much for this opportunity. Thank you so much for the study. Thank you so much for the open door that you’ve given us to be able to be here at this time. And we just lift it all up to you. Help us to be like David, create in us a clean heart. Put a new and right spirit within us. In your name. Amen.
Narrator (41:59):
You have been listening to Hebrew Gospel Pearls with Nehemia Gordon and Keith Johnson. For a more in-depth study, check out Hebrew Gospel Pearls Plus at nehemiaswall.com and bfainternational.com. Thank you for your support.
So there’s this idea we’re hearing in second Chronicles 25, that you can fulfill perfectly the letter of the law. Follow everything that God commanded in the Torah. But if your heart’s not in the right place, you got a problem. Wow.
Narrator (00:18):
You are listening to Hebrew Gospel Pearls with Nehemia Gordon and Keith Johnson, exploring Hebrew New Testament manuscripts for yesterday, today and tomorrow.
Nehemia (00:32):
Shalom, welcome to Hebrew Gospel Pearls, episode 18. I’m so excited. We’re going to continue talking about the Sermon on the Mount, the section known as the beatitudes, the section that begins ashray, blessed is. And today we’re going to be talking about Matthew chapter five, verse eight. What you called the buffet of the biblical beatitudes.
Keith (00:53):
Look at all this stuff.
Nehemia (00:55):
I feel like, you know how you get to the buffet and first they give you the macaroni and they give you the mashed potatoes. And now we’re at the steak. That’s how I feel here. So the verse reads in Hebrew Matthew, um, [Hebrew]. Blessed are those pure in heart. (Hebrew) Elohim – for they will blank God. And I’m saying blank because it could be interpreted the way it’s written in most of the manuscripts of Hebrew Matthew in two different ways. Uh, I’ve talked in the past, those who follow my teaching about something called hollow verbs. I won’t get into that. It’s a bit complicated. But every verb, adjective and noun in the biblical Hebrew has a three-letter root and the three-letter root sometimes some of those letters will drop out and that creates what’s called hollow verbs. And because of that you don’t always know in a particular context, which root it is. And here it could be two different roots. It says, and they will ra’ah Elohim, ra’ah can mean two different things. It’s ambiguous. It can be from the root yod resh aleph – for they will fear God. Or it could be from the root resh alep heh, for they will see God. And certainly the standard English translations and the Greek translate based on the word see. For example, NRSV, blessed are the pure in heart for they will see. In the Greek [Greek] God.
Nehemia (02:20):
Um, they’re going to see God. But there’s a possibility of the Hebrew being translated for they will fear God. Now what’s interesting is there’s two manuscripts of Hebrew Matthew, uh, and Howard didn’t have access to this information. There’s a manuscript W and manuscript.. Actually manuscript B he did have access to. So I’m assuming it’s in his notes there. But I looked at the 20 surviving manuscripts and it has [Hebrew] Elohim – for they are those who fear God. And that’s unambiguous. So two of the copyists at least either had their source or they maybe made a mistake and changed they see God, or they fear God to they fear God unambiguously. Well, that’s interesting. And it’s the third manuscript J which has something like fear. Um, so there’s a possible way of reading it in the Hebrew, not in the Greek though.
Keith (03:11):
Now Nehemia, obviously this is, we’re in the public phase of things. We’re not at the hardhat section. Those of you that have not gotten a chance to go to the plus episode, you’re missing it, both at nehemiaswall and BFAinternational.com. But let me just say something. We got to give a little context of this. This is going to be a little touchy, just a little touchy. Say a little touchy. So we had some time between episode 15 (if you didn’t see episode 15, you got to go see it) and us taping this today. And so what I did is went further beyond the resources that we’ve used. We’ve used a number of resources. We’ve used Dalech. We’ve used your cousin. We’ve used Howard, et cetera. But I have my trusty English Bible. And something happened that I actually called Nehemia, folks, and I apologized to him for what I found in my Bible. So I have referred many people to this Bible because it’s a Hebrew Greek Key Study Bible, the New American Standard Bible. And I have to make a confession. I hadn’t spent much time throughout the Hebrew Gospel Pearls in this, other than to read in Matthew. To read, if Nehemia said “read a verse, read a verse.” I would do that. Mostly what we’ve been doing is staying within the sources and the reference material that we’ve agreed to. Because of the extra time I got into a little trouble. And as I’m reading, uh, there’s a note in my Matthew and it says, “go to this section”. So I go to this section and come to find out that the editor of this Bible wrote a book on the beatitudes.
Keith (04:38):
I’m thinking, geez Louise. I waited until episode 15 to find out that he has a book. I ordered the book. I had time. I went to click the click and I get the book. I start reading the book and my heart literally sank because, Nehemia, what he does, and I had no idea this actually was a Greek man. He was actually born in Greece. He has a Greek name. He believes that the Greek is the original inspired, no problem with that. But what he starts to do. And I want to use this verse an example. And I have the book here. I want to read this verse, uh, his culmination of the verse. There’s a whole chapter on the verse. But what he says is “therefore we might very well paraphrase this beatitude, blessed, that is to say, in dwelt by God are the pure in heart. So we’re talking about the issue of pure in heart, okay? That’s what he’s saying. These are pure because of Christ, God, the son. These, the blessed and the pure shall see the father and the father is made visible through the son. Isn’t this exactly what John 1:18 declares?” And he goes on, Nehemia, to do this. And he does this for each beatitude. I’m not going to go into great depth. He basically isn’t so concerned about what Yeshua said. And I say this all the time. Don’t tell me about what they say about Yeshua. Let’s hear what he says. And this book, I have to tell you. And I said I have to apologize to you. Because based on this book, you and I can’t do the series. If this is my only resource, his translation and his book, he’s the editor of the entire Hebrew Greek Key Study Bible in the NASB.
Keith (06:22):
The editor is telling me that if you’re going to have a conversation about the beatitudes, it’s gotta be theological and it’s gotta be theological from the perspective of the present day Christian or Western Christianity, which means that you, and I’ve said this many times, I don’t mind saying it live here. I believe that we could have been at the Sermon on the Mount, listening to the beatitudes. And I think that there was a message for us back then. And I think it’s for us today. The problem I have with the editor is he leaves what we call language, history and context. He left the language issue kind of, no history and no context. And he dives into theology and literally cuts out the opportunity for you and I to be in our 19 year journey. If I’m not doing what he wants me to do. And he says it in the beginning of his book. He says, it’s all about one thing. It’s all about evangelism, evangelism of his understanding of the theology that was created through the beatitudes. And I just had to say, I said, I apologize, because when I read it, my heart sank. I thought I could have never been in a relationship. We could have never had this conversation if that was the focus that I was using to speak to you. What have we done instead? We’ve come together on common ground to – think about this, to find out what the language history and context of the words of Yeshua are. If I go by his approach, I talked to you only about what they say about him theologically, not what he said. So that’s a big controversy, but I had to bring it up. I told you ahead of time.
Nehemia (07:51):
So I understand why he did what he did. Right? And I think it’s pretty clear. Um, so it’s almost like there are, it’s not almost like, it is. There are a bunch of things that Yeshua taught that don’t fit Christian theology. And it’s not that they are necessarily contrary to Christian theology in many cases, but they don’t fit the emphasis of Christian theology. The emphasis of Christian theology is, you’ve got one job. And that job is believe in certain theological doctrines or you’re going to hell. And those theological doctrines may come from the New Testament. It’s debatable whether they do or not. What’s not debatable is they were clearly formulated for the first time at the council of Nicea and later the council of Constantinople in 325 and then in 381. Um, the version we use today, we meaning not me, Christians, is, uh, from the 381 council Constantinople.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
And what he’s basically saying is, look, if this doesn’t fit the creed, the Nicene creed, or the Constantiople creed, what’s it doing in the New Testament?
Keith (08:56):
Oh wait a minute.
Nehemia (08:57):
So he’s taking statements that Yeshua taught to a Jewish multitude of 5,000 people at a mountain that we went to together, a sermon on the Mount. And he saying, whoa, this doesn’t fit our theology. It reminds me of when you were sitting in my parents’ house and you were sharing with my father about Isaiah 56. It’s a famous story. I won’t go into the whole story. But you’re showing my father what it says in Isaiah, how you’ve joined yourself to the God of Israel and the people of Israel and his response was “don’t care”. And what he was really saying is I don’t care what Isaiah said, whatever Isaiah said has to fit into our paradigm of rabbinical Judaism. And if in rabbinical Judaism becoming part of the people of Israel and the God of Israel requires standing before council through rabbis who have overseen you being educated in their doctrines. And then you pass literally a test, like an academic test. Do you know this information? And then you get immersed by them in the mikvah. Well Isaiah 56 doesn’t say anything about that. But we have to force Isaiah 56 to fit our doctrine. And it seems to me like, what he’s saying is, wow, these are beautiful things Jesus said, but they don’t fit what we’ve been taught Christianity is. Let’s make them fit. And if, if we have a definition from the council of Nicea, that to be pure in heart means you profess this particular doctrine in this particular way. And I’m not saying whether that doctrine is right or wrong. I leave that to, talk to your pastor, rabbi or priest.
Nehemia (10:30):
That’s not for me as Jew to tell you if it’s right or wrong. But Yeshua doesn’t mentioned that doctrine in Matthew chapter five. And it reminds me of another verse that we’ve talked about in the past. And it’s this verse that is very problematic to Judaism, whether it’s Kairite Judaism or rabbinical Judaism. And it’s the verse where God says in Psalm 145 verse 18, he says, (Hebrew]. Yehovah is close to all who call upon him (Hebrew) to all who call upon him in truth. Well, we know that’s not true. How do I know it’s not true? What if you call upon Yehovah, but you eat pork. What if you call upon Yehovah and you don’t keep Shabbat – talking from the Jewish perspective. Then God can’t be close to you. How about we let God do God? And we do us? I mean, you could say, well, I mean, think about this, in a sense this is heresy to say Yehovah is close to all who call upon him in truth. Well, now we’ve got defined truth as you’ve got to do these specific things and profess this specific doctrine. What if you have a different understanding of God than me? Well, no, then God’s not close to you. How about we take God at his word?
Keith (11:45):
Well, you told me something that – we’re in controversy already folks. So let’s just keep going. Uh, you told me something where someone said to you, they took the Apostle’s creed and put it in the Bible as a part of,
Nehemia (11:59):
Well, I was having a conversation with someone and he was explained to me. And look, I said to him, I filter everything through Deuteronomy 6:4 (Hebrew). Everything in the Tanakh, I filter through that. It’s got to fit that. And really I filter everything, I take the Torah and everything in the Prophets has to fit the Torah and everything in the Writings has to fit the Prophets and the Torah. And if there’s something in Amos that doesn’t fit the Torah, well I go by the Torah. And I say, either, I don’t understand Amos or I, um, or maybe Amos is a false prophet. I don’t think that, but I leave that open as a possibility. It’s got to fit the Torah, according to Deuteronomy 13. And this gentleman, I was speaking to opened up, he had a Bible and he turned it over to the beginning and he opened up the cover and he said, I filter everything through this. And he pointed to the Nicene creed. And I said, how interesting you had to paste that into your Bible. It was not in there. And he said, well, it wasn’t formulated clearly. Okay. So you’ve done a much better job than Jesus has.
Keith (12:59):
Here’s why I wanted to say this to you. And I want to say it to everyone that’s out there. The reason this has inspired me, and the reason that I’ve changed schedule, changed plans, done everything – everything stopped when the offer came for us to do this together is because looking at language, history and context of Yeshua in his language, history and context, is common again, just like it was when you said to me, Nehemia, let’s study the Tanakh together. You said, let’s, let’s study the Tanakh together. And we did that. And then you called and said, let’s take a look at the Hebrew gospel of Matthew. And we have found a number of things where, is it fair to say without going too far, where there’s commonality through what he spoke in its original language, history and context. I couldn’t do that with this approach. I just can’t. There’s no conversation. We don’t get through the first episode.
Nehemia (13:45):
Well, what he’s trying to do, I understand what he’s trying to do. He’s trying to say, okay, pure of heart. Well we have a definition of that. Definition of pure of heart is based on our Christian theology. You have, um, you’re in this particular theological walk. Okay. But here’s the question I ask? So there were 5,000, or something like that, Jews who heard Yeshua preach from a mountain side. They were down there in the valley. We’ve been there, but where we think, where I think it was, at least. I think you agree. And they heard him preaching. Was it just a bunch of jibberish he was speaking? I mean, imagine that. So he’s standing up there and he’s preaching chapters five through seven. And in his mind, he’s thinking this has nothing to do with you. We’re going to wait until the editor of the Bible 2000 years later. This is for the future people who have known the, um, the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It’s only for them. You in the audience, this has nothing to do with you. It’s maybe 12 of you, right? But the rest of you, this doesn’t apply to you. That’s the theological approach he is presenting there. And maybe he’s right, theologically. I’m not a theologian. My question is, and the approach of what I’m trying to do in the program is, what did those 5,000 disciples, maybe they weren’t even disciples some of them. Maybe some of those people were opposed to him, but they came to hear what the guy had to say. And what did, what could they have understood when they heard him preach from the mountain side? And maybe they didn’t always understand them. We see things where the disciples say, well, that’s what you told them, what do you tell us? Right? There might’ve been things like that, especially in the parables, but what did they have the potential to understand? And then based on the evidence that we have, what was he trying to communicate in the historical context, language, history and context.
Keith (15:28):
So let me say this. Let me state the obvious folks. Um, Yeshua didn’t 2000 years ago, teach in the King James English. Many of you already know that are listening. I would argue he didn’t teach the sermon on the Mount, the beatitudes in Greek. I don’t believe that he did that. The people that were in… If he would have done that, the people that were there, the 5,000, would have said it was jibberish. They wouldn’t have known what he was talking.
Nehemia (15:52):
Some people would have understood because some people are multi-lingual. Let’s say, let’s even say he did speak in Greek, right? Let’s not dwell on that specific point for this, for this purpose. Okay? Even if he spoke in Greek, he was communicating to them in a way that they would have understood what he was communicating. Otherwise, what was the point of what he was exactly. Right? I mean, look, and there are things where you could say, oh, well, there’s no way that people understood that. We have passages in Luke where it specifically says they didn’t understand what he was saying. That’s not the case in the sermon on the Mount. In the sermon on the Mount the assumption, I think, has to be that he was communicating in a way that they could understand. Otherwise, what was he doing? He was just reciting words for Matthew, Mark, Luke and John to write down for future generations? Or is he teaching something to those people who were present? And that’s fundamentally the question. According to that book that you cited, he was only preaching for the future church. Not for the people who were there.
Keith (16:50):
They’ve hijacked the message. They kidnapped Yeshua.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
Logically, it’s not for me to say.
Keith (16:55):
I’m just telling you.
Nehemia (16:56):
I’m asking in the context, what did it mean?
Keith (16:59):
I needed to get that. So let’s get into the verse. Thank you so much.
Nehemia (17:02):
So, so, all right, let’s talk about this. There’s two things we have to talk about. What does it mean to see God? And we said in two manuscripts, that’s the fear of God, but in all the rest, it’s either ambiguous or certainly in the Greek it’s to see God. We’re going to ask what that question means to see God. But before that, what does it mean to be pure at heart? According to him to be pure at heart means you’ve recited the Nicene creed.
Keith (17:24):
Can I read something? Can I read something before you before, because I really want to get to what you have there. There’s something that I wrote, Nehemia, some, a few years ago actually, a simple phrase and you can pick of these which you want to look at, but I want to just throw these out really quick. Okay? First two words. The two words that Yeshua connects for pure of heart are what in Hebrew?
Nehemia (17:45):
(Hebrew)
Keith (17:49):
So I would translate that as clean heart. And I’ll tell you why. I’m going to give you some verses. The verses are Ezra 2:9, Nehemia 3:20.
Nehemia (17:55):
My favorite book, I wrote it.
Keith (17:55):
Mm Naomi, a three 20
Speaker 1 (17:58):
Favorite book. I wrote it.
Keith (18:00):
Nehemia 7:14. If you could just look at… Hey folks, can I switch this around? Nehemia, I want you to look for this verse and I’ll look for that person. Okay? I want you to go to Ezra 2:9. And if you can read that and here’s what I love about our experience in the past is what really, really, really inspired me and caused me to be quite frustrated was when I was looking over your shoulder and you had the Hebrew Bible in front of you and you were reading in Hebrew, but you were translating in English. Would you do me a favor and take me back to those days of the Old City of Jerusalem? So I want you to go to Ezra tonight. I just want you to pick a couple of these and give me, and folks remember, can you tell them the two words that Yeshua is using? I’m sorry, that in Hebrew, these two words mean
Nehemia (18:44):
(Hebrew).
Keith (18:44):
Now can you read …
Nehemia (18:47):
So Ezra 2:9 is giving a list of different people who were involved in the return to Zion and it says the sons of Zaccai 760. So Zaccai was somebody’s name.
Keith (18:58):
Okay, excellent. Now go to Nehemia 3:20.
Nehemia (19:01):
And Nehemia 3:20 is a repeat of the same list.
Keith (19:06):
Go to Nehemia 7:14.
Nehemia (19:09):
Well 3:20 is interesting because here we have Baruch, the son of Zabbai. In the body of the text and in the margin, it says Zabbai. That’s interesting. And there we have clearly what is, I shouldn’t say clearly. In my opinion, what we have is clearly a graphic confusion between the letter bet and let her kof in the square Hebrew script.
Keith (19:29):
Excellent.
Nehemia (19:29):
Okay. What was the next one? Nehemia 7:14. And we here we have the sons of Zaccai. That’s the same as in the list in Ezra 3 or whatever. Okay.
Keith (19:42):
So I’m just giving you… So when you see that word, what does it, what does it say?
Nehemia (19:45):
So Zaccai, well, first thing I think of is rabbi Jokanon ben Zacci who was a leading rabbi at the time of the siege of Jerusalem in the year, approximately 78 AD. Went over to the Roman side. Zaccai was somebody’s name and it meant innocent. And it comes from, well, tell me where you’re going with this.
Keith (20:05):
I’m trying to get, you know, so I had a conversation with Rabbi Eliezer ben Yehudah two weeks ago. I called Rabbi. Rabbi ben Yehudah is the grandson of Eliezer ben Yehudah and
Nehemia (20:16):
Who is the original Eliezer ben Yehudah?
Keith (20:17):
I would argue he’s the man who resurrected the Hebrew language, as we know it.
Nehemia (20:21):
He is credited with helping to resurrect modern spoken Hebrew, not written Hebrew.
Keith (20:25):
So I called him on another matter and I was talking to him and he says to me, and he’s a wise guy. He says, well, Keith, you know, as I read, there’s something that happens. When I come across Hebrew names, it’s as if it’s the gunpowder of the verse. That the name actually sometimes gives you a chance to look at the name and what the name means can sometimes blow the verse up. So the idea of asking, well, what does this word mean? And what do these names mean? And what would be the root of that name? So that’s what I’m getting to.
Nehemia (20:55):
Okay. So we’ve talked in the past, even in this episode, I think, about how every noun and adjective verb has a three-letter root. And here we’re presented with a word with a two letter root. And the two letter root is zayin kof. And the assumption is that the third letter is either a heh or another kof. And in that case, it, because it’s hollow, one of the letters drops out or maybe that’s the definition of hollow actually. So, and what the third letter is, is debatable, whether it’s a heh or a kof. So Zaccai means pure. And so let’s give an example, Exodus 27:20. And you shall command the children of Israel and they shall take for themselves [Hebrew]. Olive oil that is zach, pure. Pure olive oil doesn’t have impurities in it. It’s probably what we would call extra-virgin olive oil. But that has a very specific definition. I don’t know if it has that definition in the Tanakh precisely that way. Um, that’s like a cold press olive oil, right? Um, and then Leviticus 24:2 [Hebrew], which again is olive oil. That’s pure (Hebrew), which has been crushed. So they crushed the olives and they put them in these bags and whatever oozes out in that first cold press, that is the pure. And the word ? added. And then, uh, which is the crushed. Exodus, 30:34, right? These are, there’s nothing theological here, right? We’re not talking about people’s hearts or their intentions. We’re talking about certain types of materials, right? A certain kind of olive oil. And then here in Exodus 30:34, we have, um, [Hebrew]. It’s the feminine form. Before it was zach masculine and here it is zaccah.
Nehemia (22:36):
So it’s pure frankincense, right? What’s non pure frankincense? You mix some other powders in with it. Why would you do that? It’s very expensive. So you cut it, you water it down. So they’re saying no, no, no, no. God’s saying it has to be pure frankincense. Leviticus 24:7 again has(Hebrew), pure frankincense. And then sometimes it’s used metaphorically and let’s see, um, Job 8:6. It says [Hebrew], if you are pure and straight-laced, your zaccah is literally straight. Right? But straight-laced in the sense of having integrity in biblical Hebrew. And so the parallel there is pure, right? And you said an interesting statement earlier. You said, my heart literally fell. Well, no, your heart didn’t literally fall. So this is interesting. You actually said that. And I paid attention because in modern English usage of today, literally is used metaphorically. They’ll say he’s literally Hitler. Obviously, whatever you think of him, he’s not literally Hitler, unless you believe in reincarnation, right? So, you think he has the attributes of Hitler. He’s obviously not literally Hitler, because you don’t look anything like Hitler, right? So people use that regularly in the modern usage. They use literally to mean metaphorically. Isn’t that ironic?
Keith (24:02):
Did I really do that earlier? Will the editors….
Nehemia (24:05):
Oh, no, they’re leaving it in. Leave it in guys. So, here zach is being used metaphorically. And in Proverbs 20 verse 11 it says [Hebrew]. If pure, if his action is pure and straight laced, the meaning is he has integrity. Um, but again, even straight-laced is a metaphor, right? What does straight mean? Doesn’t mean what it means in modern English. Straight means similar to straight-laced, that you’re walking the straight path rather than the crooked path. But metaphorically I’m not walking any path. Right? I’m sitting in a chair, right? I’m sitting in a chair. Am I doing things that are righteous or unrighteous? Righteous is straight, unrighteous is crooked in the biblical Hebrew. So we have this usage in the Tanakh where zach means for your actions to be pure. And it comes metaphorically from pure materials, like pure frankincense and pure olive oil. And the olive oil is strained out. Right? You don’t want kinds of impurities. You can add some water to it. So the pure olive oil is just pure. Right? So now we go back to this verse, [Hebrew] pure of heart, right? It means having a heart that has – meaning there’s no impurities in your heart. Right? Think of frankincense, the olive oil. There’s nothing, no bad stuff mixed in there. Right? You’re doing something righteous. That’s what it means, I think. Delitzsch interestingly translated it. Ashrey (Hebrew) those who have a clear heart. He used the word (Hebrew). And why did he do that? Uh, it was a reasonable translation, right? I’m not saying it’s wrong. It’s different than the way Shem Tov’s Hebrew Matthew has it. But he took that from Psalm 2:12, uh, perhaps potentially from Psalm 2, he interprets (whether you agree with him or not) he interpreted it as referring to the Messiah. Um, (Hebrew)
Keith (26:06):
We gotta slow down on that one. So let’s back up for a second. This is important, you guys, because what we… You can actually get this book, Delitzsch’s book, The Hebrew Gospels, where he’s taking the Greek and he’s translating it back into Hebrew. And an example where he used a different word, and you’re saying it’s possible. Can I use that word theologically?
Nehemia (26:26):
I don’t know that’s it’s theological here. He’s making, he’s using the principle of association, perhaps. I don’t know for sure. But in Psalm 2:12 in the King James has, kissed the son lest he be angry. And the son is understood by them to be, by the translators of the King James, to be the son of God who is the Messiah. Now, some Jews would agree with that and say, son of God, in the sense that Solomon was called the son of God, and that he’s the chosen. I think we’ll get to that later, hopefully in a future episode. But (Hebrew) also is translated by Jewish translators as kiss in purity. Like your heart should be pure and clean when you come to kiss and pay homage to the Messiah, wherever that is. Right? So JPS has pay homage in good faith, right? And what’s the good faith. That’s a paraphrase. What they would literally understand it to mean is kiss with purity of heart. Right? So I think (I could be wrong). My hypothesis is that Delitzsch is taking that word bar from Psalm 2:12 and using..
Keith (27:26):
Give us the translation one more time.
Nehemia (27:28):
So blessed are those who are pure in heart, but pure using the word from Psalm 2:12, that when you kiss the son, whoever that is, you’re kissing him with a pure heart. He’s kind of maybe taking a dual interpretation of it, which is possible. That could be the correct interpretation. So that’s Delitazsch. We have this idea of people doing things with the right heart in a number of places in the Tanakh. And I want to start with Psalm 51 (in the Hebrew verse 12) Here I think in the English, it’s a few verses off. 51:12. In the King James’ it is verse 10. Create in me a clean heart, different word completely for, for clean. But it’s talking about the nature of your heart. So it’s (Hebrew) right? So it’s a pure heart, but with a different word for pure. But it’s the same principle there. Create me a clean heart Oh God and renew a right spirit within me. So this first off is just a purely Tanakh idea. And it reminds me of another passage, which doesn’t talk about heart. It talks about spirit. But again, in the sense it’s sort of related. And I have a lot of people, I share this with Christians, and they’re shocked that this is in the Tanakh. They’re like, no, that’s gotta be in Acts somewhere. That’s in one of the epistles of Paul and it’s um, Ezekiel 18:31.
Nehemia (28:50):
I’ll read it in the King James. Cast away from all your transgressions whereby you have transgressed. Sorry, cast away from you all your transgressions, where you have transgressed and make you a new heart and a new spirit. For why will you die, oh house of Israel?I have no pleasure in the death of him that dies says, Lord, Yehovah, or therefore (or wherefor) turn yourselves and live ye. So here in Psalms, the prayer is to create me a new heart. And in Ezekiel, the exhortation of the prophets. He’s telling the people get rid of your transgressions and sins and make for yourselves a new heart and a new spirit. So this is a purely Tanakh idea of having the new heart, the pure heart, the clean heart. Get rid of your heart, which has sin, and take upon a new heart. Now we talked about in an earlier episode, II Chronicles 25. I’m going to put it in a little bit of context. For each one of the Kings of Israel and Judah, we have the statement in the book of Kings, 1 & 11 Kings, the book of Kings. In the book of Kings we have, meaning in the Greek it’s divided into first and second. Actually in the Greek it’s third and fourth, but we’ll leave that for a different discussion. So we have the book of Kings and in Kings for almost every king it’ll say he did that which was right in the eyes of Yehovah or he didn’t do right in the eyes of Yehovah. And then all of a sudden in II Chronicles, 25:1, which is taking information from Kings and adding more information, it says about King (Hebrew), Amaziah in English.
Nehemia (30:25):
It says Amaziah was 25 years old when he reigned. And he reigned in Jerusalem for 29 years. And the name of his mother was Jehoaddan of Jerusalem. (Hebrew) and he did that which was straitlaced, that which was right in the eyes of Yehovah. Could be any king, nothing special here. And then, that’s taken out of the type of information we get from Kings. And all of a sudden he says [Hebrew], but not with a pure, complete heart, not with a complete heart. So there’s this idea we’re hearing in II Chronicles, 25, that you can fulfill perfectly the letter of the law, follow everything that God commanded in the Torah. But if your heart’s not in the right place, you’ve got a problem.
Keith (31:19):
Now, Nehemia, I want to ask something because I’m trying to be sensitive folks, I’m trying to be sensitive. I don’t know if you’re ready for a transition or not.
Nehemia (31:29):
Oh, I want to finish this passage and we’ll go to a transaction. And we’ll talk about the really controversial stuff in the plus episode. I want to finish because this is the mild stuff. Wait till we get to the controversy. So I Kings 8:61, here it’s King David. I believe it’s King David speaking to his son and he says [Hebrew], and let your heart be complete with Yehovah, our God. [Hebrew] to walk in his statutes and to keep his commandments as this day. So there’s two aspects of this, keeping the commandments and doing it with a complete heart. You can have one without the other and you could have the other without the one, right? I mean, look, there’s this perception, well, I just have to keep these commandments perfectly. And this is actually something I was taught in rabbinical Judaism, that if all Israel keeps two Shabbats in a row, perfectly in accordance with rabbinical law, the Messiah will automatically come. Just two, because every Jew.. there are so many laws for Shabbat that the rabbis have created. So nobody keeps it perfectly. But if all of Israel would keep it just twice, it would be an accomplished fact that the Messiah would automatically come. And what we’re hearing here is not enough to do it perfectly or whether it’s according to God’s commands to the rabbinical, right? That’s a different question. But it’s not enough to do it perfectly. You have to have the complete heart. First Kings 15:4. And this is interesting because this is the exact opposite of Amaziah in the book of Kings. Amaziah did everything (Hebrew) straight-laced in the eyes of Yehovah. Straight, but not with a complete heart. Now it’s King Asa and the high places he did not remove, but Asa did, let’s see [Hebrew]. However, the heart of Asa was complete with Yehovah all of his days. So Asa didn’t fulfill the letter of the law. He allowed the high places to remain, but his heart was in the right place.
Nehemia (33:34):
And that’s, what? How can your heart be in the right place if you don’t do that which is right? Because God is the judge of all the earth. God decides, he looks in our hearts. That’s how merciful he is. And he knows what it is we intended. Psalm 24:3-5. I’m going to skip over that guys. Look it up. Psalm 73:10. And therefore the people turn in praise and find no fault in them. And they say, how can God know? Is there knowledge with the most high? So are the wicked also at ease, they increase in riches. All in vain I have kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence. So what’s happening here is the righteous are looking at the wicked and saying, wow, that guy is prospering. Why have I bothered to have a clean heart? I should just be wicked like him and I’ll also prosper. So the wicked look at the, sorry, the righteous looks at the wicked and he’s misled, thinking, there’s no benefit in keeping God’s commandments. I can just be a bad guy and I’ll thrive. So they’re misled like that. For all day long I’ve been plagued and punished every morning. So when bad things happen to good people, they can come to the wrong conclusions that I should just be bad in that case. Right? And of course what the Psalm was saying, no, be good. Cause in the end, God will judge all things. Proverbs 16:2, all the ways of man are pure (zachs same word as in Hebrew Matthew) are pure in his eyes.
Nehemia (34:58):
(Hebrew) but Yehovah is the measure of spirits. The measure of souls. In other words, Yehovah looks in your heart and he knows. And I’ll end with this. Psalm 44:21-22. Look guys there is also Jeremiah 17:10. I am Yehovah who investigates the heart, who examines the kidneys. It makes it sound like he’s some kind of surgeon. No, but the kidneys is, you know, we think of the thoughts having in your brain and you’re in your head, which they also had that idea, but they also have this idea of it being in your kidneys. So Yehovah says, look into your heart, look into your thoughts. Um, giving each man, according to his ways and according to his actions, right? So God judges you based on your actions, but he also takes into account what’s in your heart, according to Jeremiah 17:10. Also I Kings 8:39 guys, look it up.
Nehemia (35:45):
But now Psalm 44:21 to 22 is incredible. And I’ll end with this. And then we have to talk in the next part about the really controversial information. What does it mean to see God? So Psalm 44:20 to 21, uh, in the King James it’s actually verses 19 to 20, I believe. Yeah. Though you cast us, crushed to where? I mean, this is the JPS, it’s horrible translation. Here’s King James, though thou has sore broken us up in the place of dragons, (place of dragons, wow). I don’t have time to get into it. Not exactly what it means. It’s actually more like crocodiles. And covered us with the shadow of death. If we have forgotten the name of our God and stretched our hands to a strange God, and then verse 22 in the Hebrew, 21 in the English, God will surely search it out. For he knows the secrets of the heart. So it describes your situation of people whose hearts in the right place, right? Just like King Asa. But he does something wrong. It’s like we talked about in a previous episode, the king of the causers, the Kusari. His heart is in the right place, but he doesn’t know any better. And so he worships a foreign God. That’s addressed here. I raise up my hands and I call to the name of the wrong God. I called God, the true God, by the wrong name. We’re not even talking pronunciation here. It’s the completely wrong name, a different name altogether. God is that merciful. He can look in our hearts and see what we intended because we had the pure heart. So maybe Yeshua when he said blessed are those pure in heart, knew what he meant, meant what he said. And he wasn’t saying well, pure heart. But what I mean by that is you have checked the right boxes from the Jewish perspective, you’ve checked the right boxes from the theological Christian perspective. I don’t actually mean pure in heart. I mean pure in doctrine, pure in observance of theology and observance of commandments and rabbinical law. Maybe he meant what he said, pure in heart.
Keith (37:47):
Well, can I read one last thing? Just one last thing, folks. Proverbs 20 verse nine, who can say, I have cleansed my heart. I am pure from my sin. And I will tell you this, Nehemia, when we were talking about this, we actually, one of the things that has been a blessing folks is, is we got a chance to have some conversations back and forth. And I know we’re going to talk about this in the next section, which I’m excited about. But when I think about heart, I hate to, I mean, when you hear heart, I hear a picture. I’m thinking of this, Nehemia. Bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump. So if I had a pure heart and I physically wanted to give you my heart, would that make you, if it was,
Nehemia (38:22):
No, heart here is a metaphor for your heart.
Keith (38:26):
Of course. But why heart?
Nehemia (38:27):
Well, in other words, people get excited. They feel their heart beating fast. And when they’re sad, they feel it in their heart. Right?
Keith (38:34):
So there’s something that happens. In other words, when we see heart, it’s not like a picture that you can’t relate to. It’s like my heart starts to… For example. Let me just tell you something that happened. Today my heart fluttered folks. And let me tell you why my heart fluttered. My heart fluttered because Nehemia was in studio without a jacket for two episodes. I’m going to tell the story. I have to, my heart fluttered. I was excited about this. And I think your heart fluttered too. And you’re going to tell people about it before you go to the plus. So we’re in here and I’ve got my jacket. Cause I’m thinking Nehemia’s going to wear his jacket. I got to bring my jacket. But I couldn’t do with just the shirt. He had a shirt without a jacket. So we do two episodes and we’re going to do the third episode. We’re going to take a break. And all of a sudden here comes Lynelle. She walks in the room and she’s got a bag. I couldn’t believe it. My heart starts to flutter. What’s in the bag?
Nehemia (39:22):
This jacket. And you actually said – I’m not the kind of guy you can go shopping at Walmart for. I’ve got special sizes.
Keith (39:31):
She walks in and she gets the thing and she puts it on Nehemia and he puts it on and I could see him. And I said, you know, say Lynelle. Now, I mean, did your heart not flutter?
Nehemia (39:41):
Like, she’s an impressive woman, my wife. Um, I’ll tell you, we had this incident. We were in Washington DC and the flight was canceled twice. We finally get there on the third flight, but our bags aren’t there. And we were carrying thousands of dollars of equipment to go to the museum of the Bible, to photograph Torah scrolls. And we’ve come there. It had been planned for months and we’re there and we don’t have all of our equipment. And she says, well, what do you need? And I’m there with a colleague. And he tells her the name of the equipment. She says, I’ll get that. And we’re both like, you don’t understand. We have to order this equipment a month in advance. You can’t just walk into a regular store and buy specialized equipment. That afternoon she comes back with the equipment.
Keith (40:20):
Heart fluttering.
Nehemia (40:21):
Incredible. So, all right, let’s end with a prayer and then we’ll continue in the plus section. We’ll talk about the exciting part.
Keith (40:28):
What’s exciting? Are you going to tell us?
Nehemia (40:29):
We’re going to talk about what it means to see God. And we’re to talk about some really deep concepts that we’ve talked about in the past, but we never got into the nitty gritty. What it means to (Hebrew) glory. Amen. If you allow me to talk about that, it’s a bit controversial. It’s extremely controversial. Books were burned over this. Literally Jewish books were burned by other Jews. (Hebrew) father in heaven, thank you so much for blessing me with this amazing (Hebrew), this woman of valor that you’ve given me. Yehovah, thank you for giving me the opportunity to come to the studio and share these things with people. Thank you for the folks in this studio and the production group who have allowed us to come in and enable us to be able to teach these things and share it with the audience. And Yehovah, thank you so much for giving me the understanding of Hebrew so I can understand what it means and share with others this idea of a pure heart. Yehovah, I pray that you give me a new heart and a new spirit so that I can come before you, not for my own sake, not to be righteous in my own eyes or pure in my own eyes, but you who examines the hearts and the kidneys and the spirit so that it can be pure by your standard with a complete heart. Amen.
Keith (41:41):
And Father, thank you so much for this opportunity. Thank you so much for the study. Thank you so much for the open door that you’ve given us to be able to be here at this time. And we just lift it all up to you. Help us to be like David, create in us a clean heart. Put a new and right spirit within us. In your name. Amen.
Narrator (41:59):
You have been listening to Hebrew Gospel Pearls with Nehemia Gordon and Keith Johnson. For a more in-depth study, check out Hebrew Gospel Pearls Plus at nehemiaswall.com and bfainternational.com. Thank you for your support.
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3 Comments
March 22, 2024 at 1:31 pm /
Nehemia says 1Kings 15:4, on the screen it’s 1Kings 15:14 but the actual verse is 2 Chronicles 15:17…
Come on editors. You can do better.
March 15, 2022 at 5:01 am /
I was wondering if you could help me concerning ‘Nesqu bar’ in terms of ‘Kiss the son’/’kiss purity’.
Could that bee interpreted as “kiss IN purity”? It seems to me that Judas’ betrayal of Yeshua with a kiss is an acting out of the violation of this idea, and (through context), unifies the Jewish and Christian perspectives…That is to say…he did not embrace purity in Kissing the Son.
January 29, 2022 at 7:51 pm /
זֵַכי “pure” according to Brown-Driver-Briggs means “literally [and actually literally!], pure, i.e. unmixed, free from foreign substances.” This idea resonates very well with its other definition “figurative, pure, clean, righteous.” The “foreign substances” if used in the figurative sense would be sin (Job 33:19). Yet when used with heart (which we don’t see used in the Tanakh), I think Nehemia was spot on when he said that it means being right with God, even if you fail to walk with God. In the NT, Paul really hits on this idea in Rom. 7:7-8:11 in how he wants to do what is right (7:18) yet fails to do it (7:19), but he knows that he is right with God (7:25). However, our actions are still a sign of whether we’re pure or right before God (see John 15:1-9; same Greek word in v. 3 as in Mat. 5:8.)
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