“Therefore behold, I am going to make them know—this time I will make them know My power and My might; and they shall know that My Name is Yahweh.” (Jeremiah 16: 21)
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Katie and I are traveling in Israel and gathering information for SnyderTalk. While we are there, I am posting excerpts from His Name is Yahweh in SnyderTalk.
The message in the book is important. Please take the time to read it.
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The Corruption of the Priesthood and Jesus’ Response
According to Josephus[i] and the Talmud, the corruption of the priesthood occurred long before Jesus’ birth. Herod the Great started the practice of selling the office of high priest to the family willing to pay the most money for it. According to Dr. Phillip Moore, a Bible scholar and writer,
“For nearly a century a detestable abuse prevailed, which consisted in the arbitrary nomination and deposition of the high priest. The high priesthood, which for fifteen centuries had been preserved in the same family, being hereditary according to the divine command,[ii] had at the time of Christ’s advent become an object of commercial speculation. Herod commenced these arbitrary changes,[iii] and after Judea became one of the Roman conquests the election of the high priest took place almost every year at Jerusalem, the procurators appointing and deposing them in the same manner as the praetorians later on made and unmade emperors.[iv] The Talmud speaks sorrowfully of this venality and the yearly changes of the high priest.
This sacred office was given to the one that offered the most money for it, and mothers were particularly anxious that their sons should be nominated to this dignity[v]….M. Derembourg, a modern Jewish savant, has remarked: ‘A few priestly, aristocratic, powerful, and vain families, who cared for neither the dignity nor the interests of the altar, quarreled with each other respecting appointments, influence, and wealth.”[vi]
The priests had turned Judaism into repetitious ceremonies that lacked the kind of reverence for and faith in Yahweh that He requires. In their minds, their traditions were the heart and soul of their faith. They could not have been more mistaken, and Jesus told them in no uncertain terms that they were dead wrong. In Matthew chapter 23, He said,
“The scribes and the Pharisees have seated themselves in the chair of Moses; therefore all that they tell you, do and observe, but do not do according to their deeds; for they say things and do not do them. They tie up heavy burdens and lay them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are unwilling to move them with so much as a finger.
But they do all their deeds to be noticed by men; for they broaden their phylacteries and lengthen the tassels of their garments. They love the place of honor at banquets and the chief seats in the synagogues, and respectful greetings in the market places, and being called Rabbi by men.
But do not be called Rabbi; for One is your Teacher, and you are all brothers. Do not call anyone on earth your father; for One is your Father, He who is in heaven. Do not be called leaders; for One is your Leader, that is, the Messiah. But the greatest among you shall be your servant. Whoever exalts himself shall be humbled; and whoever humbles himself shall be exalted.
But woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you shut off the kingdom of heaven from people; for you do not enter yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in.
Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you devour widow’s houses, and for a pretense you make long prayers; therefore you will receive greater condemnation.
Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you travel around on sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.
Woe to you blind guides who say, ‘Whoever swears by the temple, that is nothing; but whoever swears by the gold of the temple is obligated.’ You fools and blind men! Which is more important, the gold or the temple that sanctified the gold? And, ‘Whoever swears by the altar, that is nothing, but whoever swears by the offering on it, he is obligated.’ You blind men, which is more important, the offering, or the altar that sanctifies the offering. Therefore, whoever swears by the altar, swears both by the altar and by everything on it. And whoever swears by the temple, swears both by the temple and by Him who dwells within it. And whoever swears by heaven, swears both by the throne of God and by Him who sits upon it.
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier provisions of the Law: justice and mercy and faithfulness; but these are the things you should have done without neglecting the others. You blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside they are full of robbery and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and of the dish, so that the outside of it may become clean also.
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. So you, too, outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous, and say, ‘If we had been living in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partners with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ So you testify against yourself, that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of the guilt of your fathers.
You serpents, you brood of vipers, how will you escape the sentence of hell? Therefore, behold, I am sending you prophets and wise men and scribes; some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city, so that upon you may fall the guilt of all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the Altar. Truly I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.
Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How many times I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling. Behold, your house is being left to you desolate! For I say to you, from now on you will not see Me until you say ‘Blessed is He Who comes in the Name of Yahweh!’”[vii]
Jesus condemned the priests and their traditions. They were supposed to represent Him before His people. Instead, they were leading His children astray. If you think Jesus’ words in Matthew chapter 23 were harsh, take a look at His description of the penalty for this offense:
“But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him to have a heavy millstone hung around his neck, and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.”[viii]
This penalty is very severe, even inhumane, but Jesus said the punishment for leading His children astray is much worse. It is eternal damnation and perpetual burning. This is a deadly serious matter, and the priests should have known better. Through His prophets, Yahweh had told the priests many times not to substitute religious ritual and tradition for faith and obedience—but to no avail. For example, He said,
- “I hate, I reject your festivals, nor do I delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer up to Me burnt offerings and your grain offerings, I will not accept them; and I will not even look at the peace offerings of your fatlings. Take away from Me the noise of your songs; I will not even listen to the sound of your harps. But let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”[ix]
- “Because this people draw near with their words and honor Me with their lip service, but they remove their hearts far from Me, and their reverence for Me consists of tradition learned by rote, therefore behold, I will once again deal marvelously with this people, wondrously marvelous; and the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the discernment of their discerning men shall be concealed.”[x]
- “How can you say, ‘We are wise, since we have Yahweh’s Law?’ Look how it has been falsified by the lying pen of the scribes! The wise men are put to shame, alarmed, caught out because they have rejected Yahweh’s Word. What price their wisdom now?”[xi]
- “‘But as for you, you have turned aside from the way; you have caused many to stumble by the instruction; you have corrupted the covenant of Levi,’ says Yahweh Sabaoth. ‘So I also have made you despised and abased before all the people, just as you are not keeping My ways but are showing partiality in the instruction.’”[xii]
Jeremiah went so far as to blame the priests as a group for all the hardships inflicted on the Jewish people:
“The shepherds (i.e., the priests) are the ones who have been stupid: they have not searched for Yahweh. This is why they have not prospered and why their whole flock has been dispersed.”[xiii]
In response to Jesus’ rebuke, the priests plotted to kill Him. How ironic. They conspired to kill the One who came to redeem and save them, and their sin opened the door for the whole world to be saved by the shedding of His innocent blood.
His Name is Yahweh: It explains why God’s Name is so important. It’s available in eBook format and in paperback. It’s also available for free in PDF format.
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His Name is Yahweh, the website, is a companion of the book His Name is Yahweh.
To see videos that explain the importance of God’s Name, click here.
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“The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me. Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.” (John 17: 22-24)
See “His Name is Yahweh”.
[i] Josephus was a Jewish general and historian who lived during the time of the Jewish revolt against the Romans in the Bar Kochba rebellion in the second century A.D.
[ii] Josephus. Book XX, Chapter X, 1.
[iii] Josephus. Book XV, Chapter III, 1.
[iv] Josephus. Book XVIII, Chapter II, 3; Book XX, Chapter IX, 4.
[v] Talmud Yoma.
[vi] This passage is quoted from Moore, Phillip. The End of History—Messiah Conspiracy, Vol. I, Atlanta: Ramshead Press International Corporation, 1996, p. 71.
[vii] Matthew 23.
[viii] Matthew 18: 6.
[ix] Amos 5: 21-24.
[x] Isaiah 29: 13-14.
[xi] Jeremiah 8: 8-9 from The New Jerusalem Bible.
[xii] Malachi 2: 8-9 from The New Jerusalem Bible.
[xiii] Jeremiah 10: 21 from The New Jerusalem Bible. The parentheses are mine.
