Eyes Wide Shut
Her priests have done violence to My teaching and they profane My set-apart matters. They have not distinguished between the set-apart and profane, nor have they made known the difference between the unclean and the clean. And they have hidden their eyes from My Sabbaths, and I am profaned in their midst. Yehezqel 22:26 ISR (Ezekiel)
Hidden their eyes – Can you read this verse in Ezekiel without shuddering? YHWH brought terrible judgment upon Israel when these things were true of His people. The priests, the ones most responsible for correctly interpreting and teaching His instructions, did violence to His mitzvot. They deliberately misinterpreted the text. Furthermore, they made no distinction between what was holy (as defined by YHWH) and was not holy. They accommodated to the social mores of the culture. They held no standard based on Torah. Specifically, they stopped recognizing the difference between unclean and clean. And the final straw? They hid their eyes from the Sabbath.
The Hebrew text is u-mishabtotai he-elimoo einehem. The Hebrew verb is ‘alam (to be hidden, concealed, secret). The ESV translated this phrase as “they have disregarded,” but the Hebrew is more forceful and more poetic. They have closed their eyes to the truth. They have shut their eyes to the instruction. They have pretended blindness toward the commandment. These priests and the people they lead no longer keep the fourth commandment. They know what it says. They know God expects it. They even have a history that verifies it. But they live with their eyes wide shut. Wide open to what they want, but shut to God’s instructions.
Oh, there are plenty of excuses. “It doesn’t really matter. I have God in my heart.” “One day is just as good as any other day. After all, God wants us to honor Him every day.” “That old tradition doesn’t apply to us anymore. Our religion has changed.” Maybe those excuses sound too much like the ones we hear today. The priests of Israel before the Babylonian captivity were more likely to say, “But other people also worship God and they don’t follow those commandments.” Or maybe, “We are just doing what our King does. After all, he is God’s representative.” It really doesn’t matter what rationalization we use, ancient or modern. If Shabbat is an eternal covenant between God and His people, then it didn’t end in 598 BCE and it didn’t end in 33 CE. Unless, of course, you decide to shut your eyes.
Blind men leading the blind. No wonder we are falling down. Does anyone really believe that the Church could simply declare Sunday to be the same as the Sabbath three hundred years after the end of the apostles, ignoring all the historical evidence to the contrary, and think that we would all believe it? Apparently so. That’s a working definition of “eyes wide shut.” “The problem is whether we obey or whether we merely play with the word of God.”[1]
Topical Index: Shabbat, hidden, conceal, ‘alam, Ezekiel 22:26
[1] Abraham Heschel, Man’s Quest for God, p. 101.
CROSS WORD PUZZLES – Yesterday I announced my latest book, and made a mess of the link to purchase it. It is all fixed now. Here is the correct link in case you couldn’t order yesterday. CLICK HERE.
Please tell me how do you show or tell your christian wife and adult children TW without turning them off
Dear brother you can’t show them TW before you show them the fruit of Torah lived out in your life.
You must become a living parable.
The Kingdom of heaven is like Irv when he honors and bears with his wife and adult children and reflects the hesed of YHVH as they sneer, laugh, chide, and joke about his newly found understanding of what it means to reflect the image of Messiah.
could this be EWS #2: assuming Ezekiel considered the day he references to be the day we call “Saturday”?
Too cryptic for me. What is EWS #2?
Return To Me
The LORD Will Save
~ Declare and set forth your case; indeed, let them consult together. Who has announced this from of old? Who has long since declared it? Is it not I, the LORD? And there is no other God besides Me, A righteous God and a Savior; There is none except Me. “Turn to Me (repent) and be saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other. “I have sworn by Myself, The word has gone forth from My mouth in righteousness and will not turn back, that to Me every knee will bow, every tongue will swear allegiance.…~ (Isaiah 45.20-25)
~ The nations (all the ends of the earth) are exhorted to draw near to Elohim. None besides is able to help; He (alone) is the Savior, who can save without the assistance of any, but without whom none can save. If the heart is brought into the obedience of The Lamb sent from God, the knee will cheerfully obey His commands. To Christ men shall come from every nation for blessings; all that hate His cause shall be put to shame, (what is His “cause?”- “to seek and to save that which was lost”) and all believers shall rejoice in Him as their Friend and Portion. All (both Jew and Gentile,- “sinners only”) must come to Him: may we now come to Him as the Lord our Righteousness, walking according to His commandments. ~
YHWH Tzidqenu (in Hebrew), appears in Jeremiah 23 as the name for the Davidic king who does what is right and just (23:6). The point of the name “The LORD is Our Righteousness,” whether applied to the king or the city, is to underscore the fact that Israel will be redeemed and restored only through the Lord and his power. Moreover, God’s people will live in right relationship with God and with each other only as they rely upon him each day.
This is just as true for us as it was for the children of Israel. “The Lord Is Our Righteousness” could just as well be our name too. We are declared to be righteous, we are brought into right relationship with God, we are enabled to live rightly with each other, only in the Lord. He alone can break down the walls that separate us from Him and each other (see Ephesians 2).
The good news is that this is exactly what God desires for and what he has made possible through Christ. As it says in 2 Corinthians 5:21: ‘~ For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ ~ Because of Christ, the LORD is our righteousness!
~It is His doing that you are united (in blood-covenant union) with the Messiah Yeshua. He has become wisdom for us from God, and righteousness and holiness and redemption as well! ~ (1 Corinthians 1.30)
Gen 3:6-7 And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat; and she gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat.
And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig-leaves together, and made themselves girdles.
There’s nothing new under the sun is there!?
OK! OK! Heschel’s book is on the way!!!!
You know, what is difficult for me is the knowledge of how many have sat under these blind teachers and been led astray. Having been on the wrong path myself for much of my life and even uttering some of the excuses (plus more) written above this whole thing makes me shudder!
That Y-H intends for us to keep His word is very evident if one can simply read what is written. It is much more work to get rid of the nonsense that has been pounded into my head by the modern church. That junk pops up in the most unexpected places.
Right now during the Christmas season is a fine example for me. Jesus wasn’t even born in Dec let alone on the 25th and His birth is not a feast we are commanded to remember but oh how we celebrate with lavish gifts and some things that permeate everything at this time of the year. Makes me want to go to a nice quiet island somewhere till Dec is over.
Okay, that was a bit of a rabbit trail but I think my point is made. I have my work cut out for me to shake off the things of this world and put on the things of Y-H and choose blessing/life rather than a curse. It sounds simple but it is not. This site is such an encouragement and presents some great starting points to do your own searching too.
Happy Trails!
Shalom, Dawn,
True, I so loathe going to shopping malls during this time, and having those “songs” pounded into my ears!
And having to see those disgusting decorations.