We are continuing our teaching from the Servant Passages, and we left off in Isa 65.4-5, where it says, “who sit among the graves (corpse impurity) and spend the night in secret places; who eat swines flesh, and the broth of unclean meat is in their pots. Who say, ‘Keep to yourself, do not come near me, for I am holier than you!’ These are smoke in my nostrils (irritating), a fire that burns all the day.” The primary sacrifice of the pagans was swine (pig-Prov 14.4; Acts 10.11-16; Ezek 4.12, Lev 5.3, 7.21; Isa 66.17). This is not the case with the Jews. One of the first things you learn when you understand Kedusha is that nobody can be “holier” than someone else. There are levels of kedusha, and everything associated with this word is related to the Temple. There is not a building with a kedusha outside of the Temple, not anywhere. In Hebrew thought, coming into the Temple is like coming into the Garden of Eden. There are rules, and if you do the wrong thing you could die (Acts 21.27-30).
The Kohanim (priests) have to wear linen garments, they cannot put wool on their body while wearing them. They cannot take those garments outside the inner courtyard (Azarah). However, there is an exception. The High Priest has one set of garments that are linen and another set that is wool, called the “Golden Garments.” He wears them together. In addition, a thread has five parts, of wool, one dyed blue (techelet), one dyed purple (Argamon), one dyed gold (Zahav), one dyed red (Shanni) and one part linen (Shesh). That makes one thread of his Golden Garments.
There are five parts to every thread in the Paroket (veil) and the coverings of the Mishkan. So, you can see a mixture of wool and linen, but the people couldn’t wear wool and linen together and neither could the priests. The High Priest is commanded by God to do it. Can we explain this? No, but it is a commandment of God. What we do know is that the office of High Priest has a higher kedusha, and that could be the reason. If the courtyard is a picture of the Garden of Eden, and man was made ruler over it before he sinned, then the High Priest is a picture of Adam and the Messiah (second Adam) and that office has a higher kedusha.
There will be a time when there will be no Temple. Why? We won’t need it anymore. We will have a body that is 100 percent perfect. It will be in the image of God. We will not need to be taught anything, we will already know it. People will walk in righteousness and will not have the ability to sin. As a result, there will be no need for a Temple because the purpose of the Temple was to teach us what we don’t know. Everything is there for us to understand. We haven’t arrived to all the understandings God has for us.
Remember the context for these verses and all the way to Isa 66.24 is the coming of the Messiah. Judgment is taking place. The people who “eat swines flesh” think they are “holier” than others. They think they are “free” from the Jewish Torah and they eat unclean things from their pots. The Lord says this is “smoke in my nostrils” or in other words, he is irritated by this, and he is indignant (“fire that burns all the day”).
We have mentioned this before, but when the Jewish people came out of Egypt there were three groups. These groups were Judah, Israel and the mixed multitude of non-Jews. Judah and Israel had what was called a “Dual Monarchy” with one king till after the time of Solomon. The mixed multitude was there with Saul, David and Solomon. David’s bodyguards were Philistines, you had Uriah the Hittite. You also had Ittai the Gittite (from Gath where Goliath came from) who commanded one third of the army of David. After Solomon, it was called the ‘Divided Kingdom” with two kings.
We have read in Isa 11.12 that a “nes” is lifted up for “the banished ones of Israel” (northern tribes), the “despised of Judah” (southern tribes) and the “nations” (mixed multitude of non-Jews. The “nes” (standard) is a term for the Messiah. We have the three camps, just like in the first redemption out of Egypt. Not everyone who is turning to the Torah is a descendant of Israel or Judah. We know there is this third group “from the nations” like it always has been.
Isa 65.6 says they were doing all these things but there is a “payback coming, a Yom Ha Din or “Day of Judgment.” This judgment of God is not only for their sins, but for the sins of their fathers. A portion of this verse is used in the Sotah ceremony as they stripped the suspected adulteress wife to her bosom and the priests say, “There fore I will measure their former work unto their bosom.” We have already covered the fact that the reason the non-Jews are grasping for the tzitzit of the Jew is because they thought that the one wearing them had the teaching that went along with the tzitzit, the commandments of God. So, the Jewish person wearing them is a walking promise of this regathering when Messiah comes (“In those days”). When we see a rainbow, what do you think? We think of the covenant God made with Noah, a promise. It is the same thing with the tzitzit. They symbolize the promises of God on the “corners” alluding to the redemption which will come from the “four corners of the earth.”
Some people in the Hebrew Roots Movement wear the tzitzit on their belt loops, but skip the corners. People that should be the most aware of the promise of the in-gathering from the four corners of the earth are not “grasping” the corner of the garment strongly. It is half-hearted, and only part of the commandment (tzitzit and the corner). Now, it is not important how much you know but two things are important. Be consistent in what you know. You just don’t “say” and not “do.” Also, your mistakes can become positives because we can learn from them and move forward. Also in Zech 8.23, the phrase ‘will take hold” or “will grasp” is written twice in Hebrew. This means this will happen twice. The first time was when Yeshua came the first time, and the outreach to the non-Jews began. They were called “Phoubemenoi” and “Sebemenoi” in Greek and these are the God-fearers. This word is all over the Gospels and Epistles. We are having the same movement today, and it will happen again during the Birth-pains.
In Acts 15.1-29 we have a big debate between believers who were from Beit Shammai and believers who were from Beit Hillel. They were debating over the non-Jews and their status. Shammai wanted total separation from the non-Jews through the 18 Edicts, which have been observed for over 50 years. Beit Hillel was against these edicts. In Acts and Galatians, believers from Beit Shammai have agreed that the non-Jews can come into the Kingdom, but they must become Jews through ritual circumcision first. Beit Hillel did not believe this, so a council was held and the decision of this council said that non-Jews did not need to become Jews through ritual circumcision (Acts 15.19-21). But, they were to abstain from idols, sexual immorality, things strangled (carrion) and from blood (niddah, murder, etc). These prohibitions were based on Ezek 33.25-26, which was based on the Torah. These four things aren’t just “four things” but there are whole chapters in the Scriptures on these things. The non-Jews were to learn about these things from the Torah, then go to the synagogue and learn the rest of the Torah (Acts 15.21). We will see the exact same thing in Acts 21.25.
Ezek 33.25-26 says that the blood was eaten (blood), they lifted up their eyes to idols Idolatry), they committed abominations (like eating things strangled, or carrion-Lev 17.15) and they defiled their neighbor’s wives (sexual immorality). These actions brought judgment. Before Acts 10, non-Jews did not have much responsibility in the synagogues, but they did keep the Sabbath, the Torah as it applied, went to the festivals and ate kosher. Later, non-Jews became shaliachim (apostles), nevi’im (prophets), zekanim (elders) and shamashim (deacons). From Exo 25, many of the commandments are directly applied to the temple. Lev 11 goes into the clean and unclean animals. These laws existed before the Torah because Abel and Noah knew what was clean and unclean.
We call unclean animals “treifah” but this actually means an animal who has died or has been killed by action on the windpipe (strangled), like big cats do. It is also used for any of the unclean animals, like pork, shell fish, snakes, catfish and mice. Certain “clean” animals are not suitable for korbanot on the altar of God. These would include deer, antelope, buffalo and so on. These laws applied to the non-Jews who joined themselves to Israel, as we see in Acts 15 and Acts 21. Obviously, swine in Isa 65.4 is not a clean animal, yet the people mentioned there are eating them and this was against what God had said.
In Part 45, we will pick up in Isa 65.8-10.
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