22 Remember ye the law of Moses My servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, even statutes and ordinances.
23 Behold, I send you Eliyah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of YHWH.
24 And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers; lest I come and smite the land with utter destruction.
Malachi 3
When most people think of the Bible they associate it with religion, which is only partially correct. It is a recounting of the history of a people and their relationship with their God and therefore contains both religious and historical elements. This is essential to understand because for that people the information contained within what is known as the Old Testament is a vital part of their legacy as a people and nation. Malachi identifies that people as Israel- the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob- and says that they are to remember the law of Moses, which was given to all Israel.
All the Children of Israel are to remember the law of Moses!
The family/nation of Israel was divided into the kingdom of Judah and the kingdom of Israel, but this in no way diminished the truth that the law of Moses had been given to all Israel; no one family could claim exclusivity over the instructions of YHWH given to Moses.
9 And Moses wrote this law and delivered it unto the priests the sons of Levi, that bore the ark of the covenant of YHWH, and unto all the elders of Israel.
Deuteronomy 31
There are those who feel that in our dealings with the Israeli government there is no need for referring to the Bible, and in fact some believe that only the teachings of Rabbi Ben Ammi are needed in the midst of the people he led for over 40 years, but I don’t agree; he himself stated that his people had only received a small portion of the knowledge they needed to continue growing from him, and he admonished them to continue to study. Continue studying what? Repeatedly go over the information he left only, or seek out additional information from the source he always quoted from, i.e., the Holy Scriptures?
I choose to believe he meant the latter, because the foundation of the State of Israel is the Torah. The Torah is the bedrock upon which this nation stands in the form of Judaism, the religious aspect of the life of the Jewish people. But it is also their link to their historical past. They trace their history back to the Patriarchs of the scriptures because it is there that the promises are found that give this land as an eternal inheritance to the seed of those founding fathers. It is there that they trace their beginnings as a nation, which is essential because they did not receive the mandate to establish this State based on their religion, but on their history as a nation of people.
Rabbi Ben Ammi said that we returned to this land as Israelites, the returned of the House of Israel, a nation of people who had gone into historical exile. The existence and deportation of the kingdom of Israel in/from this land is recorded in the Bible and in the historical record, there is no denying that it was real. The Bible further states that a remnant of this kingdom would return from exile to this land, and this is what Rabbi Ben Ammi based his statements on; his belief in the truth of this Biblical prophecy. He did not deny the Jewish people their claim as the returned of the kingdom of Judah, he was clear, however, that we don’t view ourselves collectively as Jewish, but as Israelites, and, as such, have a right to be in this land.
This is not a political issue; it is a matter of acceptance or non-acceptance of Biblical truth and why we cannot forsake the Holy Scriptures. The Jewish people cannot claim the whole land as an inheritance because they are Judeans, i.e., of the seed of Judah, and the demarcation of the two kingdoms is well known both biblically and historically. The standards of Judaism cannot be the measuring rod used to weigh the returned of the house of Israel; the Jewish people have had a cohesive existence for thousands of years and have thereby been able to build on the foundation of the law of Moses. The returned of the house Israel would start from that foundation and develop their own interpretation of it. No matriarchal claims can be required of them because there were 4 different mothers of the Children of Israel.
Malachi said that Eliyah the Prophet would be sent before the day of Judgment of YHWH; Ehliyahu was of the kingdom of Israel, to me this means that he is sent to remind the Children of Israel that we are one family. In the New Testament, Yeshuah, a Judean, is seen with Moses, a Levite, and Eliyah, the prophet to the house of Israel, to whom Yeshuah had proclaimed he was sent. This is the personification of the verses from Malachi.
Let he/she who has a heart to hear be blessed with the rewards that are promised!
17 And they shall be Mine, saith YHWH of hosts, in the day that I do make, even Mine own treasure; and I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him.
18 Then shall ye again discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth Him not.
Malachi 3
Comments