Thursday, November 2, 2017

Even the foreigner that shall dwell among you

People like to use the passages in The Torah that say even foreigners, even people not by Blood descended from Abraham, living among you need to be Circumcised and follow other parts of The Law, against Paulian theology (or to reinterpret Paulian theology).

Those verses are about Nationality/Citizenship.  The Nation of Israel were given special privileges by Yahuah, one of which was the right to live in the Land that He gave to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.  People could become citizens of that nation without needing to be literal genealogical descendants of Jacob, but that required following the rules he gave that Nation.

But that does not mean Salvation, or even the ability to please Yahuah and be considered righteous, was limited to that Nation, or people living by that Nation's rules.

Circumcision was introduced in Genesis 17.  So it's significant that we can clearly infer Jethro's family/priesthood did not practice Circumcision (I don't believe he descended from Abraham, we have to go outside the Torah to find him called a Kenite, but he was still in the Torah only said to be a priest in Midian, not a Midianite).  Moses had married Jethro's daughter and lived as one of them for 40 years before the Burning Bush, and yet still hadn't Circumcised his son.  In fact Zipporah seemed rather disturbed by the practice.

Deuteronomy 2 has God telling the Israelites he's NOT giving them any land of Edom, Moab or Ammon, saying he gave those lands to those nations.  They may have had Circumcision, Edom almost certainly did, but not the rest of the Torah.

That includes The Sabbath, I did a post already on my Prophecy Blog about how The Sabbath as a custom was introduced in Exodus 16.  The precedent may have been set by Genesis 1-2, but there is no evidence of the Patriarchs in Genesis or Israelites in Exodus before this practicing it.

God promised Abraham that in his Seed shall ALL the Nations and Families of the Earth be Blessed.

So those are all points for Torah only and heavily Torah centric people.  Going to the rest of the Hebrew Bible.  Did Jonah Circumcise all the men of Nineveh?  Did the Queen of Sheba follow all of the Law?  Obviously not, but Jesus clearly refereed to them as Saved.  And God also calls Cyrus his Anointed in Isaiah 44/45.

Amos 9:7 is a verse that implies there are even other nations Yahuah might have had similar relationships with.

First it says the children of Israel are like the children of the Cushites to Him.  Isaiah 18 and Zephanaih also have verses taken to imply the Cushites were like the Israelites.  And then there was Moses Cushite wife, and Ebedmelech who was an Ethiopian in Jerusalem who was friends with Jeremiah.  And the Ethiopian eunuch reading Isaiah in Acts 8.

Then He says He brought Israel out of Mizraim like he brought the Philistines out of Caphtor and the Arameans out of Kir, a location in northern Mesopotamia.

This is one of a few verses that seems to say the Philistines came from Caphtor, which causes people to think the usual interpretation/translation of Genesis 10:14 must be wrong in saying they came from Casluhim.  But if this Amoz verse is comparing their relation with Caphtor to Israel's with Mizraim, then perhaps they genealogically descended from the Casluhim but had sojourned for a time in Caphtor?

Throughout the Torah and even down to the time of David, Aram was mostly associated with northern Mesopotamia, parts of Turkey, Syria and northern Iraq on the other side of the Euphrates.  Harran is repeatedly called a land of Aram.  I think Hadadezer son of Rehob of Zobah might be a king of the Assyrian King's List.  The origin story of Aram Damascus is interestingly told in 1 Kings 11, and Yahuah is claiming credit for it there.

It's been speculated that the comparison of Cush to Israel here means Cush too was brought out of Mizraim.  Interestingly the origins of the Kingdom of Kush/Nubia that later became the 25th Dynasty can be estimated to be contemporary with Amoz (the reigns of Uzziah and Jeroboam II).

But Salvation isn't even limited to those righteous Gentiles either.  Ezekiel 16 clearly teaches that even Sodom will be restored.

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