 You're listening to the Naked Bible Podcast. To support this podcast, go to nakedbiblepodcast.com and click on the support link in the upper right hand corner. If you're new to the podcast and Dr. Heizer's approach to the Bible, click on newstarthere at nakedbiblepodcast.com. Welcome to the Naked Bible Podcast, episode 106, book of Obadiah, part one. I'm Delayman, Trey Strickland, and he's the scholar, Dr. Michael Heizer. Hey, Mike, how you doing? Good. How are you doing this week, Trey? I'm doing pretty good. I'm excited to get back into the books of the Bible here. Yeah, back into the Old Testament, back into everyone's favorite book, the Book of Obadiah. This is one book that I'm clueless. I do not remember anything, so I'm excited to hear it fresh. Well, odds are good that you've never heard a sermon or anything on it, so. Never. Yeah. Very neglected. Yeah, absolutely. With only 20-some verses, I mean, 21 verses, what can you expect? I think, though, I think it's fair to say that this will be yet another example, again, of many that we've had on the podcast, of why it's important to have the Old Testament or Old Testament theology floating around in your head in order to understand New Testament theology. That might sound crazy, like, well, I've never heard anybody going through the New Testament anywhere talk about Obadiah, well, yeah, that's the problem. That's the whole point. It actually does contribute to a number of things, theological points in the New Testament. So I think we'll get an illustration of that again, and of course, the corollary to that is kind of why it's a travesty to not hear the Old Testament preached. And we could do probably a whole episode on why that is, why it's neglected, willful neglect, laziness, just lack of training, who knows, but I mean, I've run into people who have sat under ministries that are very public, very high profile, where they've just been told we're not going to bother with the Old Testament because we're Christians. And it's really a shame. And I think going into this subject, even a book as quote, unquote, insignificant as Obadiah will sort of reveal why that's a mistake. So we're going to do this in two parts. What I want to do in this part, the first one is essentially sort of overview the book and get into some of the content, some of the theological touch points, again, things that will, once we get into them, will sound familiar because of things in the New Testament. But I want to save most of that for part two, but we will get into some of it here. So as far as an overview, the book of Obadiah is about Edom. OK, it's a judgment oracle against Edom. And so we need to start with, well, why is Edom important? Why should we even care about Edom in biblical thinking? Well, because it does have a theological role. So the entire book of Obadiah, all 21 verses, is broadly speaking about the relationship between Israel and Edom. And Edom, both in Obadiah and in other prophetic books, sort of transcends just being a place, and it becomes kind of paradigmatic or a symbolic representative of the hostile nations that surround Israel, especially Babylon. And we know Babylon is important for lots of things in biblical, theological thinking. So Edom is going to connect into some of those things. And hence the book of Obadiah is going to play a role in that. So as far as Edom itself, what is it? Well, it's a place name. I think most listeners are going to know that. Harper's Bible Dictionary defines it this way. The name Edom itself is derived from the Semitic root, meaning red or ruddy, and given to the area situated south of the Dead Sea on both sides of the Wadi Arabah, because of the reddish color of the sandstone of that district, unquote. So it gives you a little bit of a geographical orientation south of the Dead Sea. The land of Edom is also known as Seir, S-E-I-R in the Old Testament. And Edom was the place where the descendants of Esau, of course, who is the brother of Jacob, who is Israel, it's where they settled. So Edom is the older twin, Esau, Edom, the Edomites. And Esau is the older twin of Jacob and Israel. We know the story about Isaac, Rebecca, Jacob, Esau, all that sort of stuff. Well, Esau's descendants get associated with Edom because that's where his descendants eventually settle. The point isn't, by mentioning all that, that Edomites were all descendants of Esau. They weren't. When Esau and his descendants eventually settled there, there were already people there. So not every resident of Edom was from the line of Esau. But again, this is what the area is known for. And there's this antipathy all the way back into the Jacob and Esau story. There's this, they don't have the best of relationships. And that is going to eventually sort of play out. But in Genesis, as opposed to the prophets, the portrait of Esau and Edom is a little bit more positive in Genesis than it is in the prophets. By the time we get to the prophetic period, the relationship has really soured. People will remember in Genesis that Jacob and Esau sort of patched things up. Maybe took it from a hostile relationship to a bit of an uneasy one, but at least not combative. So that's going to get worse because of historical circumstances in the Old Testament. So as far as, again, how the place is portrayed or how Edomites are portrayed, again, in the prophetic books, as I mentioned, it's going to get a little bit worse. Edom's land is, again, sort of symbolic of the adversarial nations for a simple reason because Edom, like all the other nations, is not Canaan. Canaan is the promised land. Canaan is the land where Israel is supposed to dwell. It's the land God gives to Israel. It's the land God gives to the chosen seed of Abraham. Of course, and the Edomites are on the periphery of that. They're not included in the line of Jacob. It's a different line. It's related, but it's not the same. And so Edom becomes, again, viewed the same way as foreign nations would. You aren't Canaan. Yeah, you're not, you know, you're not in the sort of the, in the covenantal fold, you know, that idea. That's just the way the prophets, again, start to talk about the place and the people. In the biblical story, Edom ultimately, and unfortunately, assists Babylon in the destruction of Judah. Of course, Judah is the Davidic kingdom. Remember your history of Israel? After Solomon, the kingdom splits into north and south, northern kingdom called Israel or Ephraim, sometimes called Samaria in the prophets have 10 tribes and the two remaining tribes are in the south. The biggest one of the two is Judah. And so the southern kingdom is referred to as Judah. But that's where David's line is living. That's where Jerusalem is. That's where the temple is, so on and so forth. So Edom, again, is not included, you know, in, in the southern kingdom. Eden is, is peripheral to that. And eventually, again, this relationship deteriorates from the days of Jacob and Esau and Edom winds up helping Babylon in some way. And the book of Obadiah actually goes into some of that, helps Babylon to destroy Judah, you know, and to essentially cut off in a political sense the line of David. So Obadiah, along with other passages in other prophetic books, foretells Edom's own doom and destruction because, you know, of what they've, what they've done, it's basically a mirror repayment. What I mean by that is some of the language in Obadiah and elsewhere in the prophets describe Edom's doom and destruction in the same way as Israel's land had been destroyed prior to that, you know, in the days of Nebuchadnezzar. So after we get the fall of the southern kingdom and Edom, you know, helps Babylon out, you know, the prophets are going to come back and say, well, you're going to get yours too. And it's going to happen just pretty much in the same way. You know, some of these same awful things that happen to the people of Jerusalem are going to happen to you. So it's this mirror repayment idea for Edom's treachery against Israel. Now, the way it's cast, though, and this is going to take us into, you're already, your ears are already going to perk up here as far as New Testament connections with something we just talked about recently. The destruction, the judgment on Edom is cast as occurring in conjunction with Israel's return from exile to repossess the land. So there's this whole, again, idea of Israel coming back, you know, when we talked in recent episodes about eschatology, you know, all Israel will be saved and all that stuff, you know, what that language means. But with the idea of Israel coming out of exile for real, OK, not not just, you know, the two tribes, but all the tribes coming out of Israel and then taking possession of not only their land, but all of the nations. Well, the way Obadiah, again, talks about Edom in that way and other prophets as well, there's this there's this symbiotic relationship between when Edom gets judged, this is also going to be part of it. This is, you know, in conjunction with the return from exile, the deliverance from exile and again, Yahweh asserting his authority over all the nations. And we know that, of course, is is quite eschatological. So Edom is therefore a place or an item of interest in both Old Testament. And when we when we start to, you know, when we start thinking about what's going to happen to Edom, again, cast in books like Obadiah, then that's going to take us again into this thinking about what does it mean for Israel to be out of exile? What does it mean for Israel to be a kingdom again? What does it mean, you know, for Edom to be dealt with? And since they're sort of this, again, symbolic reference to Babylon or symbolic reference to all the nations. How does that play into sort of an already, but not yet eschatology? Obadiah actually has something to contribute to the already, but not yet eschatology that we've talked about so many times on the podcast. Now, in again, back in Genesis, you don't see a whole lot of this. It's a little more positive, or at least neutral. Yeah, Edom's not Canaan, but, you know, Edom's still a nice place. I mean, Esau isn't going to be where, you know, the Israelites are, but it's not this awful place. It's still a good land. He'll still make a good living there. They'll still be happy. But when you get to the prophets, Edom is just a place of doom. And it's because of the history that accrues from the time of Jacob all the way up into the monarchy when the classical prophets are writing. Again, there's just a lot of baggage that comes with it. Now, in the Old Testament, more broadly speaking, there are essentially four sort of main prophetic oracles in the Old Testament that concern Edom. We have Obadiah, obviously. Ezekiel 35 and 36 is one of these. The language, again, is fairly neutral. It sounds a lot like the Genesis kind of relationship. Again, at least neutral, if not somewhat positive of a portrayal. Edom in Ezekiel 35 and 36 sort of represents the neighboring nations around Israel that were said to originate out of Abraham's lineage, out of his family. Again, so it's just sort of historical and kind of neutral. But when you get into the other prophets, the other major oracles, Isaiah 34, Jeremiah 49, 7 through 22, they link Edom with Babylon. And it's not good news, because they're very negative. So at issue, you know, with all of this is who occupies the promised land? You know, who, you know, what's going on as far as, again, God paying Edom back for what they had done, how is this going to work? Because God isn't going to forget his promises. You know, is Edom going to get there? Is Israel going to come back? How does that affect the relationship? These are all sorts of things, again, that are talked about and portrayed in the book of Obadiah. The possession of the promised land is an issue in all of the oracle references in the prophets. In Genesis, Jacob, of course, was promised the land of Canaan. And of course, we know the story when he, you know, Jacob goes off and does his own thing in Heran with Laban and when he decides to come back, when he gets prompted by God through circumstances to come back, you know, on his way back, he hears that Esau is coming out to meet him with lots of men and he gets scared. Maybe intercepting would be a better way to put it. At least that's how Jacob reads it. So Jacob prays and reminds Yahweh of his promise that's in Genesis 32. You know, he's, hey, I thought I was going to become a great nation here. So what's up with Esau coming with all these men? And, you know, again, we know the outcome of the story. Jacob is safe, you know, Esau and his men don't attack them. Again, there's at least a decent, maybe a little bit of an uneasy relationship there, but not overt hostility. Much later, historically, again, in the book of Ezekiel, book Jeremiah, some of these other books, Israel's land is in danger of being taken. That's the language in Ezekiel 35, 10 through 12 taken by Mount Seir. So when you read things like that, it's like, oh, you know, what's going on? And now all of a sudden the Edomites want to do do something harsh, you know, take the land or invade it or something like that. You'll see in those instances, Yahweh will reiterate the promise through Ezekiel, through Jeremiah, through Obadiah, that Israel will possess this land. It's not going to be somebody else. It's going to be Israel. Now, in terms of the specific incidents, again, that prompt some of the hostility, Edom, if you go into the book of Numbers, Edom refused to allow Israel passage. Remember the wilderness wanderings, Numbers 20 verses 14 through 21. Edom, the Edomites, these are descendants of Esau. Again, Esau was the brother of Jacob, Israel, but the Edomites refused to allow Israel passage through its territory, through their territory during that period of wilderness wanderings. So that isn't good. David later conquers Edom in 2 Samuel 8, 13 and 14. So there's actually a violent conquest of the territory. Edom eventually revolts against the line of David. They revolt against Judah in about 850 BC. So this is after David's time in 2 Kings 8, 20 through 22. So during the monarchy, during the days of David and Solomon, there was apparently a policy among the kings of David's line to maintain as much control as possible over Edomite territory. If you were an Edomite, you're going to resent that. And so these historical circumstances create an antipathy between the two groups, between the two people. So it's no surprise that, you know, you know, Edom didn't regret Jerusalem's demise at the hand of Babylon and even contributes to it, even helps Babylon. Again, there's no love loss between them by that time. So Obadiah, again, is about this. It very clearly suggests that Edom helped out the Babylonians against their own brethren. And again, Jeremiah 49, Ezekiel 25, in this case, 12 through 14. Amos, first chapter of Amos, versus 11 and 12. Malachi 1, versus 2 through 5. All of them rebuke Edom for its treatment of Israel. So there's a clear indication, again, that they played a role in the decimation of Judah, the destruction of the temple, the cutting off, again, politically of David's line, all this sort of stuff. And Obadiah, again, is about the fact that God knows that and he isn't going to forget it. And Edom will get what it deserves. And that's the backdrop. What I want to do in the rest of the time that remains is talk about some of what's actually in the book of Obadiah. There are some really interesting phrases, some interesting vocabulary that will take your mind to certain other passages and that will show you really how negative, how evil Obadiah really, really gets when it when it comes to describing the Edomites. Now, again, some of this I'm going to I'm going to save for part two. I will we're going to read through the whole book. It's only twenty one verses and I'll tell you what what things we're going to pick up in part two for the next episode. But there are some other things to camp on here that are really, I think, quite interesting when it comes to, you know, hey, why should why should I be interested in the book and what, you know, what could I possibly get out of this thing? So let's go to the beginning of Obadiah. And it says, this is the ESV, by the way, I'm reading from ESV. It says, the vision of Obadiah thus says the Lord God concerning Edom. We have heard a report from the Lord and a messenger has been sent among the nations saying, rise up, let us rise against her for battle. Now, messenger here is not the word Malach. So it's not like it's not one of those. It's not a term that you can sort of read a double reference into it, like an angel like messenger or something to do with the Divine Council, at least yet in the book. So it's a different, different set of vocabulary that is not elsewhere associated with Divine Council references. So we can sort of set that aside. But we have, you know, the messenger says, you know, rise up, let us rise against her for battle. Behold, verse two, I will make you small among the nations. You shall be utterly despised. So again, this is God speaking to Edom. So this is not good news. Verse three, the pride of your heart. Now, listen to the wording here. We're going to spend a little bit of time here. Listen to the next two verses. The pride of your heart has deceived you. You who live in the clefts of the rock in your lofty dwelling, who say in your heart, who will bring me down to the ground? Though you soar aloft like the eagle. Though your nest is set among the stars. From there, I will bring you down, declares the Lord. And that's Obadiah three and four. And just a few things to notice here. Now, if you're if you have if you're a paper person, I'm sorry, you're not going to get this really anywhere. But if you're if you're using, you know, either something like Logos Bible Software or you're using, you know, Blue Letter Bible, something online that can penetrate the English text. And trust me, I recommend that because there's a lot that to see here that you wouldn't normally see just reading it off paper. Here are a few things in verse three. The pride of your heart has deceived you. You who live in the clefts of the rock. Now, Edom, of course, was was, you know, mountainous and they had cliffs and crags. So it's a reference to the people living in the hill country there again in the in the heights. But it the phrase here is in your lofty dwelling. Now, the word there for lofty is kind of interesting. If you've read Unseen Realm, again, this is sort of almost a point of trivia. I don't expect people to just sort of pluck this out of their head. But if you've read my my content for for, you know, a while, this this term will, you know, will trigger something in your head. The Hebrew term here is Marom, which is elsewhere translated the heights. And that is an interesting term because heights is used in, you know, the Bible in the Hebrew Bible for. Not just physical heights, but like the heights of Zafon, OK, the the the cosmic theological supernatural heights. In other words, the the place where where God lives, the place where the council is and all that sort of stuff. So are you saying, well, Mike, does the Edomites have anything to do with the Divine Council? Again, not per se, just listen to the vocabulary. Edom is viewed as wicked and rebellious. And this is the first term. This is the start in verses three and four of using vocabulary to label Edom. Vocabulary that is associated with Council Rebellion elsewhere. So the pride of your heart. And just think about the pride of your heart. Who gets judged in the Council for Pride? OK, let's just start thinking about it. The pride of your heart has deceived you, who you who live in the collapse of the rock in the heights of your dwelling and in your lofty dwelling, who say in your heart. Who will bring me down to the ground? Where is the phrase in your heart? Who said something in their heart about, again, rebellion in the Divine Council? Where does this come from? And it's the same, you know, phrasing comes from Isaiah 14. And this is Halal Ben-Shakhar, the shining one, the Son of the dawn, the Lucifer figure, Isaiah 14 verse 13. You said in your heart, I will ascend to heaven to the heavens, really, to the heavens, the heights, really, I will ascend above the stars of God. Well, look in verse four in Obadiah. Though you soar aloft like the eagle, though your nest is set among the stars. It's the same term, Kokavim. What about being brought down to the ground? OK, in Isaiah 14 12, that is where Halal Ben-Shakhar, Daystar, Son of the dawn, you are cut down to the ground, to the arids. It's the same word here in Obadiah. Who will bring me down to arids, to either the ground or to shield to the underworld? You know, who's who's going to kill us off? Who's going to beat us? Again, but look at the vocabulary. You've got the heights. You've got arids, the ground or the underworld. You've got the stars. Therefore, I will bring you down or bring you down. Again, this is the same vocabulary in Isaiah 14 12 about God cutting the day star down to the ground. What's happening here is Obadiah is taking something from Isaiah. Or again, it's hard to know which literary direction this kind of works. But if you're going to say Isaiah is an eighth century prophet than Isaiah 14, you know, even if you think it's late, you know, the whole Deutero-Isaiah thing. Let's just go with Deutero-Isaiah. One to 39 is typically associated with Isaiah in the eighth century. It's before Obadiah. If Obadiah is about, you know, the rebellion or the devastation with Babylon, that's post-Isaiah. So chances are really good that Obadiah is taking this language of this sort of arch-divine rebel, this arch-criminal, and he's using vocabulary to label Edom with it. And what's really cool, what's really interesting is if you recall Isaiah 14, who is who is Isaiah 14 directed at? Now, again, if you've read Unseen Realm and if you've read anything else about Isaiah 14, you know that Isaiah 14 is not about the Lucifer figure. It's not about Genesis 3. It's not about these passages. But Genesis 3, Isaiah 14, Ezekiel 28, all draw on the backstory to all of them is a divine rebellion in the council. You have a divine rebel. And that story is used to castigate in Ezekiel 28. It's the Prince of Tyre. Who is the target in Isaiah 14? It's the king of Babylon. Okay. And Babylon is associated with Edom in the book of Obadiah because the Edomites helped the Babylonians to destroy Judah. And so Obadiah takes this language used of, again, supernatural wicked forces that were used again to describe Babylon's arrogance, Babylon's pride, and conceptually linked them anyway, with, again, supernatural divine darkness that rebelled against the divine council where, hello, Ben Shikhar wanted to ascend above the stars of God. Isaiah 14, 13, you said in your heart, I will ascend to heaven above the stars of God. I will set my throne on high. I will sit on the mount of assembly in the far reaches of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds. Isaiah 14, 14, I will make myself like the most high. Okay. This language is used in Obadiah to paint Edom with the same brush. And it just gives you an idea of the, not only the contempt that Obadiah, again, would have brought to it. I mean, because Edom is just, they're just awful to have done this to Jerusalem is just awful. But it creates this sort of, again, bad guy, theological bad guy linkage between the Edomites and the Babylonians. And of course, the king of Babylon and Isaiah 14, again, with the original divine rebel. Again, they're just getting portrayed the same way. This is how serious it is in the mind of Obadiah. And also, since this is God's speech through Obadiah, God is creating these linkages as well and basically saying, if you don't think you're going to get judged, think again. Okay, I've had to deal with much, you know, bigger problems than you, you bunch of Edomites down there. Okay, I have dealt with rebellion in it on a supernatural level, on a cosmic level, in my own counsel. So don't think that you're getting away with anything because you're not. And it's just really interesting language. Now, let's just go back to Obadiah and keep reading verse five, if thieves came to you, again, God speaking to Edom, if thieves came to you, if plunderers came by night, how you would have, how you have been destroyed, would they not steal only enough for themselves? Again, it's a rhetorical question. Of course, they're not just going to steal what they need. They're going to loot you. You're not going to have anything left. And then the next line is, if grapegathers came to you, would they not leave gleaning? Again, it's a rhetorical question. Demanding a no answer. No, they're not going to leave anything for you. You're going to get pillaged is the point. Then in verse six, how Esau has been pillaged. His treasures sought out. All your allies have driven you to your border. Those at peace with you have deceived you. They have prevailed against you. Those who eat your bread have set a trap beneath you. You have no understanding. You're just going to sit there and wonder, what in the world happened to us? People we thought were our friends. Oh, I guess they weren't the people we helped. You know, we fed them. They turned on all of these bad things because this would happen to Jerusalem. Again, it's this reversal idea. Verse eight, will I not on that day? Declars the Lord destroy the wise men out of Edom and understanding out of Mount Esau. And your mighty men shall be dismayed, O Timon, so that every man from Mount Esau will be cut off by slaughter. Now, again, just a word on a little bit of the language here. We have a reference here to mighty men, your mighty men. Again, this is gibore, plural, giboree, giboree here in construct. Sorry for the Hebrew grammar lapse there. But this we're not talking about giants here because the very next line says so that every man from Mount Esau will be cut off by slaughter. I'm hoping that you out there in the audience, again, realize on one level, you know, this has nothing to do with with giants, giboree, even though giboree was used in Genesis six, four and all that stuff. Do you realize that gibore is a term that is used broadly and neutrally in the Old Testament? David is called a gibore. Right. He wasn't a giant. He wasn't like the spawn of the Nephilim or anything. OK, it just it just means a warrior, a valiant warrior. Now, theologically, though, OK, when when people see this term in the text, it does, you know, it will invariably raise the specter of I guess I could put it this way, is there a connection back to the evil of Genesis six, one through four? And again, if you've read Unseen Realm, you know that the connection between Genesis six and the whole episode, Sons of God, Nephilim, that that has deep, deep Mesopotamian roots and specifically going back to Babylon. So we do have giboree here and it could be an oblique reference to hey, maybe the gods that that that you think are going to help you or you're going to get supernatural assistance or whatever. You could read it that way and say they're not going to be any good either. I personally don't think that's what's going on here, but I do think the vocabulary, again, would suggest to Edomites, just like it did with Halal Ben-Shikhar, that language drawn from Isaiah 14, the point is that, look, God has dealt with bigger fish than you and you are not going to escape. I mean, you are you are light work compared to what God has had to deal with before. I think, again, the the the vocabulary connections would be would be better thought of in those terms that again, Edom is being portrayed with this sort of language to make sure that readers know how wicked God views them because God is painting them with the brush of the divine supernatural rebel of the council. And now we get, again, this this gibore reference, you know, again, part of the divine council worldview kind of thinking God's supernatural enemies, the language of his supernatural enemies is used to being used to portray this earthly enemy of God's people. And when the writer does that, when biblical writers do this, they're trying to communicate just how bad, just how negatively God views whoever the object is, whoever the target is. Verse 10, so why is this going to happen? OK, verse 10, because of the violence done to your brother, Jacob, shame shall cover you, you shall be cut off forever. And that's kind of an interesting reference that, you know, this whole cutting off forever because of what we're going to talk about next week. Edom, again, has this eschatological link to the nations, to the to the reconquest of the nations catch that catch my language here now to the reversing of Babel, the reversing of Babylon. And here we go with Babylon again. So this this whole cutting off together, well, what does that mean? If it's going to be reversed, you know, are there going to be any of them that could be, you know, saved or what's going on? Because the nations, they, you know, lots of people among the nations believe in the Messiah. OK, we'll get to that. We'll get to that next week. But again, start thinking about the vocabulary. Verse 11, Obadiah starts into kind of a grocery list of offenses, you know, what what Edom did when you can you can read what's coming here and know, you know, get at least a glimpse of how they helped Babylon, how they hurt their brother, Jacob, Israel. Verse 11, on the day that you stood aloof, on the day that strangers carried off his Jacob's wealth and foreigners entered his gates and cast lots for Jerusalem. You were like one of them. But do not gloat over the day of your brother in the day of his misfortune. Do not rejoice over the people of Judah in the day of their ruin. Do not boast in the day of distress. Do not enter the gate of my people in the day of their calamity. Do not gloat over his disaster in the day of his calamity. Do not loot his wealth in the day of his calamity. Do not stand at the crossroads to cut off his fugitives. Do not hand over his survivors in the day of distress. I mean, this is essentially a grocery list of what they did. You know, what what they did to their own their own people, essentially their own brother. I mean, again, they're not is they're not from the line of Jacob, but they are from the line of Isaac. OK, so, you know, this is why it's so it's so heinous. It's so bad. It's one family member rebelling against, you know, doing the other one dirty. And if you think again about the Divine Council rebellion stuff, this is what you have on a cosmic level again. So the language again, just helps helps bring out the severity of what they're doing again to compare it to, you know, supernatural rebellions verse 15 for the day of the Lord is near upon all the nations, as you have done, it shall be done to you. Your deeds shall return on your own head for as you have drunk on my holy mountain, so all the nations shall drink continually. They shall drink and swallow and shall be as though they had never been. Now, in this section, this drinking language, I want to read a bit of an excerpt from the anchor Yale commentary on Obadiah by I think his first name is Paul Robb. I think I think that's how you say his last name, R-A-A-B-E. He writes this in contrast to verse 15B, the second half of verse 15, which created a correspondence between Edom's sin and its punishment, quote, just as you have done, it will be done to you, unquote. Verse 16 correlates the punishment experienced by two different groups, quote, for just as you, plural, so it's the group, have drunk on my holy mountain, so all the nations will drink, unquote. The comparison begins by referring to the experience of Judah and Jerusalem, you, plural, whereas in verses 11 through 14, Obadiah portrayed the fall of Judah and Jerusalem from a human point of view when strangers and foreigners attacked, OK, or again, Edom, you know, filling in the blank here, reading between the lines, they helped. Now he interprets the same event as Zion's experience of Yahweh's wrath. He presupposes the hearers or the readers familiarity with the cup of wrath metaphor found elsewhere. Given the metaphors prominence in Jeremiah, who greatly influenced Obadiah, again, there's a connection, very explicit connection, Jeremiah 49, it comes as no surprise to see its presence in Obadiah in light of the many parallels between Jeremiah's Edom oracle and Obadiah's Edom oracle. It is especially significant that the former uses the metaphor. Note that Jeremiah locates Jerusalem's cup drinking in the future while Obadiah places it in the past. A sure sign that Jeremiah's Edom oracle predates and Obadiah post dates the 586 BC crisis. In other words, that's when Jerusalem was destroyed. And Jeremiah 4912, he quotes the passage. It says this for the spoke Yahweh look those Jerusalemites whose right it was not to drink the cup will certainly drink. And are you Edom one to be exempt? No, you will not be exempt for you will certainly drink. So Isaiah 49 or Jeremiah 4912. The point here is that this language is like, look, Jerusalem and Judah had a very bitter cup to drink from. In other words, they were destroyed. It was horrific. And again, it's the it's the cup of wrath metaphor. And so this little section of Obadiah is saying, guess who's drinking next? You're going to drink the same cup. You're not getting away with anything. So Zion has already experienced Yahweh's wrath. But the nations, including, you know, Edom have yet to experience it. That's what the day of the Lord is about. Remember, again, if you had prior, you know, in your Bible study or maybe preaching about the day of the Lord, the day of the Lord is this time of the future, when all that is wrong gets set right. All of God's enemies are judged and those who are faithful to God get rewarded for their faithfulness, either in the current life or the life to come. I mean, it's the day when everything just gets set right. So, you know, this is part of what what Obadiah is looking at. Zion has already experienced Yahweh's wrath, but the nations have not. Now think about that. Think about that line. I'm going to read it again. OK, Zion has already experienced Yahweh's wrath. But the nations have yet to experience it again in the future. They're going to be repaid. All of the nations are going to get repaid. There's going to be wrath come against all the nations because the wrath against Israel, the wrath against Zion, has already occurred. That's that was the exile. That's what happened to the northern kingdom at the hand of the Assyrians and the southern kingdom at the hand of the Babylonians. Obadiah announces that the nations will drink at the same cup as Jerusalem. Now, here's here's why I'm belaboring this. Here's my question, especially for those of you who are into eschatology. OK, here we've drifted into it again. What does this say? What does this whole message about? Hey, Jerusalem, Israel has already drunk from the from the cup of God's wrath and the nations are going to drink from it. What does this say? What does this do to a theology that interprets the tribulation period as a judgment against Jews as a judgment against Israel? This is very common in pop eschatology. The seven year tribulation idea. Oh, well, the church is taken away, you know, to escape the wrath of God. And this is God's judgment being poured out on Israel. Well, wait a minute, wait a minute. Really? OK, I thought Israel's sins had been paid for. Even like Isaiah said, in a double portion. Here we have a prophetic oracle saying, hey, you know, Zion has drunk from this cup. The next ones who are going to drink it are the nations. Day of the Lord kind of stuff. We talked about the tribulation in an earlier episode of the podcast that the tribulation language in the New Testament, it's not referring to the punishment of Jews. It's referring to the persecution of people who embrace the Messiah. Jesus says, I'm when I show up, you know, I'm going to bring persecution. I'm going to bring a sword. I mean, this is what's going to happen. But yet pop eschatology so often takes this language again to justify certain eschatological schemes or systems. And they say, oh, no, this is this is against the Jews. This is against Israel. Well, maybe this is why nobody ever teaches from Obadiah or frankly, lots of the Old Testament. What happens is the Old Testament gets filtered through a theological system. It gets filtered through an already existing system of end times thinking. And what I'm what I'm suggesting here is that stuff really needs to be rethought. Hey, these Old Testament statements, instead of filtering them through Professor So and So's or bestselling author So and So's latest book or some recent eschatological system that's been around a couple hundred years or whoever who cares how long it's been around. You know, it could be around for a millennium instead of filtering the Old Testament through these systems to understand end times. Why don't we just let the Old Testament be read in its own context? Why don't we try that? Well, again, if you do that, it's going to mess up the systems. And if you're a listener to this podcast, you know that I really don't care. I'm sort of here to mess up the systems. If I guess if I have a ministry, it's messing up the systems. You know, I'm trying to get people to just read the text on its own terms. And this is one of those fundamental points. There's these fundamental little pieces of popular eschatology that really needs examination and scrutiny because you're going to get language in here, the oracles against the nations that just don't really work well with it. So again, if you have think about the book of Acts, I mean, we went through the whole book of Acts on this podcast. OK, the whole book of Acts shows salvation and forgiveness being extended to Israel, to Jews, the Jew first and also to the Greek. OK, everywhere. Paul, you know, you go through the first nine chapters of Acts and all these places that that apostles go to are parts, constituent parts of the territories that lie within the boundaries of the promised land, including those portions that went apostate. And the messaging is, look, we are bringing the message of the Messiah to the Jew, to to to all of the people, all of the people within, you know, Israel, who need to hear the news about the Messiah because it's their Messiah. And once that task is done, then the narrative turns to the Gentiles. Peter's vision, Paul's calling, you know, as an apostle to the Gentiles. But the point is, nobody's walking around saying, well, you know, who gives a rip about what happens if the Jews, believe or not, because they're going to get punished later anyway. They got the seven year tribulation bearing down on that's God's wrath against the Jews again. That is not the picture that you get in the book of Acts. Forgiveness and salvation are extended to them just as equally as it is to the Gentile. And next week, again, we're going to get into specifically, you know, I'll telegraph it, Amos 9, 10 through 12 and how it's quoted in Acts 15, because the Amos passage references Edom directly about the House of David being restored. OK, but what Acts 15 does with it. And I've mentioned this before in our series on the book of Acts. We got into this a little bit more. Edom, you're going to have to go back and look at it. Edom in the Old Testament reference is changed to a different word when James cites it in Acts 15. And it's a really, really telling word, especially with what we've just we've been talking about in these last few minutes. But again, even a book like Obadiah, if you think about Edom, if you think about Edom as this representative babel in the other nations and again, you compare and we'll do some of this next week, very specifically, comparing what is in Obadiah with some some Old Testament passages and again, some some New Testament touchpoints. It does take you into this whole thing about, OK, when did the exile end? What is the tribulation? What's going on here? What about the exile ending and that happening in conjunction with with Edom being restored, you know, brought back into the fold with all the other nations? How do we how do we parse that? How do we interpret that? And it's taking you into the same questions back to Obadiah, verse 17. Now, think about this one. We're going to talk about this one next week, too. Again, spend more time on it. Just look at what it says. Verse 17, but in Mount Zion, there shall be those who escape and it shall be holy and the house of Jacob shall possess their own possessions. Verse 18, the house of Jacob shall be a fire and the house of Joseph a flame and the house of Esau stubble. They shall burn them and consume them. And there shall be no survivor for the house of Esau, for the Lord has spoken. Escaping Mount Zion. Again, what is this House of Joseph thing? I mean, I could see the House of Jacob because that's Israel. That's like, you know, David's in that line, you know, kind of stuff. Well, well, hey, Joseph's a tribe, too. Well, why bring Joseph up? Again, there are some connections here to how Jews were thinking about end times eschatologically that spring, you know, from this passage, Jacob, Joseph, and of course, Esau is the one who's going to be overturned. Verse 19, those of the Negev shall possess Mount Esau and those of the Shephala shall possess the land of the Philistines. They shall possess the land of Ephraim, the land of Samaria and the Benjamin shall possess Gilead. The exiles of this host of the people of Israel shall possess the land of the Canaanites as far as Zarephath and the exiles of Jerusalem, who are in Sefar Varad shall possess the cities of the Negev. And it's this repossession language. Last verse of Obadiah, just catch this, saviors plural shall go up to Mount Zion to rule Mount Esau and the kingdom shall be the Lord's. Again, we're going to save a lot of that for for the second installment. But I think you can see just by reading it that, believe it or not, Obadiah has things to contribute that need to mold our thinking about how we understand what it means to return from exile. OK, what it means for all Israel. OK, Israel, really the true Israel to be saved. What it means for the nations to be repossessed by Yahweh in the kingdom. The tiny little book of Obadiah has things in it that need to inform our thinking about these topics, and they are inherently eschatological. So next time we're going to return to some of these sections and factor in specific connections to, again, New Testament thinking, New Testament language, and in particular, the Amos Nine passage where it talks about it connects again, the rebuilding of David's house and again, taking possession of the remnant of Edom, that sort of language and how that's used in the New Testament and why it's important. All right, Mike, that's pretty interesting there. Who would have thought? Who would have thought? Who would have thought? All right, Mike, well, I want to switch gears here and you've got an announcement where you're going to be on coast to coast, at least here in July 3rd. Yeah, the evening of July 3rd, I'm going to be on for two hours now that what what the producers have told me is I'm going to be on from 10 p.m. to midnight Pacific time, so you can do the math there. And as far as I know, that the topic is going to be unseen realm, because that's what we've talked about in email. Those of you who have heard me on coast to coast before heard me talk about coast to coast know that there's a bit of an unpredictability element to what the host might want to talk about. But hopefully, you know, it'll be about unseen realm content, Divine Council stuff. So if you can tune in, please do. OK, well, that sounds good, Mike. We anticipate Obadiah Part Two next week. And I just want to thank everybody for listening to the Naked Bible Podcast. God bless. Thanks for listening to the Naked Bible Podcast. To support this podcast, visit www.nakedbibleblog.com To learn more about Dr. Heizer's other websites and blogs, go to www.rmsh.com. You're listening to the Naked Bible Podcast to support this podcast with the NakedBiblePodcast.com and click on the support link in the upper right hand corner. If you're new to the podcast and Dr. Heizer's approach to the Bible, click on new start here at NakedBiblePodcast.com. Welcome to the Naked Bible Podcast, Episode 107 Book of Obadiah Part Two. I'm Delayman, Trey Strickland, and he's the scholar. Dr. Michael S. Heizer. Hey, Mike, how are you? Very good. And I threw S in there because I don't think you've ever told us what S in your name stands for. Oh, it's that secret. Stephen, Stephen with a V. Yeah, Stephen. Yeah, I got to wrap my hand around that. So this is Dr. Stephen Heizer. No, you know, Steve, the publisher insists, and for good reason, you know, that we have the S in like the website and the books and basically anything else I do because they're, believe it or not, there is another Michael Heizer that has an Amazon publication that has something to do with Bible stuff. I don't know who it is, different middle initial, but the S has to be there to disambiguate me from this other guy, whoever that is. So that's why we use it. Can I or can I not call you Steve? No, no, no, no, no. Has anybody ever called you Steve? No, no. OK, well, it's too bad. I like now, like, no, I used to when I was in when I was teaching in class, I'd tell students, look, you know, you can either call me, I used to say, you can either call me Dr. Mike, Mike, or your holiness. So it was pretty rare when someone, you know, picked the last option there. But no, I don't I don't need to hear hear doctor in front of my name to be happy. So I'd rather just just go with Mike. Sounds good, Steve. OK, so. OK, Mike, well, I'm excited about the second part of Obadiah here. So that first one was learned a lot with that one. Yeah, I mean, it's it's a little book gets neglected, but there's some good stuff in there. And I think people will be a little bit surprised, you know, at how it contributes to, you know, some pretty important things in the New Testament. So hence that's what we're going to do in part two. Just as I said, last time we're going to be focusing on kind of New Testament connections with Obadiah. Last time we introduced the book went through the book a little bit and I sort of reserved a couple sections of the book to spend a little more time on in relationship to New Testament stuff. And so that's what we're going to focus on today. Now, the key thoughts to sort of bring in from the first part would be something to this effect against to try to fix this in your mind as we, you know, begin here in part two. And if you can do that, I think you're going to be tracking all the way through what we do today. So in the prophets, you'll recall in the prophetic books, Edom was a place of doom. It was associated with the nations that threatened Israel and the external nations that had other gods and so on and so forth. It was specifically linked to Babylon because Edom helped Babylon destroy Jerusalem and carry the last two tribes into exile. In other words, they didn't help Jerusalem, Judah at all. In fact, they did the opposite. They did things that encouraged the Babylonians and helped the Babylonians in some way. Consequently, I'll catch this. Consequently, payback against Edom was viewed as part of the end of the exile and a new beginning for Israel. In fact, the beginning of the new Israel and the renewal of the kingdom of God on earth. So basically, Edom had to get what was coming to it for the Jews to have a sense that, OK, the exile is over. We're back to where we were before, again, we were sent into exile before the Babylonians did what they did. And so this vengeance, this consequence, this payback, this retribution against Edom had a very particular role to play in kind of what we would call the eschatological consciousness of Judaism. Again, this return from exile. The exiles now over, OK, in all its parts, there's nothing lingering out there where the exile is completely over. And now we can start over again as the people of God and again, kickstart renew the kingdom of God on earth. So Edom has a part of that consciousness, part of that psychology. Now, if you've listened to this podcast for any amount of time, you already know that the things I just described are things we've talked about before, you know, we spent a couple episodes on eschatology not too long ago. We've hit them before again about this sense of, you know, when does the exile end and what does that mean? How does that look in New Testament theology, New Testament thinking, Second Temple period Jewish thinking? Well, Edom is going to be part of that discussion. So let's go back to Obadiah and pick up a few of the sections that, you know, we sort of reserved for this time. Obadiah 18 in particular. And then we're going to go to Obadiah 21. And I think you're going to be able to see how some of these things factor in, and then we're going to go to a specific New Testament passage that really sort of riffs off or plays off the need to have Edom dealt with in relationship to the renewal of the kingdom of God. There's a very specific passage that deals with that in the New Testament. So Obadiah 18 says, the house of Jacob will become fire and the house of Joseph flame and the house of Esau, of course, which would be Edom, stubble. So fire and flame in this verse will burn up or consume Edom, which will only be stubble when God takes revenge. So this is a reference to, you know, fairly obviously, the obvious part is that Edom is going to be reduced to stubble because God's going to pay them back, you know, for all the bad things they did to Judah, you know, to the, you know, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, so on and so forth, you know, through the promise line. But let's talk about some terminology from Obadiah 18. House of Joseph. Now we know that Joseph had two sons, Joseph's descendants, therefore were Ephraim and Manasseh, at least the ones we know about. And again, if you know about the 12 tribes of Israel, you know about Ephraim and Manasseh, they, you know, get land allotted to them separately in the conquest. And those are the two sons that are blessed Genesis 48. So that ought to be familiar. But since those two tribes really got the lion's share of land when it was allotted by Joshua, and therefore presumably had the biggest population of the tribes again, because, you know, based on the amount of land they got, since that's true, the House of Joseph became a term that really stood for the entirety of the northern kingdom and Ephraim and Manasseh were the biggest tribes, the biggest allotments in the northern region of the land. And so later on in Israel's history, when you have, again, essentially the division of the monarchy after Solomon, 10 of the tribes defect and go north, form the northern kingdom, and then you have Judah and Benjamin in the south. Well, among that 10 nation northern confederacy, Ephraim and Manasseh, the sons of Joseph, had by far the most land and again, presumably the most people. So House of Joseph became sort of a stand in term for the northern kingdom of Israel, again, the 10 northern tribes. For example, in 2 Samuel 1920, we read, Your servant knows that I have sinned, therefore behold, I have come this day and first of all, the House of Joseph to come down to meet my Lord the King. Now this is when David is sort of getting run out of town and we have, again, someone from the northern kingdom come down and they refer to where they're from as the House of Joseph. I think maybe a better example would be Zechariah 10 in verse six. I will strengthen the House of Judah and I will save the House of Joseph and I will bring them back because I have compassion on them and they shall be as though I had not rejected them. For I am the Lord their God and will answer them. Now this is a reference. Usually you have Israel and Judah put in tandem when the writer wants to talk about all 12 tribes. But here you actually have House of Judah and House of Joseph. So House of Joseph is a much clearer stand in for the counterpart to Judah, which was the southern kingdom. So House of Joseph is the northern kingdom. So just store that away that, you know, here we have an Obadiah 18. We have a reference to the House of Joseph, the northern kingdom. We also have a reference to the House of Jacob. Now there's two ways to understand that phrase. You know, first you could just understand it as residents, members of the southern kingdom. And I think in this particular verse, Obadiah 18, that makes good sense since House of Joseph, you know, as the northern kingdom in Obadiah 18, you have a reference to both kingdoms, the southern one and the northern one. You know, elsewhere House of Joseph's line is part of the House of Jacob and House of Jacob can be a phrase that it refers to the totality of all the tribes since the 12 tribes of Israel are the 12 tribes of Jacob. Okay, we understand that. But the point is that in some passages, and I think particularly here in Obadiah 18, because we have House of Joseph signifying the northern kingdom, House of Joseph or House of Jacob, excuse me, signifies the southern kingdom. So basically all 12 tribes are in view. This is the important part. All 12 tribes are in view in Obadiah 18, that they're going to sort of, you know, to borrow the language here, you know, flame up, become a living flame and consume the Edom. So Edom is cast as something that needs to be dealt with in relationship to not just the two tribes that Babylon conquered, but all the tribes. And this would make sense if the judgment on Edom is connected with the end of the exile, because if you recall our two episodes on eschatology, a Jew would not think that the exile was actually over until all of the tribes, all 12 tribes had been recovered, had returned, and the people of God were reunified in totality. So we have a reference to that same idea here in Obadiah 18. All of the tribes, again, have something to do with this conquest of Edom or dealing with Edom that will end the exile and then be the signal that the people of God are now being brought together again in one family and the kingdom of God is now being started up again. Now, if we go to Obadiah 21, we have a curious verse and some curious terminology here, we have here, saviors will go up onto Mount Zion to judge Mount Esau. And Esau is Edom and the kingship will belong to Yahweh. This is the way the book of Obadiah ends. This is the last verse. Saviors will go up onto Mount Zion to judge Mount Esau and the kingship will belong to Yahweh. So a few items to notice here. There's a reference to saviors. Okay. This is, you know, from the, the Lama Yasha, which of course you have words like, you know, Yeshua, the deliverer, the savior, that sort of thing going on to save or to deliver, to rescue is kind of a base meaning for the Lama. So you could translate the plural here as either saviors as ESV does or delivers something like that. The savior language is going to be something I bring up here in a moment though. Again, second thing to notice is you have again these saviors going up to Mount Zion. Well, what's Mount Zion? Well, it's, it's where Jerusalem is. Okay. That's kind of obvious. Third, they're going there to judge Mount Esau, which again is Mount Edom or Edom itself as an entity. And fourth, all of this will somehow result in the kingdom returning to Yahweh. In other words, Mount Edom, Edom will belong to him. The Edomites will, will sort of be brought into the fold, so to speak, and Yahweh will be Lord over the Edomites, over, over Edom as, as part of his kingdom. So we have deliverers or saviors going up to Mount Zion. Just think about this. Deliverers or saviors going up to Mount Zion to subjugate Edom or make it part of Yahweh's dominion so that the kingdom of God, over all nations, because remember, Edom is sort of representative of the other nations so that all nations would return to Yahweh. Now, again, this ought to be sort of turning a few lights on in your head about possible New Testament connections, but just hold those thoughts. I want to read a little bit from the Anchor Bible commentary here by Rob, R-A-A-B-E, his volume on Obadiah, he says this about this verse. When the word saviors delivers the plural there in Hebrew refers to humans, it designates military heroes authorized and empowered by Yahweh to deliver Israelites from enemies or distress. For example, in the Book of Judges, Judges 3.9, 3.15, he lists the reference here in 2 Kings 13.5, so on and so forth. Isaiah 19.20 is the only exception, he writes, according to which Yahweh promises to send a deliverer who will rescue the Egyptians from their oppressors. The plural here, Moshe'im, occurs only one other time in the Bible. Nehemiah 9.27 uses the word to refer to the judges of the premonarchic period, the period of the judges. And here's Nehemiah, here's that quote that Rob gives us from Nehemiah 9.27. You gave them into the hand of their foes and they oppressed them, but in the time of their distress, they cried out to you and you heard from heaven. And according to your great compassion, you gave them deliverers, Moshe'im, so that they would deliver them, same lemma, Yahshah, from the hand of their foes. Rob, essentially his point is that when this term is used, this term in Obadiah 21 is used elsewhere, it's typically against some sort of military deliverance, military salvation and the textbook example are the judges, the judges period. Okay, well, that's, that's fine. Nothing terribly surprising there. If we look at how the Septuagint renders these references to Moshe'im, the judges, again, the cross references that Rob just gave us, if we look at how the Septuagint renders those things, we see some interesting items, even though we have a military context or salvation or deliverance, the Septuagint will use words like soter, which means savior, and it is the, in the singular, it is used exclusively of Jesus in the New Testament, or it will use soteria, which is salvation, you know, in a broad abstract sense. So again, if you're a Jew, a literate Jew who, you know, knows the Hebrew Bible also can read the Septuagint, this is something that would be striking to you, especially when, if you started reading or hearing, listening to the apostles and hearing, you know, what they're saying about, about Jesus, it's the same terminology. Well, you say, well, you know, maybe there's a connection there, maybe not, again, just hold the thought. I think, you know, it, we could put this in the form of a question though, this way, could it be that New Testament writers, New Testament writers could have abstracted a verse like Obadiah 21 in its, in its terminology of saviors, okay, or salvation from the, by virtue of the Septuagint, could New Testament writers have abstracted that whole idea that the judgment of Edom and the restoration of the people and kingdom of God might refer to spiritual salvation instead of military deliverance? In other words, that salvation would come to Mount Zion and that wouldn't be a literal military salvation but a spiritual salvation. Again, this should be setting off lights in your head. We could ask another question. Well, just who did ascend to Mount Zion to bring salvation? Hebrews 12, let's just go to a New Testament passage, verses 18 through 24. The writer says this, for you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire in darkness with gloom and a tempest and the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them. The writer of Hebrews is referencing the episode on Sinai when the people said Moses was on the mountain partially and God starts to speak with him and the people get freaked out and they plead with Moses. Well, you intercede for us. We don't just, we don't want to hear any more of this because it's freaking us out. You go up there and talk to God. We don't want God to come down here and talk to us. It's just, it's crazy. Okay. So they panic. So again, going back to Hebrews 12, for they, the people could not endure the order that was given, the order he quotes here from the Exodus account. Even if a beast touches the mountain it shall be stoned. So the people are like, hey, trust us. We don't even want to come near the mountain. Writer of Hebrews again, Hebrews 12 21 says, indeed, so terrifying was the site that Moses said, I tremble with fear. Here's verse 22, but you, the writer of Hebrews is addressing Jewish believers, Jewish followers of Jesus. Okay. But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem and to innumerable angels in festival gathering and to the assembly of the first born who are enrolled in heaven and to God, the judge of all and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. So the writer of Hebrews does abstract the idea of coming to Mount Zion and Mount Zion is not just the physical Jerusalem, but it's the heavenly Jerusalem. It's the meeting place of the divine council, innumerable angels and festival gathering, the assembly of the first born who are enrolled in heaven. Again, we've talked about this divine council language before about believers who are exalted and deified and devinized again to become part of the divine council. We had a whole episode on this with David Burnett. You've come to this place. The writer of Hebrews is telling people who are still alive here. I mean, this is what has happened with salvation. You've been made part of this family. You know, the focus here is not on the literal Jerusalem anymore. It's on the spiritual Jerusalem, the heavenly Jerusalem to quote the passage. So we do get evidence that ideas like Mount Zion could be abstracted in New Testament theology. And the people who are going up to Mount Zion are in fact believers can hold that thought and just to recapture some of this. Let me go back to my original question for my original sort of summary of what we're reading in Obadiah 21. Saviors, deliverers going up to Mount Zion to subjugate Edom, to make it part of Yahweh's kingdom, His dominion, so that the kingdom of God over all nations would return and Yahweh would be Lord of all those things. One family and one rule. Okay. You say now, come on Mike, this is just too abstract. It's too non-literal. No New Testament writer would be thinking that Obadiah 21 was about the advance of the message of salvation to Jerusalem like the coming of the spirit at Pentecost to Jerusalem or Paul's use of Psalm 68 in Ephesians 4 where Mount Bishon, Mount Hermon would be conquered and made Yahweh's turf. They say, come on Mike, Edom needed to be conquered literally and physically to be brought under Yahweh's governance and it had to be literally judged. That had to happen for Yahweh to be ruler of all the nations. This just has to be taken literally. No New Testament writer would quote Obadiah to make these points this way. Well, on one level that's true. But the New Testament does quote another passage specifically about the judgment of Edom to make precisely those points that you might think are too abstract, too non-literal. And I'm referring here to Amos 9, 11 and 12 and the way that passage is quoted and interpreted by James in Acts 15. Now we hit this in our series in the book of Acts but we're going to revisit it obviously here because now you have a context for Edom. Edom needed to be dealt with for the exile to end, to be officially over and so that the people of God could be brought back, brought together into one family so that the kingdom of God could be reconstituted on earth and the nations brought into that kingdom. Edom plays a crucial role in this, in part of the eschatological consciousness of Jews living at this time. So let's look at Amos 9, the passage should be familiar because we have dealt with it before on this podcast. Amos writes, in that day I will raise up the Booth of David that has fallen and repair its breaches and raise up its ruins and rebuild it as in the days of old. Why? That they may possess the remnant of Edom and all the nations who are called by my name declares the Lord who does this. Think about the wording. In that day, I will raise up the Booth of David that has fallen. We talked before in our series on Acts about it's our propensity to read that and think literalism, Booth of David. Well, what is that? You know, and a lot of people say, well, it must be the temple. Well, it's not the temple. David didn't live in the temple. OK, but a lot of people will use it to talk about the rebuilding of a temple, but that's just that's kind of hard to make that word. Well, maybe it's, you know, David's house, maybe it's some other physical structure associated with David, or maybe it's David's dynasty. That's a little more abstract. So some Christians don't like it. Some prophecy, quote unquote, experts don't like that because they're again, they're insisting on rigid literalism. But it's spoken of as a thing. I will repair its breaches. I will raise up its ruins and rebuild it as in the days of old. And then in verse 12, we don't have it anymore. We have they. Did you catch that? In that day, I will raise up the Booth of David that has fallen and repair its breaches and raise up its ruins and rebuild it as in the days of old that they may possess the remnant of Edom. Well, who's they? Who is they? Because if we abstract it, even in verse 11, the Booth of David is David's dynasty. Well, there's only one Messiah. So there's only one son of David who actually is the Messiah. Who would like, who would they be? Well, I'm going to tell you who they are. And again, if you've read Unseen Realm, you already know the answer to this. They are you. Because now you are members of the Messiah's household. You are the ones to whom Jesus in Revelation two and three grants to rule with him on his father's throne and gives to you the morning star. You are they. You say, well, Mike, again, it just seems so abstract. It seems so non-literal. What about the nations called by my name? Well, let's look at how James, quotes this passage in Acts 15 and what he thinks it means. And again, you're either going to allow the New Testament to be an inspired commentary on the Old Testament or you're not. So let's go to Acts 15. And frankly, we're just we'll just start at the very beginning so you get the full context of it. This is the so-called Jerusalem Council meeting. But some men came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, unless you are circumcised, according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved. And after Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and debate with them, Paul and Barnabas and some of the others were appointed to go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and elders about this question. So being sent on their way by the church, they passed through both Phoenicia and Samaria, describing in detail the conversion of the Gentiles and brought great joy to all the brothers. When they came to Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church and the apostles and the elders. And they declared all that God had done with them. But some believers who belong to the party of the Pharisees rose up and said, it is necessary to circumcise them and to order them to keep the law of Moses. The apostles and the elders were gathered together to consider this matter. That was verse six of verse seven. And after there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, brothers, you know that in the early days, God made a choice among you that by my mouth, the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe. It's a reference back to Peter's vision earlier in the book of Acts and God who knows the heart or witness to them by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as he did to us. And he made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith. Now, therefore, why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? But we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus just as they will. And all the assembly fell silent and they listened to Barnabas and Paul as they related what signs and wonders God had done through them among the Gentiles. After they finished speaking, James replied, and here we go. James is going to quote Amos chapter nine. Now listen. After they had finished speaking, James replied, brothers, listen to me. Simon has related how God first visited the Gentiles to take from them a people for his name. And with this, the words of the prophets agree. Just as it is written, and here we go. After this, I will return and I will rebuild the tent of David that has fallen. I will rebuild its ruins and I will restore it. But the remnant of mankind may seek the Lord or that the remnant of mankind may seek the Lord. And all the Gentiles who are called by my name says the Lord who makes these things known from a vole. End of quote. Then James says, therefore, my judgment is that we should not trouble those of the Gentiles who turn to God but should write to them to abstain from the things polluted by idols from sexual morality, what's been strangled, so on and so forth. And we covered, you know, what that list constituted back in our series on Acts. But listen to what he does. I'm going to read you the quotation again. This is what James says. He's quoting Amos nine. After this, I will return. I will rebuild the tent of David that has fallen. I will rebuild its ruins. I will restore it that the remnant of mankind may seek the Lord and all the Gentiles who are called by my name. Now, the first thing that ought to pop into your head is. What happened to the reference to eat them? If we go back to Amos nine, we read that again. In that day, I will raise up the booth of David that has fallen and repair its breaches and raise up its ruins and rebuild it as in the days of old, that they may possess the remnant of Edom and all the nations who are called by my name. What happened to Edom in James's quotation? And why does James have the word Gentiles instead of all the nations that, you know, we read in Amos nine. This is a crucial, crucial passage. What James is doing is he is doing precisely the abstracting that I just talked about a few minutes earlier in the episode about Edom, that the judgment on Edom, okay, the Edom needing to be dealt with so that the exile could end and the kingdom of God could be present again and the family of God could become whole under Yahweh's leadership, under one father. He abstracts the judgment on Edom to basically mean everyone who's not a Jew. Now, in Amos nine, Edom, if you know a little Hebrew, is spelled Olaf, first consonant, dollot, mem, and given an E and an O vowel, Edom. In James's quotation, which comes from the Septuagint, we have the remnant of mankind instead of the remnant of Edom. Well, mankind in Hebrew is Olaf, dollot, mem, exactly the same consonants as Edom, but the vowels are different. So, if you look at what he's doing here, you could say, well, okay, the Septuagint translator kind of changed the text and that's a highly interpretive translation and, you know, boy, that's kind of weird. It's kind of, you know, funky. It's kind of, I don't know what to do with that, Mike, because it's really quite a different text or a different reading or it's a change or something like that. Like he's changing the word of God. Gentiles is easier because Gentiles is ethne in Greek and ethne is the Greek word that would be used to translate nations all over the Old Testament. So that part's easy. Now, there's another way to look at this, though, that since Edom, catch this. This is what we've been talking about now. This is our second week. Since Edom, in Old Testament thinking, represented everybody who isn't a Jew. Okay, in other words, all the nations, all those other nations. James is sitting there listening to Peter about how God used him to bring the Gospel to the Gentiles, people who aren't Jews. How those same people got the Holy Spirit just like they did. That the Gospel is the same no matter who you are. Paul and Barnabas echoing the same thing. Look at what God has done through us to the Gentiles. And James, again, either remembers or is given by the Holy Spirit this passage. And to him, in his mind, Edom no longer means, no longer was even intended to point to the physical place of Edom. Edom was everybody else. Edom was everybody who was not Israel. Edom was the rest of mankind, conceptually. So we could argue that the translator of the Septuagint at this point, and they were all Jews, thought the same way. It's literal in respect to the fact that the people being saved are real. Their literal salvation is to real people, a real thing to real people. What happened on the cross was real. But James is clearly reading the judgment on Edom, this little place that Obadiah spends 21 verses talking about. As now meaning on the other side of the cross, everybody who isn't part of the 12 tribes. And if you do that, then, yeah, yeah, the remnant of mankind may now seek the Lord. Everybody else, including us, but not excluding the Jew, but everybody else, the entire world, all of humanity can now have a right relationship with Yahweh, the God of Israel, the God of Jacob. Everybody counts now. This is a very clear instance of non-literal thinking when it comes to the interpretation of prophecy, and it's really, really, really important because it redefines who the people of God are. It's not just the house of Jacob. It's not just the house of Joseph, southern and northern kingdoms. The people of God are everyone. Everyone who believes the remnant of mankind can seek the Lord. And the Gentiles, yeah, the Gentiles who are called by my name. Used to be that the only people who were called by the name of Yahweh, my people were Jews. Remember our two sessions on eschatology a short time ago? We talked about who all Israel is and how Paul takes all Israel a phrase that is used in the Old Testament for the 12 tribes, but then he uses it to talk about those who are not my people, quoting Hosea 110. In other words, the Gentiles. Okay, this is fundamental stuff to eschatology and to New Testament theology. So all that we've been talking with respect to Obadiah about Edom needing to be dealt with, if we were having this session and James walked into the room here while I'm doing the podcast, he would say, look, Edom has been dealt with. It was dealt with at the cross. It was dealt with at Pentecost. Because look what happened at Pentecost. You had people, the people of God, Jews coming to Jerusalem, where Mount Zion is, and many of them went away believers in Jesus and they went back to their homes which were not Mount Zion, they were among the nations, the Gentiles, and they planted the seed so that all of the nations could be brought into the fold. In other words, they could be conquered spiritually by the gospel freed from the gods that enslave them now, brought into the kingdom and into the family. So James would say, look, this is already present. Edom has been dealt with already. The exile has ended. The exile ended with the cross. It ended with Pentecost. It ended with the Jews returning back to Jerusalem, being regathered back to Jerusalem for the event of Pentecost specifically so that now the nations can be brought into the fold, into the family, into the kingdom as well. This is basic New Testament theology. You know, and what happens is, we've talked about this before, you'll have people who will look at these points and affirm the obvious that the church is the new Israel. To quote Galatians 6.16, the church is the Israel of God, okay? The church is the new Israel. They'll affirm this absolutely transparent point, Galatians 3, 26 through 29, if you are Christ's, you are Abraham's seed. I mean, how much more explicit could Paul be? You are inheritors of the promises given to Abraham, okay? If you're Christ, it doesn't matter who you are, you're Gentile, okay? They'll affirm these things that are very obvious and then they'll extrapolate to the unnecessary and come out with this full blown replacement theology that argues that these prophecies given to national Israel, there will not be any sort of fulfillment to them or any role for national Israel, ethnic Israel in the future, okay? That goes too far. And I have denied that in other podcasts for very obvious reasons. We're going through this or that passage that says otherwise, hey, what about Armageddon, the Harmo-Ade, the meeting place of the council, it's Jerusalem, okay? That has a role to play in biblical prophecy. What could be more obvious? Well, this is actually another one. So let's go back to Obadiah as we've wrapped up here. You know, we have this thing where, okay, Edom has experienced, you know, what it was supposed to experience. They didn't experience physical wrath and judgment, but what happened at the cross deals with them because it opens the door to salvation to all of them. And so we don't win them back militarily. We win them back. We are their saviors through the gospel, through the message of salvation. We win them by conversion, not military victory. And this has already happened. So that's the already, but we also have a not yet. Okay, remember the already not yet theme. We're gonna see it again. If you go to Obadiah five and six, think about this language because you're gonna hear it in another passage that's gonna matter. If thieves come or if thieves came to you, if plunders came by night, how you would have been destroyed. Would they not steal only enough for themselves? If grape gatherers came to you, Edom, would they not leave gleaning? How Esau has been pillaged, his treasury sought out. These two verses we're dealing with, you know, they were rhetorical language for, you know, when you get what's coming to you, it's not gonna be just a little bit. Thieves aren't gonna come and take only what they need. You're gonna be pillaged. Okay, if the grape gatherers do use another analogy would come, they're not leaving you anything. You're toast, okay. Everything you had is gone. Okay, now this language gets repeated in Jeremiah 49, verse seven through 22. I'm gonna read you the passage concerning Edom because this is an oracle against Edom as well. Thus says the Lord of hosts. Is wisdom no more in Timon? Has counsel perished from the prudent? Has their wisdom vanished? Flee, turn back, dwell in the depths, O inhabitants of D'Don, for I will bring the calamity of Esau upon him. Again, Edom, the time when I punish him. If grape gatherers came to you, would they not leave gleaning? If thieves came by night, would they not destroy only enough for themselves? In answer to the rhetorical question, but I have stripped Esau bare, verse 10. I have uncovered his hiding places. He is not able to conceal himself. His children are destroyed and his brothers and his neighbors and he is no more. Leave your fatherless children. I will keep them alive. Let your widows trust in me. Again, so it's just this railing and railing and railing against Esau. He continues here. I have heard a message from the Lord and an envoy has been sent among the nations. And that was also part of Obadiah language. I'm still in Jeremiah 49 here. Gather yourselves together and come against her and rise up for battle. Behold, I will make you small among the nations. Despised among mankind, the horror you inspire has deceived you and the pride of your heart. You who live in the clefts of the rock, remember this language from Obadiah, who hold the height of the hill. Though you make your nest as high as the eagles, I will bring you down from there, declares the Lord. Verse 17, Edom shall be a horror. Everyone who passes by it will be horrified and will hiss because of all its disasters. Just on and on and on and on. Now, some of this language gets used in another Old Testament passage that we need to look at. Isaiah 63, catch this. Who is this who comes from Edom? In crimson garments from Bosra, he who is splendid in his apparel, marching in the greatness of his strength. It is I speaking in righteousness, mighty to save. Why is your apparel red and your garments like his who treads in the wine press? The prophet asks. Again, this is a theophany, Yahweh in human form, coming from Edom in crimson garments. Again, splendid in his apparel, marching in the greatness of his strength. Who is this? It is I speaking in righteousness and Yahweh speaking. Why is your apparel red? The prophet asks and your garments like he who treads in the wine press. Verse three, I have trodden the wine press alone and from the peoples no one was with me. I trod them in my anger and trampled them in my wrath. Their lifeblood spattered on my garments and stained all my apparel. For the day of vengeance was in my heart and my year of redemption had come. I looked, but there was no one to help. I was appalled, but there was no one to uphold. So my own arm brought me salvation and my wrath upheld me. I trampled down the peoples in my anger. I made them drunk in my wrath. I poured out their lifeblood on the earth. Again, this is a theophany of the divine warrior. Guess where this gets quoted in the New Testament. Remember, this is an oracle against Edom, Bosra. Okay, this is that's a place in the same region of Edom. It gets quoted in Revelation 19. This is when the reward returns. This is the Armageddon scene or part of it. Now let me go back up to verse 11, Revelation 19. Then I saw heaven opened and behold, a white horse. The one sitting on it is called faithful and true. And in righteousness he judges and makes war. His eyes are like a flame of fire and on his head are many diadems. And he has a name written that no one knows but himself. He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood and the name by which he is called is the word of God. And the armies of heaven arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses. From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. And he will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the wine press of the fury of the wrath of God almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has a name written. King of kings and Lord of lords. What I'm getting to here is that look, we can see from the way James quotes, Amos 9 to 11, that Edom has been dealt with. Okay, the judgment on Edom can be viewed as a spiritual event, the events of the cross, whereby Edom, again, because they were looked upon as all of the nations, anyone who was not part of Israel, that they're dealt with, they're brought back into the fold through salvation, through the gospel. Again, and as James does relating it to Gentile salvation. That's the already part, but the not yet is in Revelation. Revelation borrows on Edom judgment language to describe the return, the second coming of Christ at the Armageddon event. In other words, there is an eschatological future in which the nations will be dealt with, again, in the manner of which Armageddon speaks in a judgment violent manner. It's already, but not yet. Again, the exile is over already, the nations have been dealt with already, they've gotten what they deserve, things have come full circle already, but not yet. This is what the day of the Lord is about in Old Testament theology. God's enemies, again, need to be dealt with. See that the gospel, the already part is reality now. It's already happened, it's already in operation, it's already moving forward. The church, the new people of God, the new Israel is already a thing that fulfills biblical prophecy in many, many respects that a lot of Christians just don't wanna seem to own. It does that, again, a lot of this language about tribulation has nothing to do with the Jew. Remember Obadiah last week? Again, the judgment language of Obadiah is to point out that the nations are gonna get what they handed out to Jerusalem, to Judah. We talked about in our eschatology podcast is the tribulation language is not thrown up against the Jews, the Jewish nation, the ethnic Jews. It refers to persecution of the church, of believers. And I asked this question, how does this affect the way we think eschatologically? Because so many people wanna have this hard and fast distinction between Israel and church, and then they'll have the church escape from judgment, from this kind of language by saying that, oh, that refers to the Jews, that's because they rejected Jesus. Yeah, the same Jews to whom the gospel was offered through the entire book of Acts, through the entire history of the early church. What I'm suggesting is that it's just an inaccurate reading of this eschatological language, but that is not to say that the day of the Lord won't be real because the church is never going to accomplish this complete overturning of God's enemies, this complete bringing in the fullness of the Gentiles. And all these ideas, the church on its own, it's in operation, it's happening, the kingdom is advancing, it's growing. People are being released again from bondage to the hostile gods who rule these nations, all of this stuff, that's gonna go on because the gates of hell will not be able to withstand it, but there's going to come a time associated with the second coming that the Lord basically says, okay, it's time to return and finish the job. And that will be a time of judgment, that will be a time of upheaval before everything is brought into full fruition, before the entirety of the people of God is what God wants it to be, before the rule over all the nations by him and also through us as inheritors, again, Revelation two and three, those who inherit the morning star from the Messiah because we're part of his family now, all of that will be brought to a complete end, a complete fulfillment by the return of the Lord. So that is a not yet aspect to this language. So we can't, again, just say everything is over and done with because of the church. We also can't say nothing is over and done with because all this prophetic stuff refers to ethnic Israel and not the church. Both of those are incorrect. The already but not yet model template is what we see in scripture consistently and how we need to parse this language and Edom, again, to close here. The book of Obadiah plays a role in this because it's about Edom being brought back into the fold and while the language is violent in the book of Obadiah and we will see again that language, you know, replayed and repurposed in the book of Revelation at the Armageddon event, the second coming. We also see that language used quite abstractly and non-literally to refer to the church. And so Obadiah is an important book, as small as it is to help us think about what's going on with the nations and the people of God in terms of eschatology. Well, Mike, you just can't escape eschatology, can you? Just can't escape it. Well, this one was a little bit by disguise, but trust me, I will escape it. It's gonna be a while before we track back into this. Well, good deal. Well, yeah, once again, it's a lot to think about. I'm gonna have to go back and listen to these last two episodes again, because a lot of new info. Well, that's because Obadiah and Edom, and frankly, you don't even have to get into that. There are a lot of people who, when they see the Old Testament site in the New Testament, never actually go look up the original thing that's being quoted. They never look at how it's being used or how it's being repurposed. Well, didn't you say even the new, today's modern New Testament scholars don't even do that as well? Some of them just don't do it. They won't do it. I mean, you'll have some of them overdo it. I think the replacement theology idea overdoes it. Again, it affirms the obvious that extrapolates to the unnecessary, but you have a lot of scholars who just don't, they don't wanna think about the text in terms of how the New Testament repurposes the Old. And people in the Second Temple period noticed this, again, quite a bit, noticed the possibilities and then the New Testament sort of actually kind of acts on these possibilities, like with what James is doing in Amos. So there's just a tendency to think, and I hate to put it this way, but I will, I've got my system and it works, so I'm not gonna be bothered with that. And that's just a shame. Yeah. All right, Mike. Well, that's good information. We've got lots to discuss here, so I'm gonna switch gears, and we've got some stuff to talk about. And the first one is we've actually got a poll up on the website, drmsh.com and the Neck and Bible Podcast.com. I got it up there as well, and you blogged about it. And we're gonna let the listeners decide what the next book you're gonna cover on the podcast. Yeah, do we have an update on what the progress is? As of right now, Jeremiah is still in the lead. It's battling Ezekiel. Ezekiel will catch up with Jeremiah, but then Jeremiah will break ahead. So right now, Jeremiah is in the lead and the cutoff date is gonna be Monday, July 25th in the evening sometime. So you've got a couple of weeks to vote, so please go to drmsh.com and cast your vote on which book of the Bible you want Mike to cover next in the podcast. So I'm secretly rooting for one, but I'm not gonna tell you. Yeah, well, I could probably guess, but I won't get into it. The weird stuff. Okay, well, you're giving it away now. All right, well, also, Mike, we've got a couple other things. The newsletter is officially up on the website, and you wanna tell people a little bit about that? Yeah, we are starting a newsletter. That is linked to the beginning, the genesis of creating an email list. So if you want to subscribe to the newsletter, you need to give us your email address. And I believe you're the physical address as well, because again, this is, we didn't wanna just start an email list and then not give people something for it. So we have attached a newsletter to it, but by capturing the email addresses now and the physical addresses, that data is going to be used once we create a forum, and that is actually underway as well. I mean, it's not as far along, but once the forum is in place on my website, where I will be discussing the book and my content officially instead of Facebook or some other place, we will be using that data that people give us for the newsletter to create sort of mini forums within the big forum so that you can begin to discover who lives near you that listens to the podcast, who lives near you that is interested in my content and the kind of stuff we do on the websites, in the podcast, on the blogs with unseen realm, because I consistently get this question, I feel all alone. I don't know if there's anybody else who's living around me that cares about this stuff that I could talk to or have fellowship with or just know I have a buddy out there that's close by or whatever, to build a little bit of a community of people who are actually living near you. Okay, the newsletter is going to be the conduit to create that thing, and that's why we want you as many as possible, all of you, to subscribe to the newsletter, we can gather your email address and that information and use that to help you connect with other people who are actually near you, who have the same interests, who care about what we're doing here. And there is a short video explaining that a little bit on the site when you click to join the newsletter, you'll see that. So that's the rationale for it. So that has begun officially now. And also you got a video about McLott. Yeah, McLott is my nonprofit, made a video, I think it's, I don't know, eight or nine minutes long, something like that, explaining kind of what the rationale for the nonprofit is and what we hope to accomplish by it. So we hope again, that people will donate to McLott, everything is tax deductible, because ultimately that is going to translate into more of my time being freed up to create content, for me to be able to pay people to help me produce content or to take my content and put it into different forms so that eventually it's all free. I mean, that's the goal, you can listen to the video. When you go up, you hit the McLott page, that talks about at the bottom donating, but there's also a video there, make sure you watch the video to get just sort of how we're thinking about what we'd like to accomplish here. Yeah, actually, if you just hit the donate button on DrAllStates.com, it'll take you to that page. And then, yeah, if you scroll down, you'll see where you can donate. And if you wanna send a check in and mail it offline donation, if you click the offline button, after you click the donate button, it'll give you the instructions on who to make the check, payable to, where to send the check to. So we have that ability as well for those who are not comfortable donating online. But yeah, so we're getting there, the website slowly but surely coming along. So more and more functionality. I'm excited about the voting. That's fun for listener participation for the podcast. So I'm interested to see what everybody votes for. I'll try not to cheat and skew. They'll try to create some auto-voter. Right, right, just delete a bunch of votes. Oops, sorry, no, I won't do that. No, absolutely not. All right, Mike, well, a couple more things here. You've got an event coming up, the Rocky Mountain Conference. What's up with that? Yeah, I'm gonna be a, I'll use the word attending, the Rocky Mountain Prophecy Conference in Colorado Springs, July 15 through 17. I'm not speaking, but if you're there, come by the Defender Publishing booth. I'm basically, Tom Horn has been gracious enough to invite me and give me free booth space to sell unseen realm. And I'll be there the whole time or at least the majority of time, again, signing books and chatting with people. And I'll probably be walking around to just hanging out chatting with people. So I'm not gonna have my time absorbed by speaking in sort of official function things. I'm just basically gonna be parked right there. So if you are going to that conference, please come by. If you've already got a copy of Unseen Realm or the facade or the portent, I can sign those. But we'll have some of each, all three of those titles there at the booth. You can get it cheaper there. No shipping, cheaper than Amazon too. And I'll sign it for you and we can just talk about whatever it is you wanna talk about. So again, if you're going to that event, please stop by. Sounds awesome. All right, Mike. Well, next week we're up for another Q and A episode. Okay, well, we'll be looking forward to the questions next week. And we appreciate the Obadiah covering that. That was a good one. All right. Just wanna thank everybody for listening to the Naked Bible Podcast by Russell. Thanks for listening to the Naked Bible Podcast. To support this podcast visit www.nakedbibleblog.com. To learn more about Dr. Heizer's other websites and blogs, go to www.brmsh.com.