daq
Messianic
- Jan 26, 2012
- 5,128
- 1,155
- Country
- United States
- Gender
- Male
- Faith
- Messianic
- Marital Status
- Private
Thanks, interesting article. Everything changes once you realize me'eh is also used figuratively for the heart or "inward parts". If you read Gen 15:2-5 this way it ends up reading the opposite way from how it is commonly understood according to the physical.
Genesis 15:2-5
2 And Abram said, Adonai HE WHO IS, what will you give unto me? I walk destitute, and the son of the possession [meshek, inheritor] of my house is Dammeshek [blood inheritor] Eliezer.
3 And Abram said, Behold, unto me you have given no seed: and behold, the son of my house is disinheriting me.
4 And behold, the Word of HE WHO IS came unto him, saying, This one shall not be your heir: but he that shall come forth from your own inward parts, [mim'eika] he shall be your heir.
5 And He brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward the heavens, and count the stars if you are able to number them: and He said to him, Thus shall your seed be.
So then, is the holy seed physical and by blood? or is it spiritual and by faith/belief? I hate to say it too loudly here but it seems to me that this passage can be read either way. Perhaps it was written this way intentionally: I think so, and I think the Tzaddokim at Dameshek (Qumran) had some similar form of understanding concerning this, if not the same.
@Lulav, also, what I said here is a highly compelling link to the name Dameshek, imho, and thus it is highly unlikely that Yosephus got the name wrong. The most common way of rendering the letter ḥet as the first letter of a proper noun, into direct Greek transliteration, is to use the Greek letter epsilon. Yosephus wrote more about the Ḥessenin, (Aramaic, "Possessors", of the kingdom, Dan 7:18-22), than any other sect. Moreover it is also a Hebrew word but with slightly different meaning, cf. Prov 15:6, חסן, wealth or treasure, (as amassed or gathered), strength, (in numbers), and this strength in numbers is like a flock, and how sheep are dominators in that they fill up the land and dominate the land whereon they feed. Kebes, (כֶּבֶשׂ, lamb or sheep), without pointing, is actually the same block-letter word for subdue or dominate in Gen 1:28, (kabash, כָּבַשׁ).
This is precisely how Yosephus describes the Ḥessenin, spread out all over the land in clusters or groups, i.e. flocks. They would have no doubt understood such reasoning from passages like Gen 1:28, which is a command to mankind, and from other similar things evidenced in the scripture, such as how Abram is told, in Gen 13:17, "Arise, walk through the land in its length and breadth: for I will give it unto you." Abraham is likened to a sheep, but in the sense of a peaceful dominator of the land, for in the same passage he is told that his descendants shall be as the dust of the land, innumerable, (Gen 13:14-17).
Upvote
0