"John Knight" <jwknight at polbox.com> wrote:
>Ezra 9:1 Now when these things were done, the princes came to me, saying,
>The people of Israel, and the priests, and the Levites, have not separated
>themselves from the people of the lands, doing according to their
>abominations, even of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the
>Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians, and the Amorites.
>>Ezra 9:2 For they have taken of their daughters for themselves, and for
>their sons: so that the holy seed have mingled themselves with the people of
>those lands: yea, the hand of the princes and rulers hath been chief in this
>trespass.
>>Ezra 10:3 Now therefore let us make a covenant with our God to put away all
>the wives, and such as are born of them, according to the counsel of my
>lord, and of those that tremble at the commandment of our God; and let it be
>done according to the law.
But if the above is true, then it was already too late; the holy seed
had ALREADY been mingled, and the princes and rulers were mongrels.
The "Israelites" were already mongrels (the holy seed has mingled
themselves) by the time of Ezra. Putting away the last generation of
wives wouldn't make their seed pure again, not with all the trembling
and praying they could do. Yet that is all that Ezra describes.
You also cite Nehemiah. Dear Oh dear:
Nehemiah 2:16-20 has him telling the people to rebuild the walls of
Jerusalem. These are the Israelites, right, by your theory (confirmed
by large numbers of names)?
>[16] And the rulers knew not whither I went, or what I did; neither had I as yet told it to the Jews, nor to the priests, nor to the nobles, nor to the rulers, nor to the rest that did the work.
>[17] Then said I unto them, Ye see the distress that we are in, how Jerusalem lieth waste, and the gates thereof are burned with fire: come, and let us build up the wall of Jerusalem, that we be no more a reproach.
>[18] Then I told them of the hand of my God which was good upon me; as also the king's words that he had spoken unto me. And they said, Let us rise up and build. So they strengthened their hands for this good work.
>[19] But when Sanballat the Horonite, and Tobiah the servant, the Ammonite, and Geshem the Arabian, heard it, they laughed us to scorn, and despised us, and said, What is this thing that ye do? will ye rebel against the king?
>[20] Then answered I them, and said unto them, The God of heaven, he will prosper us; therefore we his servants will arise and build: but ye have no portion, nor right, nor memorial, in Jerusalem.
But lo in Nehemiah 4:
>Neh.4
>[1] But it came to pass, that when Sanballat heard that we builded the wall, he was wroth, and took great indignation, and mocked the Jews.
>[2] And he spake before his brethren and the army of Samaria, and said, What do these feeble Jews? will they fortify themselves? will they sacrifice? will they make an end in a day? will they revive the stones out of the heaps of the rubbish which are burned?
>[3] Now Tobiah the Ammonite was by him, and he said, Even that which they build, if a fox go up, he shall even break down their stone wall.
We find that it was the JEWS that rebuilt the wall, since it was they
who are described as being mocked, and all those names in Nehemiah 3
must therefore be the names of Jews. But those are the same names in
the genealogies which are the people of Judah.
Oops, you lose. Again.
Nehemiah 13:23-30 has him chewing out the Jews and Levites and making
THEM separate themselves from the foreigners. This parallels the
story of Ezra and shows again that the Jews were indeed the sons of
Judah who had returned after the captivity.
>[23] In those days also saw I Jews that had married wives of Ashdod, of Ammon, and of Moab:
>[24] And their children spake half in the speech of Ashdod, and could not speak in the Jews' language, but according to the language of each people.
>[25] And I contended with them, and cursed them, and smote certain of them, and plucked off their hair, and made them swear by God, saying, Ye shall not give your daughters unto their sons, nor take their daughters unto your sons, or for yourselves.
>[26] Did not Solomon king of Israel sin by these things? yet among many nations was there no king like him, who was beloved of his God, and God made him king over all Israel: nevertheless even him did outlandish women cause to sin.
>[27] Shall we then hearken unto you to do all this great evil, to transgress against our God in marrying strange wives?
>[28] And one of the sons of Joiada, the son of Eliashib the high priest, was son in law to Sanballat the Horonite: therefore I chased him from me.
>[29] Remember them, O my God, because they have defiled the priesthood, and the covenant of the priesthood, and of the Levites.
>[30] Thus cleansed I them from all strangers, and appointed the wards of the priests and the Levites, every one in his business;
So the attempted separation was Jews who returned to their ancestral
worship and put away the ways of the stranger, and their wives who
were foreign. They were already mongrels from the time in captivity
when they had turned away from the Lord, but they rededicated
themselves.
And they were the only ones in the Bible who did. Those "Lost Tribes"
were the ones who did NOT separate themselves, which is why they were
"lost". The non-Jew (not Judah, Benjamin, or Levi) "Israelites", the
ones who were not recovered by the acts and words of Ezra and Nehemiah
remained mongrels. And are LOST.
As are you, loser.
lojbab
