Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #23 in Genesis 38, and we will be reading Genesis 38:29-30:

And it came to pass, as he drew back his hand, that, behold, his brother came out: and she said, How hast thou broken forth? this breach be upon thee: therefore his name was called Pharez. And afterward came out his brother, that had the scarlet thread upon his hand: and his name was called Zarah.

We have been spending a good deal of time on the last few verses of this chapter because God has placed a good deal of information here that has to do with God’s time period at the time of  the end.  We have seen in this historical parable truths that have to do with Judgment Day.

Now we are going to look at the names of these two sons who were twins born to Tamar and Judah.  The first son’s name is Pharez, as we read in verse 29.  I mentioned this last time, but in the last part of the verse it says, “How has thou broken forth?”  The Hebrew word translated as “broken forth” is Strong’s #6555.  Then it says, “…this breach be upon thee,” and that word “breach” is Strong’s #6556.  Then it says, “…therefore his name was called Pharez,” and that word “Pharez” is Strong’s #6557.  They are all related words, and once we dismiss the vowel points, they are all the same word.  They all mean to “break forth,” or to “breach.” 

In our last study we went to 2Samuel 6 where they were attempting to transport the ark.  It says in 2Samuel 6:6-8:

And when they came to Nachon's threshingfloor, Uzzah put forth his hand to the ark of God, and took hold of it; for the oxen shook it. And the anger of JEHOVAH was kindled against Uzzah; and God smote him there for his error; and there he died by the ark of God. And David was displeased, because JEHOVAH had made a breach upon Uzzah: and he called the name of the place Perezuzzah to this day.

There is our word within the name Perezuzzah, and there is also the “breach upon Uzzah,” and that is why the place was called “Perezuzzah,” because the word “breach” is the word “Pharez.”  God slew Uzzah for daring to put his hand on the ark.  Only the Levites were to transport the ark.  Let us go to 1Chronicles 15, and we will see the problem.  It says in 1Chronicles 15:11-15:

And David called for Zadok and Abiathar the priests, and for the Levites, for Uriel, Asaiah, and Joel, Shemaiah, and Eliel, and Amminadab, And said unto them, Ye are the chief of the fathers of the Levites: sanctify yourselves, both ye and your brethren, that ye may bring up the ark of JEHOVAH God of Israel unto the place that I have prepared for it. For because ye did it not at the first, JEHOVAH our God made a breach upon us, for that we sought him not after the due order. So the priests and the Levites sanctified themselves to bring up the ark of JEHOVAH God of Israel. And the children of the Levites bare the ark of God upon their shoulders with the staves thereon, as Moses commanded according to the word of JEHOVAH.

Very specific commandment had been given by God for the movement of the ark.  It was to be done by the Levites, and they were to carry the ark with staves upon their shoulders.  And that was not done by Uzzah and Ahio – they had placed the ark on a new cart.  Then the oxen shook the cart, and that was when Uzzah put forth his hand, and God smote him for his error.  It was not done according to the due order.  That is what David said here: “For because ye did it not at the first, JEHOVAH our God made a breach upon us, for that we sought him not after the due order.” 

We read in the account in 2Samuel 6:9-10:

And David was afraid of JEHOVAH that day, and said, How shall the ark of JEHOVAH come to me? So David would not remove the ark of JEHOVAH unto him into the city of David: but David carried it aside into the house of Obededom the Gittite.

Then David went home to the city of David, and he no doubt consulted with the priests and Levites.  He himself may have turned to the Word of God, and he read the commandment given to Moses, and he realized it was their own fault.  “We did not do things properly.  We did not do this thing according to the Word of the Lord.  We were careless, and we were unfaithful in the way we did this.”

This ties into what we were talking about in our last study.  Only the Levites were to carry the ark, and remember that it was the Ark of the Covenant, and inside the ark were the Ten Commandments representing the whole Word of God, the Bible.  Only God’s (true) people, who the Levites points to, or only God’s elect people, should be handling, declaring, and bringing the true Gospel of the Bible.  Only they are qualified to be “priests” or “Levites,” handling the Word of God.  That is the spiritual picture here, so we can see that the “breach” has to do with error concerning the Law of God and the due order.  We will find that this comes into view a few more times.  Let us turn to Isaiah 30, where we will see this word Strong’s #6556.

But again, remember that it is the same word if we dismiss the vowel points because the vowel points are not part of the holy, inspired Word of God.  They were added later by the Masoretes to help the Jews because they were afraid of losing their language because of the dysphoria of the Jews as they were scattered into all the nations, and they were having to learn the languages of other nations.  The original language of the Jews is a consonantal language, consisting of consonants only, and it is through the alphabet that you can form words.  You do not find vowel points in the Hebrew alphabet, and therefore you do not use vowel points to form words, but they knew intuitively how to pronounce words because it was their language.  Yes, you do use vowel sounds to pronounce consonants, but they knew how to do that. 

But as the centuries were passing, the Jews were still a scattered people, so around 600 A. D. through 1000 A. D. the Masoretes, who were scribes, began adding vowel pointing to the original Hebrew text in order to help the scattered Jews to pronounce the words properly.  Even today in modern Israel they do not use vowel points.  If you go to a city in Israel today and you buy a newspaper, there are no vowel points, and in those newspapers they will give quotations of politicians, important people, or witnesses to a crime, and they will quote these people, and they write down only consonants.  Did these people talk with vowel sounds?  Of course they did, but in their written language they have full understanding when reading someone’s words using only consonants, and they do not include vowel points.  And the readers have absolutely no problem understanding it.

The reason I am mentioning this is because the idea has been forth that when God spoke to Moses, for instance, and He gave Moses the Word of God, would God not have spoken with vowel sounds included, and would Moses not have written down the vowels?  No.  This is something that seems to be “going right over the heads” of certain people, but the Hebrew language is only consonants, and they understand their written word. 

God used the Hebrew language and gave it to His people, and they wrote down the consonants, and they understood it.  And the people of God understood these things for centuries.  It had been understood that the vowels are not part of the text.  And that is why these words, “breach,” “breaking forth,” and “Pharez,” are all the same words because we must dismiss the vowel points.

Let me say one more thing.  If it were true that the vowel points are inspired, and if I am telling you to dismiss them, this is a big deal.  Someone might say, “Well, you are not taking a pen knife, cutting them out, and throwing them into a fire.”   But that is exactly what I am doing if I say, “Do not pay any attention to the vowel points.”  But if they were actually inspired and part of the Word of God, it would be like some people that write Bibles today, and they say, “This particular text was not part of the more trustworthy reliable manuscripts,” and they are casting doubt on the Word of God.  Or if I were to read a verse in the Bible, and then if I told you to dismiss that verse, I would be subtracting from the Word of God.  I have full awareness of that, and if anyone diminishes that and says, “Mr. Camping also dismissed the vowel points, but it is not that big a deal;” or “Mr. McCann is dismissing the vowels points, but it is not a big deal because he is not taking a pen knife and throwing (the Word) into a fire.”  But do not believe that for a second because it is an equivalent act when someone says, “Do not listen to this, or that, in the Word of God.”  if it is part of the Word of God, you would be subtracting from the Word of God.

Likewise, those who are saying that the vowel points are inspired, and they are actually saying that the vowel points are words, they are adding to the Word of God.  If  they (vowel points) are not inspired, and if they are not words, they have added to the Bible, and Revelation 22:18-19 comes into view in this matter.  For someone to “sit on the fence,” and say, “Well, I listen to EBible, and they are dismissing the vowel points, and subtracting from the Word of God, and I also listen to this other ministry that is adding the vowel points, and they are adding to the Word of God,”  there is no middle ground.  And you cannot say, “I will listen to that one, and I will listen to this one,” and you cannot just “throw it up in the air,” and say, “Well, it is still being studied.” 

How long will that continue?  How long can you go on with that?  I am done studying it because I am firmly convinced that the vowel points were added later by the Masoretes.  Without question, they are not words, and they are not even inspired vowels.  They are not part of what Christ referred to  when He said, “jot and tittle.”  So when we at EBible Fellowship dismiss the vowel points, it expands the number of words we can look at (for purposes of comparing Scripture with Scripture) because we can now look at different Strong’s numbers.  I am dismissing the vowel points that make them “different words.”

It is just like our English words “lived,” and “loved.”  The vowels make them completely different words.  So to say, “I am going to dismiss the vowels and just look at the consonant,” is something we do not do with the English language because the vowels are part of our alphabet: “A, E, I, O, U, and, sometimes, Y.”  They are part of our alphabet, and we use them to form words, and in the English language the vowels make the words different.

But in the Hebrew language, the vowels are not part of their alphabet.  And the Hebrew alphabet is laid out in Psalm 119 in a series of verses.  Every eight verses covers one letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and every letter is found there.  That is why it is the largest Psalm, containing all 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet.  You will not find a section for vowel points because they are not part of the alphabet, and if they are not part of the alphabet, they do not play a part in the words.  You use alphabets in all the languages to make words.

So the dismissing of vowel points is intentional on my part.  If it is true that the vowel points are part of the Word of God, but I dismiss them…and Mr. Camping did the same thing, and I shared a link to one of his studies where he pointed out that the vowel points were not inspired, and you can dismiss them, leaving just the consonants. And when we do our studies that way, we are finding blessing, and we are uncovering truth, by God’s grace, and He is blessing the effort of biblical study.  And we can say He has been blessing it for decades, so how can that be?  If we are guilty of subtracting from the Word of God, it is a violation of God’s command, and it brings the wrath of God down upon us according to Revelation 22:18-19, then there would be no blessing.  Believe me.  It would be the same as saying that for those who add to the Word by speaking in tongues, or those who subtract from the Word of God in some way, God will bless their Bible study.  Do you think He would?  Of course He is not going to bless their Bible study. 

And yet as we follow this methodology of dismissing vowel points, we find in this study of these three examples of the same Hebrew consonants, and as we search them out, we find additional information and additional proofs.  But what does the other method produce?  What fruitfulness has come forth from including the vowel pointing?  Actually, it has been stated, “Well, you can dismiss the vowel points to get to the root of the word.”  Why would the three consonants be the root of the word when the vowel points are interspersed?  They are interspersed as “consonant-vowel-consonant-vowel.”  If you are looking at the first three letters, but you are treating the vowel points as letters, then  the root should be “consonant-vowel-consonant,” and not just three consonants.  So that is inconsistent with what has been stated.

You know, this is an important thing, and that is why I wanted to spend some time talking about it.

But let us look at Isaiah 30:12-14:

Wherefore thus saith the Holy One of Israel, Because ye despise this word, and trust in oppression and perverseness, and stay thereon: Therefore this iniquity shall be to you as a breach ready to fall, swelling out in a high wall, whose breaking cometh suddenly at an instant. And he shall break it as the breaking of the potters' vessel that is broken in pieces; he shall not spare: so that there shall not be found in the bursting of it a sherd to take fire from the hearth, or to take water withal out of the pit.

Remember, we are looking at the word “breach,” and God is faulting Israel for despising His Word and trusting in oppression and perverseness.  Then it says, “Therefore this iniquity shall be to you as a breach ready to fall, swelling out in a high wall…”  And the wall is the “wall of salvation,” the salvation of the blessing of the Word that had the ability to bring salvation within the nation of Israel, which would in turn point to the corporate church.  God would cause it to break, like the breaking of a potter’s vessel.  He would bring His wrath and judgment.

We will look at one other passage having to do with a wall in Ezekiel 13:3-5:

Thus saith the Lord JEHOVAH; Woe unto the foolish prophets, that follow their own spirit, and have seen nothing! O Israel, thy prophets are like the foxes in the deserts. Ye have not gone up into the gaps…

Here, the English word “gaps” is this same Hebrew word translated as “breach.”  So it is saying the same thing in Ezekiel 13:5-6:

Ye have not gone up into the gaps, neither made up the hedge for the house of Israel to stand in the battle in the day of JEHOVAH. They have seen vanity and lying divination, saying, JEHOVAH saith: and JEHOVAH hath not sent them: and they have made others to hope that they would confirm the word.

You see, they were lying.  They were teaching error.  It was the same problem with Uzzah and his error.  He received the brunt of it, being smitten by God.  It was an error in doctrine and of not following the “due order,” and we also saw that in Isaiah 30 that the prophets were lying, and God made a breach upon them and their wall would break.  It is the same thing here in Ezekiel 13 where God goes on to describe their building of a wall with “untempered mortar,” which means it was not “mixed with faith.” I will not get into proving this, but it can be proven from the New Testament when God uses the word “mixed” in Hebrews 4:2: “…but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it. ”  That same word “mixed” is translated as “tempered” in 1Corinthians 12:24: “…but God hath tempered the body together.”  He has mixed the body together, referring to the body of Christ. 

It is the same spiritual picture as the wall of salvation; they were daubing it with “untempered mortar,” or mortar that was not mixed.  Mixed with what?  It is not mixed with faith.  Whose faith?  It is Christ’s faith.  Without it, of course the wall will fall.  God will make a breach upon it, and it will collapse.  That is what He is referring to when He said, “Ye have not gone up into the gaps, or breaches.  There are errors in your Gospel.  There are doctrinal errors.  You have made another gospel by mixing work with grace.”  These are the “gaps,” or “breaches,” that Israel was guilty of, as well as the New Testament corporate churches, and God found fault with it, and He broke forth upon them to bring His judgment and accompanying destruction.