Deception and Lies: The Why, How and When!
This article talks about:
- Deception in the Bible
- Biblical Heroes and Lies
- Moral Complexity of Lies
-By Joseph Shulam-
When this topic was suggested by the Netivyah staff for the next Teaching from Zion magazine, I was so surprised. I have been a disciple of Yeshua the Messiah since the age of 16, and now I am 77 years old, and I have never heard a sermon or read an article in a Christian or Jewish magazine that is actually facing this topic head-on!
When I checked the concordance for relevant topics like the words: deceived, deceit, lying, liars, false... I was utterly surprised to see how many times the Bible uses these words, both in the reporting mood and also in the warning mood. So, what I would like to do with this article for the Teaching from Zion magazine! But I don’t want it to become a book yet. For this reason, I will do my best to keep this article in the normal range of articles for the Teaching from Zion magazine, about 5 to 9 pages.
The Bible opens already in the first chapters of the book of Genesis with the greatest deception of all: the snake in the garden of Eden, Satan, deceived Eve, and she carried that deception, and with her help Adam was deceived, and all of biblically known humanity in the garden of Eden was deceived. The first deception was a direct affront and twisting of the Creator’s word: The Creator, the Father of all, said: "And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, "Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die."" (Genesis 2:16–17 NKJV).
So simple, so plain, so direct, and so devious was that primeval snake, Satan. He used the very same words that the Almighty God, our Father, used. He just added one little word to the formula: he just added the three-letter word in English and two letters in Hebrew, "not" and ״לא״. What damage to all of humanity these two little words have caused in human history! The origin of these two little words is what needs to be considered.
Satan is called in the Gospel of John 8:44–45: "He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it." From this text, I can draw some very serious conclusions: If Satan is the source of lies, then when we lie, we serve as servants of Satan. Maybe I could say that when we lie, we act like sons of Satan. If this idea is true, it of course complicates life greatly. I don’t know any person who has not used at least "a little white lie" to get out of some embarrassment or unpleasant challenge!
I find it difficult to find any Biblical hero, male or female, that has not lied some time in their lives. The Word of God doesn’t even mask the lies of the biblical heroes. On the contrary, the Bible emphasizes the sins of the most important of the fathers of our faith, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and from the Patriarchs of our faith we can go to the great kings like King David.
This makes the whole issue of deception, lies, half-truths, false reports, and manipulation of numbers in favor of oneself a very serious matter. And a matter that must be studied and exposed, opened up, and spread on the ground so that we and our brothers and sisters may understand God Himself and the heroes that He the Almighty can use as examples and teach us how and where to find the power that will direct us into His righteousness and truth.
After having attributed the deceptions and lies in the world and accredited them to Satan, the father of lies, we must open our eyes, be honest with ourselves and our own history-based faith, and learn some important lessons from the fathers and heroes of our faith. These lessons will also shed light on how God deals with our human frailties.
After the events in the Garden of Eden with the trio of heroes who were the first residents of the Garden, Adam, Eve, and the serpent, the next text in the Bible where this serpent is clearly identified is in the book of Revelation:
Revelation 12:9 says, "So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him."
Revelation 12:14-15, "But the woman was given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness to her place, where she is nourished for a time and times and half a time, from the presence of the serpent. 15 So the serpent spewed water out of his mouth like a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away by the flood."
Rev. 20:2, "He laid hold of the dragon, that serpent of old, who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years;"
The picture is clear. The first chapters of Genesis, the beginning of all things here in our galaxy, start with the primeval serpent playing a major role in this movie. The end of the Bible, the book of Revelation, ends the saga of history with the same movie star, the serpent, who is the devil and Satan.
One of the most fascinating stories in the Bible is one that is often not known or mentioned in the study of God’s word in Christian universities or from the pulpits of most churches. This is the story of the death of King Ahab. King Ahab is the most famous king of Israel outside the pages of the Bible.
In 853 BC, the Assyrian king, Shalmaneser III, fought against a coalition of western kings near Qarqar in modern-day Syria. He left a description of the battle on a stele that was discovered in 1861 at Qarqar, near the Tigris River in Turkey. In the inscription on the Kurkh Monolith, he names "Ahab the Israelite" as one of the combatants and claims that he had one of the strongest forces, with 2000 chariots and 10000 soldiers.
The Qarqar Monolith of the Assyrian King Shalmaneser III mentions Ahab the Israelite. In this text, it is evident that King Ahab of Israel is a major player in the Middle East, side by side with the northern empires. The number of his forces is a clear indication of his importance in the region.
In the Biblical narrative of King Ahab’s death is the story of a lone prophet named Micaiah, the son of Imlah. Micaiah stood against the hundreds of prophets that supported and served King Ahab and his evil queen, Jezebel. All the false prophets prophesied that King Ahab and the forces of Israel would win the battle against the King of Assyria (Aram). The Israelite coalition was significant because Israel and Judea had not been friendly for many years, and there was deep enmity between these two halves of the Israelite nation.
In this situation, their common enemy was Assyria (Aram), and they joined forces. The King of Judea, Jehoshaphat, came to help King Ahab fight against Assyrian King Shalmaneser III. The two kings, Ahab and Jehoshaphat, wouldn’t go out to war without some assurance from God that they would be successful in defeating Shalmaneser III. So, King Ahab brought four hundred prophets who all prophesied the same words: The question that these prophets were asked was, "Shall I go against Ramoth Gilead to fight, or shall I refrain?" The answer of these 400 prophets to Ahab and Jehoshaphat was, "So they said, "Go up, for the Lord will deliver it into the hand of the king." King Jehoshaphat knew the Israelites. He knew that there was no way that 400 Israelites would ever agree to anything without at least some decent. So, he asked Ahab if there was any other prophet in Israel who might have a different answer. Ahab said that there is one guy who is always negative and against me. Jehoshaphat said to Ahab, "Bring him over; I want to hear what he says. So, they brought Micaiah, the son of Imlah. Michaiah sees a vision of what is happening in the heavenly boardroom of the Almighty God Himself. Here is the discussion and answer that Micaiah and Ahab have with Micaiah's double answer to King Ahab:
"And the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, 'Did I not tell you he would not prophesy good concerning me but evil?' Then Micaiah said, 'Therefore, hear the word of the LORD: I saw the LORD sitting on His throne, and all the host of heaven standing by, on His right hand and on His left.' And the LORD said, 'Who will persuade Ahab to go up, that he may fall at Ramoth Gilead?' So one spoke in this manner, and another spoke in that manner. Then a spirit came forward, stood before the LORD, and said, 'I will persuade him.' The LORD said to him, 'In what way?' So, he said, 'I will go out and be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.' And the LORD said, ‘You shall persuade him and also prevail. Go out and do so.' Therefore look! The LORD has put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these prophets of yours, and the LORD has declared disaster against you." (1 Kings 22:18–23 NKJV).
What we see here corresponds with the text of Job 1:6-10, "Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came among them. And the LORD said to Satan, "From where do you come?" So, Satan answered the LORD and said, "From going to and fro on the earth and from walking back and forth on it." Then the LORD said to Satan, "Have you considered My servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil?"
So Satan answered the LORD and said, "Does Job fear God for nothing? Have You not made a hedge around him, around his household, and around all that he has on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land." (Job 1:6–10 NKJV)
I am bringing these stories up to show the correlation and correspondence between the two scenes from 2 Kings and from Job 1. The two scenes project the same message, which is that Satan is not an independent agent that works independently from the Almighty God, the Creator of our Galaxy, but is totally dependent, just like the IRS income tax collector has a very negative and unpleasant job to do. Don’t think twice; the Serpent in the Garden of Eden didn’t create himself and didn’t enter the garden without permission of the master of all creation, THE LORD Himself, who at least allowed that serpent, who is identified in the book of Revelation more than once as Satan.
For this article that I am writing about deception and lies, it is important for us to know and digest the story from 1 Kings 22 and understand that Micaiah the prophet sees THE SPIRIT, who is in the presence of THE ALMIGHTY, volunteer to go out and be a lying spirit in the mouth of the prophets.
Now that I have set the stage for a panoramic view of this very difficult and challenging issue of deception and lies in the Bible, let us review the characters and personalities who used lies and the reason behind the lies that they used:
Our father Abraham lies twice concerning Sarah his wife being his sister! Some Jewish and Christian writers and leaders have been trying to clear Abraham, our father, from the sin of speaking untruth. They say that Sarah was both his wife and his half-sister, thinking that it is a lesser sin to marry a sister (even if she is only his half-sister) than to lie. Here is the text that makes this sin severely punishable: "The nakedness of your sister, the daughter of your father, or the daughter of your mother, whether born at home or elsewhere, their nakedness you shall not uncover."
(Leviticus 18:9 NKJV). Just notice that according to this text, it can be your sister from either one side or the other, either the daughter of your father or the daughter of your mother.
Abraham’s sin was doubly grievous; the fact that he lied and asked Sarah, his wife, to cooperate with his lie, was, in my opinion, even more serious, selfish, cruel, and extremely mean. To ask your wife to lie for your sake and endanger her life, well-being, and personal chastity is, in my opinion, and in the opinion of the Torah, a much more grievous sin. [1]
And for our father Abraham to do the same sin twice and for his son Isaac to repeat the same sin as his father makes the whole thing so much more serious.
Now let us go and see these lies and the incidents from a different perspective than the traditional one for both Jews and Christians:
Abraham and Sara were strangers in the land of Egypt. For Abraham to have an audience with Pharaoh in those days is an indication that Abraham must have been someone very important, not only for his own people but as a person of influence in the region. Therefore, for Abraham to fear the integrity of Pharaoh is a clear indication of the power of Pharaoh and Abraham’s diplomatic hedge to protect himself. As it is clear from the text, the lie that Abraham used was for his own protection. He was willing to abandon Sarah, his wife, into the hands of the Pharaoh and later into the hands of Abimelech, king of Grar for his own good. This action by Abraham shows the inflationary value of women in general and the fickleness of what we call "love of family" in the days of Abraham (around the 18th century B.C.E. – Middle Bronze Age).
We see that the attitude of Abraham toward Sarah, his beloved wife, was transmitted to Isaac, his son, who did the same thing as his father, as it is recorded in Genesis 26:7–11. The thing that is fascinating to me in these stories is the integrity of the Pharaoh and the same is true of Abimelech, King of Grar. Abraham and Isaac lied for their own safety, but the pagan kings, both the Egyptian Pharaoh and Abimelech the Philistine king, showed a degree of nobility beyond and above that of Abraham and Isaac his son. [2]
So, why did Abraham and Isaac lie to these pagan kings? They lied out of fear and out of a desire to save their own lives, and their distrust in God’s blanket of protection that was already on them was demonstrated in the battle against the five kings of the north that captured Lot and his family. So, why didn’t God punish them for this sin of lying and deception? There doesn’t seem to be a direct correlation between the events in Grar and Egypt with any known punishment or anger from God’s side against Abraham!
I would like to think that God takes into account our human frailties and weaknesses, our fears, and our anxieties. At times God understands our predicament, the predicament that He at least allows us to fall into. Just like in the flood of Noah. God was angry and caused the flood that, according to the Biblical narrative, destroyed all of humanity except the eight souls that were in the Ark of Noah during the flood, i.e., Noah and his family. After the flood, God shows some regret for having caused the flood and destroying the human race except for a few privileged characters. Now God makes a covenant with Noah and all of humanity forever that anyone who sheds blood or kills another human being, be it an animal or another human, his blood will be required, and his life will be taken. For this reason, God, in this covenant with Noah and his seed, gave the rainbow as a sign of the covenant that He, God, would not ever destroy all of humanity for any reason. This, in my opinion, shows that God had second thoughts about the flood and therefore gave the rainbow and the covenant that He would not destroy humanity with water a second time.
In my opinion, this is also the reason why God overlooks the sins and lies of Abraham and Isaac, understands their fears and their anxiety, and just goes along with the program to produce a SAVIOUR of the world through these humans, who have on their shoulders the salvation of the whole creation. The text in all three of these cases where our Patriarchs, Abraham and Isaac, repeated the same sin points out the sin but does not indicate any actual punishment or even a major reprimand of our Patriarchs.
This analysis by no means indicates that it is okay to lie and deceive! It does put a moral and just situation into the lives of humans that says that there is a relativity and priority where a sin is weighed against reality and mitigated by reality.
I could apply this principle to the thousands of cases where Christian, Catholic, and Protestant leaders lied and endangered their own lives in order to hide and protect Jews and Jewish children from the hands of the Nazi military and police. These Christians not only lied, but at times also resorted to stealing food to feed the extra souls hidden in their homes.
No! Lies and deception are not okay; they are not permitted under normal circumstances. But sin is relative, and the sacrifices for sin are relative as to who is the sinner and what he has to offer for his atonement. The rich sinner has to offer a bull for his atonement. The middle-class sinner who committed the same sin as the rich sinner has to offer a goat or a sheep. The poor sinner that can’t afford a goat or a ship can bring two birds, and even from a poorer sinner, God would be satisfied if he brought only a handful of grain anointed with oil, and that would have the same efficiency as the bull for the rich person. You see, dear brothers, the LORD grades us on the "Bell Curve!"
On the other hand, we do have the following words from God’s wisdom texts that we must take into account and not neglect to always have these words of God in our mind in order to keep us in the favor and grace of God almighty.
Proverbs 10:9 says, "Whoever walks in integrity walks securely, but he who makes his ways crooked will be found out."
Proverbs 12:22 says, "Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord, but those who act faithfully are his delight."
But, on the other hand, we have some very prominent characters in the Bible that did lie and deceive, even the priests in the tabernacle of the Lord. The most famous of these is the case with King David that later is also used to justify the disciples of Yeshua for picking grain on the Sabbath on the way between Nazareth and Capernaum, while walking through the valley of Beit Netofa toward the north side of the sea of Galilee.
Here is the story of David and the Tabernacle of the Lord in Nob. [3]
"So, David said to Ahimelech the priest, "The king has ordered me on some business and said to me, ‘Do not let anyone know anything about the business on which I send you or what I have commanded you.' And I have directed my young men to such and such a place. Now, therefore, what have you on hand? Give me five loaves of bread in my hand, or whatever can be found."
And the priest answered David and said, "There is no common bread on hand, but there is holy bread, if the young men have at least kept themselves from women." Then David answered the priest and said to him, "Truly, women have been kept from us about three days since I came out. And the vessels of the young men are holy, and the bread is in effect common, even though it was consecrated in the vessel this day." So, the priest gave him holy bread, for there was no bread there but the showbread which had been taken from before the LORD, in order to put hot bread in its place on the day when it was taken away. Now a certain man of the servants of Saul was there that day, detained before the LORD. And his name was Doeg, an Edomite, the chief of the herdsmen who belonged to Saul. And David said to Ahimelech, "Is there not here on hand a spear or a sword? For I have brought neither my sword nor my weapons with me, because the king’s business required haste." So, the priest said, "The sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom you killed in the Valley of Elah, there it is, wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod. If you will take that, take it. For there is no other except that one here."
And David said, "There is none like it; give it to me." (1 Samuel 21:2–9 NKJV)
This story about King David is one of the more complex stories in the Hebrew Bible. Here are the problems:
It was Shabbat – on Shabbat, the holy bread that was baked by the priest to replace the bread that was baked a week earlier. This bread sat on a special table inside the tabernacle. It was an offering for the Lord. Symbolic, but holy and dedicated to God.
This bread was not to be eaten by people who were not consecrated on any day, but especially not on Shabbat, the day that the bread was baked and placed on the Holy Table.
David lied when he said that the king, i.e., King Saul, the first king of Israel, sent him to Abimelech the Priest in Nob to get this holy bread for his people. He also deceived Abimelech, the priest that King Saul sent him to collect the weapons of Goliath, the Philistine giant that David killed in the valley of Ella.
What we have here is a story with David who was not yet a King in Israel, but a fugitive from King Saul and his men. David was leading several hundred men who are described in the Bible as vagabonds and criminals. They were hungry, and David comes to the Tabernacle in Nob, lies and takes the Holy Bread, and takes the sword of Goliath.
Normally, the Biblical narrative about David is not kind to him when he sins. When David sins, the Lord sends one of the two popular prophets who served David, Gad and Nathan. These prophets faced David and corrected him for his sins, and David very faithfully repented. In this case with the holy bread that was baked on Shabbat and the lies that he spoke in the name of King Saul, there is no prophet, no divine voice, and no punishment. As they say in the south of the USA, David comes out of this event in Nob "Scott-free!" It is on this very basis that the encounter of Yeshua and His disciples on the way to Capernaum through the valley of Netofa in the central Galilee with the Pharisees. Yeshua brings up this story of David and Ahimelech the Priest and the fact that there is no condemnation of David or his men for eating on Shabbat the hot bread baked by the Priests of Nob for the Lord’s table in the Tabernacle. The indication that David was not reprimanded by God or by God’s prophets for his deeds on that Shabbat is a legal precedent that for people who are hungry it is o.k., break the Sabbath laws. The same is true for people who are sick on the Sabbath.
What is the conclusion of the moral of this story with David in Nob and the lies that David used to achieve his goal and feed his band of 400 vagabonds and criminals that accompanied David during his fugitive years from King Saul’s anger?
I believe that Yeshua drew an analogy between King David and his men who were hungry and his disciples who picked up the green wheat and rubbed it with their fingers to get the grain and eat it. The wheat that is not yet fully ripe and can be squeezed out of the pod easily is called "Carmel" in Biblical Hebrew, and it is sweeter than ripe wheat, which is dry and hard.
I learn from this story that, for the preservation and survival of the soul, the life, or the health of a person, it is ok to deceive. One of the stories that I heard on the radio many years ago was about the Rabbi of the city of Hebron in the 1920s, Rabbi Slonim of Hebron. It was a typical Hebron winter, and it was Friday evening—a dark afternoon with heavy snow outside. Just a minute after Shabbat entered, Rabbi Slonim looked out of his window to see what the weather was like, and he saw the old widow woman pacing back and forth very nervously. Many of the families and especially people who lived alone without relatives living with them would have a "Goy Shel Shabbat"—a non-Jew who would come and put wood in their stoves on Shabbat and turn the lights out on Friday evening. This Friday evening, the weather was so bad, and the widow was waiting for the Arab helper that used to come to turn off the lights (the oil lamp) and put a little more wood in the stove to keep the fire burning and the heat warming the house for a little longer. Well, Rabbi Slonim looks through the window and sees the widow woman looking through the window, waiting for the Arab to come, and becoming more and more anxious—the Arab is not coming because of the stormy weather. Well, after the Sabbath has already entered Rabbi Slonim puts on his Kafia (Arab headdress) and his coat and goes across the street to the widow’s house and speaks Arabic to her, puts the wood in the fire-place, fills the big clay water pot, turns off the oil lamps in the widow’s house, and wishes her a peaceful Shabbat and a good night in Arabic. Because it is a greater Mitzvah – good deed – to take care and comfort the widow than the observation of the Shabbat commandment.
We have the very same paradigm in the New Testament with the healing of the paralyzed man in the synagogue on the Sabbath.
We learn from these texts in the Bible and from the way that God treats King David and the patriarchs that not all the commandments have the same gravity and that a grave commandment is so much more important than a light commandment that we must observe. It is important to learn this point, and it is also just as important to avoid having to break even the lightest commandment of the Lord. However, life is not so kind to us sometimes, and the choices that we have to make are between the bad and the worst. In fact, we seldom have the privilege or the opportunity to choose between black and white. The choices are more often between light gray and darker gray, but it is gray.
I could use the case of Laban, who lied and deceived Jacob more than once in the 20 plus years that Jacob worked for him, his father-in-law, in order to marry the love of his life and come out of Syria with at least some wealth to start a new life in the land that God promised his grandfather Abraham for all the generations.
This is how the Lord God, the Father of all of us, has treated the major biblical characters from the beginning of creation to this very day.
I am repeating the principle that the Lord uses in judging us, his human children. It is the principle of relativity of all things! Only God is absolute in all His ways, but He created us and all around us to live and function, do good, and be a blessing, knowing our frailties and inclinations.
I believe that all man created in the image of God want and desire to do good and be righteous, but at times they make bad judgments and out if the evil inclination of their hearts and passionate desires for the easy and wrong they make bad decisions that lead to other bad decisions and finally to the need to repent. As you read the prophets in the Bible, you can see that Israel as a nation for most of Biblical history didn’t exactly walk in the straight and narrow path of the Lord. God’s love and patience for people in general and for Israel specifically the measure of God’s grace seems to have precedence over God’s desire to punish and show His wrath.
On the other hand, we must make every effort to walk on the narrow path and on the straight road that leads to righteousness. If we have to make a deviation from the straight and narrow path of truth, love, and grace, it should always be only when doing good supersedes the deviant behavior or tweeting of truth like King David, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had to do to achieve a righteous and fair result for their righteous and just reward. Jesus heard on the Sabbath, knowing the relativity of the Sabbath commands. Orthodox Jewish doctors and nurses work on Shabbat to heal and bless people who are suffering from health issues. Policemen and women work on the Sabbath and even on the day of Yom Kippur (the day of atonement). People who work in the defense industry in Israel—some of them are even ultra-Orthodox Jews—do their best to observe the light and heavy commandments under normal circumstances. When they need to work in saving lives and combating terrorists, these Orthodox Jews drive cars and military equipment and do all that is necessary to allow the normal population to have peace and be able to honor the holiday.
Below there is a chain of texts that give us the admonition and instruction of how God wants His children to live and what is the 100% desirable and wishful life that we all want to live and be pleasing both to God and man. How real and how sad it is that most of us aren’t always able, because of circumstances in life, to stay on the straight and narrow of God’s commands. Please take the chain of texts from God’s Word with extremely serious intent and desire and pray that you will never have to resort to deception and lies to save yourself, a family member, or a fellow man who has fallen into life challenges that necessitate doing what Abraham did or what King David did in the town of Nob.
Galatians 5:16-26, "But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, ..."
Galatians 6:7-8: "Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life."
Romans 12:2, "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect."
Proverbs 11:3, "The integrity of the upright guides them, but the crookedness of the treacherous destroys them." — I especially like this text from Proverbs. It is so important to know and understand this clear instruction of the Holy Spirit for us all. The integrity of the upright (righteous) guides us in times of testing and in times of choices that are not so good. Trust the Holy Spirit to be your guide in times of deep conflict to take decisions that all seem not so straight, and all choices seem difficult and hard.
Luke 6:31: "And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them." For me, these words of our Lord are the greatest key for wise and just decisions to make in questionable situations with hard decisions.
Ephesians 4:31–32: "Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you."
Colossians 3:9 says, "Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices..."
Mark 7:20-22, “And he said, 'What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness.’”
1 John 4:1 says, "Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world." This one is especially important, and it is based on Jeremiah 17:5–9. "Thus says the LORD: "Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart departs from the LORD.
Jeremiah 17:5–9, For he shall be like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see when good comes, but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land which is not inhabited. "Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, and whose hope is the LORD. For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters, which spreads out its roots by the river, and will not fear when heat comes; But its leaf will be green and will not be anxious in the year of drought, Nor will cease from yielding fruit. "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?"
2 Peter 2:12–22, "But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them, the way of truth will be blasphemed. And in their greed, they will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep. For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment; if he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly;..."
2 Thessalonians 2:9–12 "The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness." I especially like these words of the Apostle Paul. God sends the sons of disobedience "a strong delusion (lies), so that they may believe what is false (lies)... Follow the logic of this text and you will understand from where I am coming to my conclusions in this paper!
Judges 16:4-20, "After this he loved a woman in the Valley of Sorek, whose name was Delilah. And the lords of the Philistines came up to her and said to her, "Seduce him, and see where his great strength lies, and by what means we may overpower him, that we may bind him to humble him. And we will each give you 1,100 pieces of silver." So Delilah said to Samson, "Please tell me where your great strength lies, and how you might be bound, that one could subdue you." Samson said to her, "If they bind me with seven fresh bowstrings that have not been dried, then I shall become weak and be like any other man." Then the lords of the Philistines brought up to her seven fresh bowstrings that had not been dried, and she bound him with them. ...". This story of Samson and Delilah is of great importance in the history of mankind. The biggest deceptions have been between men and women. The agents of deception, from the Garden of Eden to the stories of Samson and Delilah and several other stories of women who have caused good men and even men of God to fail and fall into their web of deception, are something to be super careful about and super vigilant about. We have the story of Levi and Shimon and how they deceived the sons of Scheme and convinced them to be circumcised in order to be able to marry the daughters of Jacob.
[1] "Please say you are my sister, that it may be well with me for your sake, and that I may live because of you."
(Genesis 12:13 NKJV). This was in Egypt with the Pharaoh. It should be noted that not every tourist who goes to Egypt for business (buying and selling) will have an audience with the Pharaoh. The second incident is with Abimelech, King of Grar: "Now Abraham said of Sarah, his wife, "She is my sister." And Abimelech, king of Gerar sent and took Sarah." (Genesis 20:2 NKJV). It should also be noticed that Abraham spells his reason for asking Sarah to lie very directly: "so it may be well with me!"
[2] "So Isaac dwelt in Gerar. And the men of the place asked about his wife. And he said, "She is my sister"; for he was afraid to say, "She is my wife," because he thought, "lest the men of the place kill me for Rebekah, because she is beautiful to behold." Now it came to pass, when he had been there a long time, that Abimelech, king of the Philistines, looked through a window and saw, and there was Isaac, showing endearment to Rebekah, his wife. Then Abimelech called Isaac and said, "Quite obviously, she is your wife; so how could you say, ‘She is my sister’?" Isaac said to him, "Because I said, ‘Lest I die on account of her,'" And Abimelech said, "What is this you have done to us? One of the people might soon have lain with your wife, and you would have brought guilt on us." So Abimelech charged all his people, saying, "He who touches this man or his wife shall surely be put to death."" (Genesis 26:6–11, NKJV)
[3] Heb nōb נֹב]. Town north-east of Jerusalem where David met Ahimelech the priest (1 Sam 21:1). It was here that David and his companions ate the bread of the presence (an episode mentioned in Jesus’ dispute with the Pharisees concerning the Sabbath; cf. Matt 12:1–4, Mark 2:23–28, and Luke 6:1–5) and where David received the weapons of Goliath. During this time Nob apparently held the position of chief sanctuary of YHWH after the fall of Shilo.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Joseph Shulam was born in Sofia, Bulgaria, on March 24, 1946, to a Sephardic Jewish family. In 1948, his family immigrated to Israel just before the establishment of the state. While in high school, he was introduced to the New Testament and immediately identified with the person of Yeshua. In 1981, Joseph and the small fellowship that was started in his house established one of the first official non-profit organizations of Jewish Disciples of Yeshua in Israel – Netivyah Bible Instruction Ministry. Joseph has lectured extensively and has assisted in encouraging disciples around the world. He and his wife, Marcia, have two children and two grandchildren.
