Join us as we explore the intriguing history of the Samaritans, a people often overshadowed in biblical narratives yet essential for understanding ancient religious practices. This episode delves into the origins of the Samaritans and their version of the Pentateuch, shedding light on how their texts differ from the Masoretic versions. Discover how ancient nations, including Israel, grappled with idol worship and split religious loyalties, often leading them away from divine ordinances.
The CEM Network is pleased to present Ronald L. Dart and Born to Win.
SPEAKER 03 :
The Middle East is a very curious place, but I hardly need to tell you that. I wonder, though, how many people know that the Samaritans are still there. You know who the Samaritans are from the Bible, from Sunday school, or from sermons in church. Everyone hears and learns the parable of the Good Samaritan. My, if you’ve ever been an RVer and been around very many places, you see this little guy with a halo on his head and a sticker on these travel trailers. That means that person is a member of the Good Sam Club, which comes from the Good Samaritan. And it was a Samaritan Jesus used in one of his parables. We all know that the Samaritans were pariahs to the Jews. They were bad people, and the Jews hated them and had nothing to do with them. Maybe one person in 50 knows the story of how the Samaritans came to be. The Assyrians carried all of northern Israel captive, all the regions around Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal, the city of Samaria, all the different tribes, carried them all away into captivity, cleaning the other side of the Euphrates River. And lest the land go to waste, just lie there and grow thorns, they imported people from other parts of the empire to settle there. The problem was… They began to have a lot of bad luck, if you might want to call it that, or they had trouble with wild animals. There were lions among them, and they didn’t know. They assumed it was because they didn’t know the God of the land. You know, if you live in a country, you’ve got to know about the God in that country. You’ve got to appease that God, got to work with him, because if you don’t work with the God of the land, well, things don’t go well for you. So the king of Assyria, he decided, okie-dokie, we’ll look for a priest that we took from there, and we’ll send them back there to teach them the way of the God of the land. Now presumably this priest, when he came back, brought with him a copy of the Torah, because the Samaritans copied it and made it their own. There is a document called the Samaritan Pentateuch. It’s a Hebrew copy of the first five books of the Old Testament. The script, though, differs markedly from the later Hebrew, certainly way different from the Masoretic text. Some presume it is an older, pre-exilic style of letters. There are also some differences between what the text says and the Masoretic text. That is the latter, the text used in nearly all the English versions of the Bible. What is fascinating about it is that there are many places where the Samaritan Pentateuch differs from the Masoretic text. But the Septuagint translation agrees with the Samaritan text. Now, the interesting thing about this is that apart from the Samaritan, the Septuagint is probably the oldest witness we’ve got in hand of what the older Hebrew texts were like. The Septuagint, called this because it was translated by 70 Jewish scholars, is a Greek translation of the Old Testament that was done, oh, what, two, three hundred years B.C.? ? Well, it differs from the Masoretic text. Oddly, it actually agrees more with some of the Dead Sea Scrolls and even more strangely with the Samaritan Pentateuch. But as it turns out, the Samaritans weren’t immune from the same sort of corruption that had afflicted Israel. So they feared the Lord, the Bible tells us, and made to themselves of the lowest of them priests of the high places who sacrificed for them in the houses of the high places. These old, what they really amounted to is houses of religious prostitution. They persisted through almost any kind of civilization. It’s odd. They, quote, feared the Lord, end quote, and served their own gods after the manner of the nations that were carried away from there. In other words, the Israelites who were there had a combined form of religion, if you want to call it. They served the Lord on one hand. At least they said they did. And on the other hand, they followed these Asherah and went to these temple prostitutes in the high places. Somehow, people seem to think God won’t mind if you serve Him right alongside of other gods. You just keep Him equal with the other gods. God won’t mind. Well, the author of 2 Kings goes on and says, “…unto this day they do after their former manners. They don’t fear the Lord, neither do they do after their statutes or their ordinances.” They don’t keep anything straight. Don’t also follow the law and the commandment that the Lord commanded the children of Jacob when he named Israel. God made a covenant with them and charged them saying, “‘You shall not fear other gods, nor bow down to them, nor serve them, nor sacrifice them. But the Lord who brought you up out of the land of Egypt with great power and a stretched out arm, him shall you fear, him shall you worship, and to him shall you do sacrifice.'” Now, you know, this isn’t just a petty matter. This is a matter that if you will just stay away from these other gods, if you go that direction, they’re going to ruin your lives. They’ll ruin your families. They’ll wreck your society. You’ll trash everything. So stay with me, God says. Keep covenant with me, and we’ll be just fine. The statutes, the ordinances, the law, the commandments that God wrote for you, you shall observe to do forevermore, and you shall not fear other gods. And the covenant I have made with you, you shall not forget. Don’t let it get away from you. You shall not fear other gods. Why does he keep saying this again and again? Don’t be afraid of these other gods. But the Lord your God shall you fear, and he’ll deliver you out of the hand of all your enemies. But they wouldn’t listen. They did after their former manner. So these nations, these new nations, they feared the Lord. And you can put that in quotes. It didn’t mean they really did. It meant that they actually observed things about God. They claimed him. And they served their graven images, both their children, their children’s children, as did their father, so do they unto this day. Now, it’s fascinating that people persisted in combining the worship of God with the worship of others. They just couldn’t make the choice. It goes all the way back to Elijah on Mount Carmel. Remember him who got after the children of Israel and said, how long are you going to halt between two opinions? If God is God, serve him. If Baal is God, serve him. Get off this stuff of trying to worship both. They never did. They just couldn’t bring themselves to abandon one or the other. So, the house of Israel is gone after a 253-year history. And here we sit, a mere 230 years into our history. Kind of makes you wonder, where will we be a mere 23 years from now? Think that over. Grab a pencil and a piece of paper. I want to make a free offer and give you an address and a phone number. I’ll be right back.
SPEAKER 02 :
Isaiah is the most loved and admired of all the Old Testament prophets. If you would like to receive a free introductory CD from the album Isaiah the Messiah’s Prophet, write to Born to Win, Post Office Box 560, White House, Texas 75791. Or call toll-free 1-888-BIBLE-44. That’s 1-888-242-5344. And tell us the call letters of this radio station.
SPEAKER 03 :
Second Kings, Chapter 18. It came to pass in the third year of Hoshea, who was the son of Elah, king of Israel in the north, that Hezekiah, the son of Ahaz, king of Judah, began to reign in the south. He was 25 when he began to reign, and he reigned for 29 years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name also was Abi, the daughter of Zechariah. Here we have a different sort of guy. He did that which was right in the sight of the Lord according to all that David his father did. And I’m always fascinated when I find remarks like that, because I know that David did a lot of things that he would have been a lot better off if he hadn’t done. But the one thing he never did was turn away from God. He never worshipped another god, never followed a graven image, never worshipped Baal, never worshipped any of those people. And thus, the way back to God was always open to him. Well, Hezekiah followed that example. He got rid of the high places, those houses of prostitution, religious prostitution. He broke the images. He cut down the groves. He broke in pieces the brazen serpent that Moses had made. For into those days, the children of incense burnt incense to that thing. He called it Nahushtan. That’s really funny, isn’t it? Here was an image of a brazen serpent that they held up. God was in favor of it and held up so that whenever the people looked up to it, they were healed of the bite of the snake. But down through the generations, even the serpent became an idol. They just couldn’t keep from it, it seems like. You’d think there was somebody behind them with a whip driving them to do these things. But he wasn’t having any of that. He trusted in the Lord God of Israel so that after him there was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor of any that were before him. For he cleaved to God and did not depart from following him, but kept his commandments which the Lord commanded Moses. With Hezekiah, we hit the high watermark for all the kings of Judah. And that being the case, we hit the high watermark for all the kings of both kingdoms. Because you never had a man that even approached his bootstraps in the northern tribes of the house of Israel. And the Lord was with him. He prospered wherever he went. One thing he did, he rebelled against the king of Assyria and didn’t serve him any longer as he had done beforehand. That may not have been smart. He smote the Philistines, even to Gaza and the borders thereof, from the Tower of the Watchmen to the Finch City. Interesting thought about that as you bring yourself down to the modern world. The term Palestine comes from the Hebrew word philistine. What it means is that he smote the Palestinians of that day, even all the way to Gaza. And here we are, generations after generations later, and we got people smiting the Philistines in Gaza. It came to pass in the fourth year of King Hezekiah, which was the seventh year of Hosea, son of Elah, king of Israel. Shalmaneser, new king of Israel, comes up against Samaria, lays siege to it. At the end of three years, they took it, even in the sixth year of Hezekiah. And Samaria was taken, and the Israelites were all carried away to Assyria, beyond the river Euphrates. Why did this happen? Well, it happened because they wouldn’t obey the voice of the Lord their God, but they transgressed his covenant. They wouldn’t keep the deal. And all that Moses, the servant of the Lord, commanded, they wouldn’t hear it, they wouldn’t do it. And it all harkens back to this king named Jeroboam who said, no, no, no, we don’t need to go down to Israel to keep those festivals anymore. And he established his own feast, his own worship, and everything else with golden calves again, and the lowest of the people priests again, and so on it went. Well, as it happened, in the 14th year of Hezekiah, Sennacherib, king of Assyria, came up against all the fenced cities of Judah and took them. All the cities except Jerusalem just about were gone. He just knocked down the walls, picked up the people, and began to carry them off. And Hezekiah, the king of Judah, sent to the king of Assyria to Lachish and says, I have offended. I made a mistake. I shouldn’t have done that. Please return from me so that whatever you put on me, I will bear. And so the king of Assyria appointed to Hezekiah, king of Judah, 300 talents of silver and 30 talents of gold. A very, very heavy tribute. So Hezekiah gave him all the silver found in the house of the Lord and the treasures of the king’s house. He cut off the gold from the doors of the temple of God, from the pillars that Hezekiah, the king of Judah, had overlaid, and he gave it all to the king of Assyria. It was the only way he could put all that stuff together. Now, when you read through this, it’s a little unclear about the sequence of events, but what’s important is the meaning of events, so we’ll just plunge on through them. The king of Assyria sent Tartan and Rabsarus and Rabshakeh from Lachish to the king Hezekiah with another great host against Jerusalem, and they went up and came to Jerusalem. When they got there, they stood by the conduit of the upper pool in the highway of the fuller’s field. And when they called for the king, there came out to them Eliakim, son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, a steward, Shebna the scribe, and Joah the recorder. And Rabshakeh said to them, Speak you now to Hezekiah. Here’s what the great king, the king of Assyria, says. What confidence do you have in what you’re trusting? You say, they are just vain words, I have counsel and strength for war. Now on whom are you trusting that you rebel against me? We don’t get it. You know, you’re rebelling against me, you’re making a problem here for yourself, you’re making a problem for us. What are you trusting in you’re going to do this? Now behold, you trust upon the staff of this bruised reed, even on Egypt.” If a man leans on Egypt, like a staff, it’s going to break and cut through your hand and pierce it. That’s what Pharaoh’s like. You can’t depend on Pharaoh. But if you say to me, we will trust in the Lord our God… Hey, isn’t it he whose high places and altars Hezekiah has taken away and said to Judah in Jerusalem, you shall worship before this altar in Jerusalem? You know, what he’s trying to tell them is, you know what’s happening here. You say you’re going to trust in Jehovah. But look, Hezekiah, your king, took away all these altar and high places out here. He’s bound to have offended Jehovah, and it’s not going to work anymore. He’s trying to centralize this worship. Now, therefore, I pray you, give pledges to my lord, the king of Assyria. I will deliver you 2,000 horses. If you can, on your part, set riders on them. You know, what he’s doing here, and it’s a gross insult, is it’s like in a modern thing saying, look, I will give you the tanks to fight with, and I’ll still win. You know, if you can do it, give me your pledges. I’ll give you the armor. I’ll give you the vehicles. I’ll give you all this stuff. And if you can stick your men in them, if you can staff them, I’ll give them to you. How then, he says, are you going to turn away the face of one captain of the least of my master’s servants? And you’re going to put your trust on Egypt for chariots and horsemen, that is for light armor? Am I now come up without the Lord and against this place to destroy it? The Lord has said to me, Jehovah has said to me, Go up against this land and destroy it. Then, after this speech, said Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah, Shebna, and Joab, Speak, I pray, to your servants in the Syrian language. We understand it. Don’t talk with us in the Jews’ language in the ears of the people on the walls. But Rabshakeh said to them, Has my master sent me to your master and to you to speak these words? Hasn’t he sent me to the men who sit on the wall, that they may eat their own dung and drink their own urine with you? That’s what happened sometimes in sieges when there was no food and no water to drink. Then Rabshakeh stood and cried with a loud voice in the Jews’ language, and said, Hear the word of the great king, the king of Assyria. Thus saith the king, Let not Hezekiah deceive you, for he shall not be able to deliver you out of his hand. Neither let Hezekiah make you trust in Jehovah, saying, Jehovah will deliver us, and this city shall not be delivered into the hand of the king of Assyria. Don’t listen to Hezekiah, for thus saith the king of Assyria, Make a deal with me by a present and come out to me. And you can eat every man of his own vine. You can eat of your own fig tree and drink of your own cisterns. Have plenty of water and everything else until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land of corn and wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of oil, olive, and honey, that you may live and not die. Don’t listen to Hezekiah when he persuades you, saying, Jehovah will deliver us. Now, having said all that, he can’t just shut up. He takes this speech way too far. He says this, Have any of the gods of the nations delivered at all his land out of the hand of the king of Assyria? No. Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Gone. Where are the gods of Sepharvaim, Hina, Eva? Gone. Have they delivered Samaria out of my hand? An interesting statement all by himself. You look up here. See, we carried Samaria away. They were serving the gods of these other nations, and they couldn’t deliver Samaria. Who are they among all the gods of the countries that have delivered their country out of my hand that Jehovah should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand? Basically, he is saying Jehovah is no bigger deal than any of the rest of these gods. But the people on the wall remained silent and didn’t answer him a word. For the king’s commandment was, answer him not. They might very well have jeered. They might have thrown rocks at him, but all he got was silence. Then came Eliakim, Shebna, and Joah to Hezekiah with their clothes rent and told him the words of Rabshakeh. Now, it’s at this point… Right here about this point in the story, that a prophet familiar to all of us begins to come on the scene. His name is Isaiah. He is already a recognized prophet at the time. We just haven’t heard much about him up until this point. Now, he will begin to play a role. We’ll talk about that when I come back after this short message.
SPEAKER 02 :
For a free copy of this radio program that you can share with friends and others, write or call this week only. And request the program titled, Kings No.
SPEAKER 1 :
23.
SPEAKER 02 :
Write to Born to Win, Post Office Box 560, White House, Texas 75791. Or call toll free 1-888-BIBLE-44. And tell us the call letters of this radio station. 2 Kings 19.
SPEAKER 03 :
So it was when King Hezekiah heard the story, he tore his clothes, covered himself with sackcloth, and went to the house of the Lord. Then he sent Eliakim, the man who was over the household, Shebna the scribe, and all the elders of the priests, covered with sackcloth, to Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amos, this great figure in the Old Testament. And they said to him, thus says Hezekiah, This day is a day of trouble and rebuke and blasphemy because, in fact, Rabshakeh had stood right out there and yelled out blasphemy to all these people. For the children have come to the birth, but there is no strength to bring them forth. You know, here we are. We face this problem, and we have to deal with it, but we just don’t have the strength. It may be that the Lord your God will hear all the words of Rabshakeh, whom his master, the king of Assyria, has sent to reproach the living God, and will rebuke the words which the Lord your God has heard. Therefore lift up your prayer for the remnant that is left. Well, when they came to Isaiah with this statement, Isaiah said to them, Thus shall you say to your master, Thus saith the Lord, Do not be afraid of the words you have heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me. Surely I will send a spirit upon him, and he shall hear a rumor and return to his own land, and I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land. So Rabshakeh returned and found the king of Assyria was at war against Libna, for he heard that he had actually gone back from Lachish. And the king heard concerning Tirhaka of Ethiopia, Look, he’s come out to make war with you. So he sent messengers to Hezekiah, saying, I want you to tell Hezekiah, king of Judah, this. Do not let your God in whom you trust deceive you, saying, Jerusalem shall not be given to the hand of the king of Assyria. Look, you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all the lands by utterly destroying them. You think you will escape it? Have the gods of the nations delivered those whom my fathers have destroyed? Goizan, Haran, Rezef, and the people of Eden in Telassar. Where is the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad, the king of the city of Sepharvaim, Hina, Eva? This guy, he’s making a big move here because he knows he’s got to clear this thing out with Jerusalem. He’s heard the king of Ethiopia is coming up against him, and he doesn’t want this sitting in his back door. Now, what follows here, when this man has sent this letter down here, is a lesson for all of us. Hezekiah got this letter, and he read it, and he went up to the house of the Lord and spread it before the Lord. Now, you know, this example has hung in my mind on many occasions. And I have, in the course of my lifetime, had more than one time when in prayer I have had to spread something out before God. I mean, something physical, something literal, a document, some of my own writings perhaps, something someone else has said or written that I have not been able to deal with. I’ve actually laid it out before God and talked it over with him. And Hezekiah does precisely that. Here it is. He’s in God’s house. He spreads it out before God. And Hezekiah prayed before the Lord and said, O Lord God of Israel, the one who dwells between the cherubim, you are God. You alone of all the kingdoms of the earth. You’re not just the God of Israel. You’re the God of everything. You made heaven and earth. Incline your ear, O Lord. Hear. Open your eyes, O Lord, and see. And hear the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to reproach the living God. Truly, Lord, the kings of Assyria have laid waste of the nations in their lands. It’s the truth. They’ve done that. They have cast their gods into the fire, for they were not gods, but the work of men’s hands, wood and stone. Therefore… It’s not a long prayer. That prayer lasted less than a minute. It’s not an agonizing prayer. He’s not sweating blood. It’s just straightforward. It is a prayer putting a matter into God’s hands in trust of the outcome. And Isaiah, the son of Amoz, said to Hezekiah and said this, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Because you have prayed to me against Sennacherib king of Assyria, I have heard. Now, I think that is really fascinating. God is hearing and answering not because the words of the king of Assyria were heard that reproached God. He’s not merely responding because of what Rabshakeh said about him. He’s responding because you have prayed to me against the king of Assyria. You know, I have to take this as a very important lesson. Because it’s tempting sometimes to think, well, God knows about this. He will take care of it. God saw this happen. He’s going to reward it. But that’s not always true. The lessons in two of Jesus’ parables are you’ve got to ask. Sometimes you don’t have because you don’t ask. So there comes a time in every one of our lives that we have to come and spread something before God and ask. Ask. or it may not be done. That’s a lesson never to forget.
SPEAKER 02 :
Until next time, I’m Ronald Dart. The Born to Win radio program with Ronald L. Dart is sponsored by Christian Educational Ministries and made possible by donations from listeners like you. If you can help, please send your donation to Born to Win, Post Office Box 560, White House, Texas 75791. You may call us at 1-888-BIBLE44 and visit us online at borntowin.net.
SPEAKER 01 :
Stay in touch with the new Born to Win with Ronald L. Dart app. This app has all of your favorite Ronald L. Dart radio messages, sermons, articles, and it even has a digital Bible. Simply search on the iOS or Android app store to download it for free today.
