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- [00:02]
John
Welcome to part two with Dr. Mike Day. Second Kings 16:25.
- [00:07]
Hank
Mike, wouldn't you say another message here if I was going to teach a 25 minute lesson would be how Hezekiah trusts the prophet. Do you believe the prophet when everything says not to?
- [00:19]
Dr. Mike Day
You're a man who's just met the missionaries. You work two jobs. They say pay tithing, but you felt the spirit. You read the Book of Mormon. You know their message is true. But you also understand economics. And you're like, how am I going to pay tithing? I'm already working two jobs. Jobs. Oh, and take Sunday off. I work Sunday. What am I going to do? I'll never forget I was teaching this lady. She was on fire with the spirit. I was dreading asking her this because we were going to get to the Word of Wisdom lesson. We read the Book of Mormon and she loved reading the Book of Mormon. We'd read with her. She felt the spirit, but she smoked. And I remember the look in her eyes when we taught her. And I held out my hand and I said, do you trust me? And her hand was trembling as she gave me her cigarettes. And I thought, that is the same concept. The Lord is saying, I'm going to ask tough stuff of you. I was 19 and I was so nervous.
- [01:08]
Hank
I wonder if you talked to Isaiah afterwards. You're like, were you nervous? He's like, oh, yeah, I was nervous. He didn't act it. I wish I could dramatize the way you do, Mike. The Lord's response to Hezekiah. I have heard three words. Then he says, you have reviled.
- [01:27]
John
Who?
- [01:28]
Hank
Who have you blasphemed? The Holy one of Israel. It's almost like someone saying, oh, you should not have done that. Assyria, you are in more trouble than you realize. This would be a beautiful movie. No wonder you're quoting Tolkien here.
- [01:40]
Dr. Mike Day
I'll never forget Return of the King. And I just think Tolkien is channeling so much of the scriptures. Now, I would not show clips of Tolkien in seminary, but I would reference the story to say, close your eyes for a minute and just imagine this army outside your walls. And how scary that would be, even though we don't have that today. I don't have armies outside my wall. I have my own trials. We all do really hard things. It's a real challenge. I'm going to pivot now. I'm not going to talk too much about this, but Hezekiah is ill and he prays and there's this thing with the shadow. The shadow moves and he's given some extra time in his life. Then it pivots to this really weird narrative in 2 Kings, the end of 2 Kings, starting at about verse 12 to the end. This is where the king of Babylon hears that Hezekiah is sick. There's some communication. This has just been such a weird thing for me to ponder. It says that Hezekiah shows the treasures. This is verse 13. He showed them all the precious things and the silver and gold and spices and everything, the treasures of the house. What's going on here? In verse 14, it says, Isaiah came to Hezekiah and he says, what? Said these men, what are they doing? What are you doing with this? Then he said, verse 15, what have they seen in thine house? And Hezekiah answered, all the things that are in mine house have they seen. Then he gives them this really dark prophecy that the sons, his descendants, will be taken away into captivity, that they'll be eunuchs. Then I've always puzzled over verse 19. So imagine John, the prophet of God comes to you and says, your kids are going to be captive. They're going to be eunuchs. Would you ever say verse 19? Read verse 19.
- [03:28]
John
Then said Hezekiah unto Isaiah, good is the word of the Lord which thou has spoken. And he said, is it not good if peace and truth be in my days?
- [03:38]
Dr. Mike Day
Some people look at this and say that it's Hezekiah's way of saying, okay, my kids are going to be in captive, but at least I'm living it up. I'm having a good life. That's one interpretation. Another interpretation is channeling that first Samuel 3:18 narrative where Eli says the same thing, where he finds out about his kids and he says, good are the words of the Lord, meaning he's in charge. Good are the words of the Lord. It reminds me also of Nephi. If you remember, Nephi has this vision where he sees his descendants get completely killed. That's a hard thing. But however you interpret verse 19, I don't know how to interpret it. I would love to hear the people there be on this podcast and explain it, but that's a hard thing. Then there's another layer. A later redactor is inserting this after it happened, saying, hey, this is really what happened to the seed of Hezekiah. Because the kingdom ends, the king is going to be held captive. But then the author throws this in here in verse 20, that says the rest of the acts of Hezekiah and all his might and all the cool stuff that he did are they not written in chronicles? One of the things they shout out are the pool and the conduit. And I'm sure you guys, because I know you guys have been Israel. Have you walked the tunnel, Hezekiah's tunnel?
- [04:49]
Hank
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
- [04:51]
Dr. Mike Day
How would you describe that to your audience? And what would you say its purpose is?
- [04:55]
John
There is hewn out of solid rock. Is it like a third of a mile? I think this tunnel that goes from outside where Jerusalem's walls would have been, it was from a spring, so you're able to cover it and brings water into the walls of Jerusalem, coming out approximately at the pool of Siloam. Militarily, it's brilliant because an enemy can't cut off your water supply. But you can go walk through this and it's like ankle deep. Maybe comes up to your knees right at first, pretty dark. And if you're claustrophobic, don't do it.
- [05:31]
Dr. Mike Day
John, were you freaked out the first
- [05:32]
Hank
time you went in?
- [05:33]
Dr. Mike Day
Were you a bit. Little bit. Like, what am I doing?
- [05:36]
John
Hey, I had my energizers on my little headlamp. I was okay, but it's really cool. It's so old. The water has been flowing for, I guess, centuries. If you go to your study helps and look at the Bible map, they have a red dotted line for Hezekiah's tunnel there. It's important enough they stuck it on the map.
- [05:56]
Dr. Mike Day
They found an inscription because guys start on one side and then guys start on the other side and they kind of do this. And then they come together in the middle and they left an inscription. Hey, we were here. We made this tunnel. They did that without power tools. And all of it was to preserve their lives. In the ancient world, if you have high ground, food and water and walls, if you have those four things, you could do pretty good. A lot of people say, hey, that's also why Jerusalem stayed safe, is they had access to water. It's interesting that it's right here in the text that is talked about.
- [06:31]
Hank
Just reminds me of my son Elijah, who got one of our group members to pay him $50 to go through. He's like, I don't want to. And then my buddy Brandon Hatch, he said, I'll pay you, my son. Okay? I was like, you were going to go anyway. He's like, yeah, but now I'm going through. And I made 50 bucks.
- [06:49]
John
Yeah, I'll go. And refuse to go chronologically then. When was the tunnel built? Was it before this Assyrian siege, or was it in anticipation of this Assyrian Siege.
- [07:01]
Dr. Mike Day
In anticipation of the siege, what I do find really interesting about this tunnel as it leads to this pool, this pool was the beginning of what was called the ascent. In the psalms, which are the scripts for rituals. There's what's called the Psalms of ascent and Psalm 120, 134. Are these 15 Psalms, Psalms of degrees or psalms of ascent, that they would sing as they were going up the steps to the temple. But the journey, the pilgrimage, started down at the bottom at the Pool of Siloam. And you could go up and there were certain psalms that they would sing as they approached the throne of God up at the temple. During this time period, they also had what was called the water drawing ceremony, where they would draw water and they would pour it over the altar. And the idea was that this water from this heavenly spring under the earth would touch the altar and that God would bring rains and that we would follow God, that we would drink of the water, but also follow his way, live according to Mishpat, according to the judgments and the righteousness of God. When Jesus says, I am the living water, that ties into this temple idea. What's fascinating is brand new, last I checked, because I was there in Jerusalem when they were getting the final touches. They've opened up the old steps of ascent from the Pool of Siloam, the ones that probably existed during Jesus's day, and that's now accessible to me. I find this super fascinating that. So we have Hezekiah, but then we have this pool, but it's tied into the temple, but it's also tied into Jesus. These were the things that Jesus would have known about and had part of their collective memory and part of their religion.
- [08:47]
Hank
Mike, this is a spiritual and scriptural feast. Now, the next chapter 21 is about Manasseh. We don't want to confuse this Manasseh with the tribe that some people have in their patriarchal blessing, or they're going to be sore. Disappointed.
- [09:04]
Dr. Mike Day
Yeah, not the same. Same name, but different guy. The legend is that he's not a good guy.
- [09:09]
Hank
Tell us all about him.
- [09:10]
Dr. Mike Day
According to some of the legends, Isaiah is like the grandfather of Manasseh, that King Hezekiah married Isaiah's daughter, and that from that union Manasseh was born. Now there's legends that Manasseh actually ends up killing Isaiah, which is super sad. I nerd out about some of this on talking scripture, where I'll put a pin in whatever it is we're talking about, and then I'll go to this extra biblical literature. I Always go to extra biblical literature to corroborate the Old Testament text or the text of the New Testament to give another lens. Sometimes in the Bible, there'll be a story that's like half told and we don't have the whole story. But then the extra biblical literature will be add light to it. There's this text, this extra biblical piece of literature called the Ascension of Isaiah. In a couple of the chapters, chapter one and chapter five, Isaiah related that he and Manasseh get into it, basically, and that Manasseh kills him. And the legend is that he sawed in half, sometimes in the early Christian depictions. And then later they would depict a great martyr with the symbol of his death. There's a beautiful church, St John the Lateran, where the papal throne is in Rome, and these beautiful marble statues that are just ginormous. Every one of the apostles is depicted a lot of times with the implement of their death. Well, there's paintings of Isaiah that you can see. If you go to some of these old churches where Isaiah's holding a saw in his hand, we put one of these in the slide decks. So if you ever see that image and you're like, why is Isaiah holding a saw? That's the story. Now. It's not in the Bible. I want to be careful. It's not part of our canonized text. Isaiah doesn't talk about this stuff. That's the legend that is told, really. The author of Kings does cast some major shade on Manasseh. Verse 16, that he shed innocent blood. Very much. That's not good. Verse 11. He did wickedly above all that the Amorites did. In the words of Obi Wan Kenobi, it's a dark time for the rebellion. Not that this is the rebellion, but it just reminds me of that Star wars line. In other words, this is one of the dark times of Jewish history. In fact, later, after Josiah does his thing, the author of Kings hearkens back to Manasseh and says, manasseh was a really bad guy. And that's partly why we're having these horrible things done to us. In a Gospel doctrine lesson, I wouldn't spend a lot of time on it. As a reward for his activity, Manasseh, verse 23 of chapter 21 is killed after this. Chapter 22 is the beginning of kind of the end. But there's this high point in the text of Josiah. Josiah is portrayed as the greatest thing ever. Now, granted, he takes the throne, or it says he's eight when he began to reign. But let's Be honest. Do you know any 8 year olds that are really in charge?
- [12:04]
John
No. Somebody else is in the cabinet there.
- [12:08]
Dr. Mike Day
Yes, somebody else is in charge. In verse three it says it came to pass in the 18th year of King Josiah. So 18 plus 8, 25, 26 years old. He's 26. That's 622 BC, about that time, 622, we read about this guy named Hilkiah, the priest. They're cleaning up the temple. He sends them in there to work through it and do some renovations. This is not unfounded that when they do renovations in a temple, this is not just in Israel or Judah, this is other places in the ancient world. Remember, these temples sometimes last for millennia, especially in Egypt. Some of these really old buildings, they would do some renovations. In these other cultures, they would actually find texts in the wall or in the cornerstone or in parts of the temple that they didn't know existed. This story is not out of thin air, but the idea is that the priest comes and says, hey, we found this text called the book of the Law. And that's in verse 8. From there he reads it. In verse 10, he rends his clothes. In verse 11. And the idea is we've been doing religion wrong. He does this and then the 23rd chapter is we're going to fix all the ways we're doing religion wrong. And these are called Josiah's reforms. In the midst of all this, there's a little bit about this female named Huldah who gives a prophecy. And that's in verses 14 through 20. Huldah's prophecy to Josiah is essentially, I will bring evil upon Jerusalem. God will gather Josiah to his fathers and his grave will be in peace. And Josiah won't live to see the destruction of Jerusalem. That's kind of the bit of her prophecy there. I don't know a lot about Huldah, there's just not a lot we have. But that's the idea. Verse 20, he says a lot of this. Behold, therefore I will gather thee unto thy fathers. Thou shalt be gathered into thy grave in peace. Thine eyes shall not see the evil which I shall bring upon this place. Verse 11, he ends Solar worship. The Assyrians had this idea that their God would be taken across the sky on this chariot. The Egyptians had the same thing, but it was on a boat. There are horses that would do this. And so the idea is that there were horses in the temple or around the temple complex and that stuff's being taken down. Then in verses 15 through 20, he goes on a rampage and reforms the northern area, all the land of the north. It says in verse 15, the altar that was with Bethel in the high place which Jeroboam set up. He breaks this stuff down. He burns at the end of verse 15, the Asherah or the grove. And then he took bones in verse 16, the bones of the dead, and he put them all over these holy places. The idea was, because I put bones there, now it's unclean, you can't worship there. And then he breaks down all the houses in the high places of verse 19 that were in the cities of Samaria. He takes all this away. And then in verse 20, this is the word for slew. Zavak, he slew the priests of the high places. So he kills a bunch of guys that were the priests up there in the north. Massive reforms, really violent stuff. That's the sixth reform. In the seventh we just read he killed the priests of Samaria. Those are the seven really big reforms. One of the big ideas in Deuteronomy, this is in chapter 12. This is difficult. Like I'm not here to settle it for your audience or even for myself. My opinion could change tomorrow as I learn more information. But the twelfth chapter of Deuteronomy is this strict prohibition. You cannot sacrifice anywhere except for the place where Yahweh shall choose to put his name. That place in Josiah's day was where?
- [15:51]
Hank
The Temple.
- [15:52]
Dr. Mike Day
Yeah, the Temple in Jerusalem. But it doesn't say that in the text. It doesn't say that anywhere in the text. It just says the place where Yahweh shall choose to put his name. Now interesting, in some of the other strains of the Pentateuch, God is portrayed as dwelling in the temple. That's where he dwells. Deuteronomy does not take that position. Deuteronomy's position is God's name, Hashem, his name dwells in the temple. Why my reading of Deuteronomy is the reason why Hashem, his name dwells in the temple is because God is non corporeal in the book of Deuteronomy, he's unseeable. You can't know him. He doesn't have a body.
- [16:32]
Hank
Mike, can I say that the Deuteronomy that we have that we've been reading is a product of these reforms. We don't have an earlier version, a pre reformed Deuteronomy.
- [16:43]
Dr. Mike Day
I think there is a proto Deuteronomy. Deuteronomos just means the second telling of the law. I think the Jews call it the Devarim the words. These are the words according to the text, that Moses spake right before he crossed over. Now, spoiler alert. Go to verse one of chapter one of Deuteronomy. This is a dead giveaway that Deuteronomy has been redacted. Just look at verse one.
- [17:06]
Hank
Redacted? You mean edited?
- [17:07]
Dr. Mike Day
Yes, edited. Hardcore. These be the words. That's the title of the book. These be the words which Moses spake unto Israel on this side Jordan, in the wilderness, in the plain, over against the Red Sea between those places. Well, that's not what it says in the text. In the Hebrew text, it doesn't say that. Remember, the story is Moses never crosses Jordan. He doesn't come in Israel. The Hebrew text, this is what it says in English. It says, these are the words that Moses spake when he was on the other side of Jordan, meaning that the Author writing Deuteronomy 1:1 is on the west side of Jordan. The first time I tell that to people, I have to say it again. Do you understand? The author is telling you from verse one, Moses didn't write this. This is written later from the west side where Moses never went. Now, that's really hard to hear. The King James translators, I don't know what they were thinking, but they took that Hebrew bit and they're like, well, that can't be. These were the words that he spake on this side. Jordan, the east side. That's not what it says. We could do a whole podcast on what the heck's going on with Deuteronomy, because we're barely scratching the surface. Jeffrey Tagay wrote the JPS commentary on it, which is stellar. He would concur with what I'm saying because it's in the text. Just read it. Like I said, I'm not here to denigrate it because I think Deuteronomy is good. Here's the deal, guys. There's a ton of Deuteronomy in the Book of Mormon. Every time in the Book of Mormon where it says, if you keep the commandments and you follow the Lord and you're humble, you're going to be blessed. That's Deuteronomy speaking. That's the Book of Mormon. Once again, I'm going to use the Book of Mormon as a lens by which to read these reforms. The first one is centralization. So centralization. Deuteronomy 12:2. And it's not just in verse 2, but Deuteronomy 12:2 really is reflected here in 2nd Kings 20:3. Any place where there's an altar outside of Jerusalem. We're just going to burn it and we're going to put dead people's bones on there, so it's not holy anymore. The second reform in Deuteronomy. These are the big ones that coincide with Josiah's reforms. The second one is exclusive worship. Second Kings 23, verse 20. He slew all the priests of the high places that were there upon the altars, and burned men's bones upon them and returned to Jerusalem. This is Deuteronomy 13 and 17. The third reform is hosts of heaven. The hosts of heaven are denied in Deuteronomy 4:19, chapter 23, verse 11 is second kings. This is what it says. He took away the horses that the kings of Judah had given to the sun. So that's that solar worship. At the entering in of the house of the Lord by the chamber of the chamberlain, which was in the suburbs, and burned the chariots of the sun with fire. There is this idea that the divine council had different individuals on it. In this council they called it the hosts of heaven. They're denied. That's reflected in the 11th verse we mentioned. The fourth one is going to be God's name dwells at the temple. That is in Deuteronomy 12, 5, 11 and 21. Deuteronomy 29, 29 talks about that the secret things cannot be known. I want to read this verse because it applies to our discussion. We're going to have briefly about what Nephi says. So if you go to Deuteronomy 29, this is what it says. The secret things belong to the Lord our God. But those things which are revealed belong unto us and our children forever. That we may do all the words of the law. You don't worry about the mysteries. You just follow the law. The law is all that matters. The mysteries belong only to God. Now there's another bit in here where the author of Deuteronomy says to Moses, do you think you can see God? If you go to verse 12 of chapter 4, the Lord spake unto you out of the midst of the fire. You heard his voice of the words, but you saw no similitude, only heard a voice. It literally says in verse 12, Moses, do you remember when you said you saw me? You didn't see me. God can't be seen. You only heard a voice. That is contrary to so many other passages. We learn them on our mission. Don't Bible bash with people. If a priest comes up to you and says, Joseph Smith could not see God and they show you verses like these, you are wasting your time Bible bashing with them. If you show them a verse that says Moses saw God, you're just spinning your wheels and you're going round and round down. And biblical scholarship, in my opinion, unlocks why this is. The Deuteronomists have a different theological view. Deuteronomists say you can't see God.
- [21:40]
Hank
Mike, do me a favor and define those for our audience. When you say a Deuteronomist, is that someone from Josiah's time?
- [21:49]
Dr. Mike Day
Yes. So the religion shifts. There's this shift. Remember, the early prophets know the mysteries. They're brought up into the council. I mean, you got Jacob's ladder. We're going to do Nephi in a second because Nephi is a rock star. He's going to show you in Technicolor what's going on. I read Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, especially Abraham and Jacob, through the lens of Nephi. But the Deuteronomists are these people that live in the 600 B.C. what's called seventh century Israelite religion. There's a shift. His name is the only thing that dwells in the temple. We're going to cut down the Asherah, this tree which is so important as part of their religion that Josiah takes out is taken out in two Kings 23, verse 6, and Deuteronomy 16, verses 21, 22. These are all some reforms that coincide with Josiah's reforms. I'm not alone in this. And not all scholars agree. There's actually a couple LDS scholars that take two positions. One takes the position that Laman and Lemuel are Deuteronomists, that they're literally following this law. They look at Lehi as you're messed up. There's this bit in Deuteronomy that says if there's somebody that's having visions, you got to take them out. Hank, do you want to read verse 5 of Deuteronomy 13?
- [23:02]
Hank
Mike, let me make sure I understand. Perhaps Laman and Lemuel were in on these reforms. They're saying, no, you're turning against this religion which these reforms brought us.
- [23:16]
Dr. Mike Day
If we read Laman and Lemuel through this lens, we see why they're having a freak out when Lehi builds an altar. We'll see a couple others. We're going to briefly look at 1 Nephi 1. I know we're in second kings, but I think 1 Nephi 1 is pertinent to this discussion.
- [23:30]
Hank
Here's Deuteronomy 13:5. And that prophet or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death because he hath spoken to turn you away from the Lord your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you out of the house of bondage to thrust thee out of the way which the Lord thy God commanded thee to walk in. So shalt thou put the evil away from the midst of thee. Mike, I was going to say the next verse. If thy brother do this, then you can get rid of him too.
- [24:01]
John
Yeah.
- [24:01]
Dr. Mike Day
Verse 8. Thou shalt not consent to him. Verse 9. But thou shalt surely kill him. This is certainly complicated, but on one hand, it's asking to kill a dreamer of dreams. Something Lehi was. He was a dreamer of dreams. But it's also a directive against false God worship. I want to be careful. I don't want to overplay my hand on your podcast and say that I'm 100% right. I don't know. I'm just a guy looking at stuff I don't know. But what we're looking at is I'm stacking the cards and saying there's strong evidence that Laman and Lemuel may have had this perspective. Now, what really blows me away, if you remember our conversation about Deuteronomy 29:29 we had about five or six minutes ago, about the mysteries or the secret things are only known to God. Don't worry about them. Go to the very first verse of 1 Nephi 1. Now, before I read this, I want to just say this. There's a lot of scholars, not just one or two. They're not hidden in a corner. There's a lot of biblical scholars that say these reforms of Josiah were pretty rough. They were happening during this time period. There's a major shift in religion. There's another scholar, he wrote an article in the Interpreter called Vindicating Josiah. He takes the other position and says, hey, Josiah is a good guy. I don't want to speak evil of the dead. I think Josiah would be great to be on your podcast. We need him, but we don't have him. All we have are these records. What blows me away is this. Joseph Smith's 23 years old. I don't think he knows a lick about the Josiah reforms. I don't think he's done the biblical scholarship on this and realizes the political things at stake. I believe the Book of Mormon is what it purports to be. Look at verse one. I, Nephi, having been born of goodly parents, therefore I was taught somewhat in the learning of my father. And having seen many Afflictions in the course of my days. Nevertheless, having been highly favored with the Lord in all my days, yea, having a great knowledge of the goodness and the mysteries of God, therefore I make a record of the proceedings of my days. In the very first verse, Nephi says I am privy to the mysteries. Then he says that there are a lot of prophets that said, hey, we got to repent. Then he tells you the vision of his father and his father, remember, there are no divine council. There's only one God, Monotheism. There's this no hosts of heaven thing going on. And what does he see? Verse 8, a numberless concourses of angels. God sitting on his throne. 12 other divine beings of some sort. In verse 10 and they come down and they give him a book. He talks about, I'm going to undo some of these reforms. He is privy to the mysteries. He sees God, which counters Deuteronomy 4 which says you can't see God. Remember Moses, Deuteronomy 4:12 can't see him. So we've countered that one and we've seen the council. Three of the seven really big reforms of the Deuteronomistic reforms are tackled in that very first bit. But then later he builds an altar which undoes the whole bit of Deuteronomy 12 is thrown out the window. It's so interesting that a 23, 24 year old in the early 1800s gives us this text by which we can maybe interpret the Bible. Now, all that being said, this is a lot of stuff. What you can see is some tension in the text. How do we do religion? Josiah is going to put him on a trajectory. And John hall said this to me one time. This put them on the monotheistic track. So when Jesus comes and says I'm God's son, they don't know what to do with that. Their interpretation is you're saying you're the king, which he is. But Jesus isn't just saying I'm the king as in I'm adopted by God. No, he's like, I'm the king. I'm like God's son. Literally God's son. Which blows their mind because they're monotheists. There's a book called the Origins of Biblical Monotheism by Mark Smith. Not LDS or going to sum it up, he says this is the beginning of monotheism. The origins of biblical monotheism are coming out of the seventh century. His whole book makes that argument and it's very strong. And he's dealing with things outside of the Bible extra biblical text, the uberitic text about when did monotheism come to be? It coincides with the Book of Mormon. It coincides with at least my reading of the Josiah reforms. I know that the church has that video, that beautiful video of, like, what a good guy Josiah is. I'm not here to say he was a bad guy or a good guy. I don't even know if these reforms were made by him. I wouldn't do any of this in gospel doctrine. Like, when I taught gospel doctrine, I didn't even show the video. I just talked about, have faith, do these good things. On podcasts or side conversations, I would have members come and say, but what do we do with this? I'm like, yeah, read the Book of Mormon. If we read the Book of Mormon, what the Book of Mormon tells us is, God can be seen. He wants you to have the mysteries. He wants you to come to Him. More than his name dwells in the temple. His presence is there. One day you will embrace him. And the very end of ether 12 and Moroni 10 is an invitation by these guys that say, I've seen them, so can you. To me, that's relevant, that's powerful. That's what we practice in the temple, ritually, liturgically. We're practicing coming into the presence of God. I think that's beautiful. That was probably 10 minutes of undoing Josiah. Poor guy. And I hope when I meet Josiah that he'll be nice to me. I hope that we can be friends and break bread.
- [29:13]
John
I'm so glad to hear your final summary there with all of this, that someday we'll get settled. What do we do? We focus on following as best we can.
- [29:24]
Dr. Mike Day
We focus on Christ coming to him and be perfected in him. And you're going to meet him, Nephi Moroni, they say, I've seen him and you will, too. The last bit in Moroni where he says, you and I will be before his bar. He's a real person.
- [29:40]
Hank
So the Book of Mormon may be correcting what the reformers got wrong. Can you see Joseph Smith? He's like, by the way, I'm gonna go ahead and correct everything from 2 Kings 23 that had been inserted in Deuteronomy. While I'm at this, this is my
- [29:58]
Dr. Mike Day
take, I think Nephi and the other visionaries of the Book of Mormon, they take everything that Deuteronomy has that's good, and they run with it. And they let go of the stuff that doesn't work, stuff that says you can't see God you can't have altars anywhere else. God only has a name. He's non corporeal or the mysteries cannot be known. They let go of that stuff and they keep the good stuff. Maybe, just maybe, that the brass plates had a different version. The cool version.
- [30:22]
Hank
Wow.
- [30:23]
Dr. Mike Day
Yeah.
- [30:24]
Hank
John, this is great stuff.
- [30:26]
John
I'm already going. I gotta print these show notes out and read them again.
- [30:30]
Dr. Mike Day
I'll send it to you. We're almost there.
- [30:33]
Hank
I've been asked before, how come Lehi is building altars wherever he goes. It says pretty clearly in the Bible that you can only worship in one spot. This explains that. That wasn't in probably in Lehi's Deuteronomy.
- [30:48]
Dr. Mike Day
And Deuteronomy goes against everything the patriarchs do. Everything the patriarchs, they have a tree. What's the preeminent vision of first? Nephi. They go to a tree. In fact, Lehi's vision, which then becomes Nephi's, they go through three part space. They go through the lone and joy wilderness. They go past the great and spacious building. By the way, the word Hakal, which is the main house of the temple, means great and spacious palace. That's what it means. He passes that and then he comes to the tree and he falls down, partakes of the fruit of the tree. I look at that as a holy of holies vision. There's three part space in his vision. And the tree is central to this visionary experience. The tree was central in part of the early Israelite religion. There's so much debate on this and I know there's LDS scholars on both sides of this. I'm not dogmatic. I don't know. I wasn't there. I'm just a guy looking at stuff. But I find it fascinating because the Book of Mormon, like the providence of the Book of Mormon, a 23 year old man who says, I've seen God, gives it to us. I always like to tell my students, if the Book of Mormon was found in a cave and it came out today, it would be the biggest find in archaeological history. Every Christian would be shouting hallelujah, saying this is proof Jesus is the Christ. You know, it's just the providence. They don't like the message. I don't think they have an issue with that.
- [32:08]
Hank
Wow, this has been fantastic, Mike. This is my kind of day where we go through and really become more competent in scripture. Like you said, there's not a place to do this in gospel doctrine.
- [32:23]
Dr. Mike Day
No. We got 25 minutes.
- [32:25]
Hank
But it sure is fun to do on your own. I'll tell you. And to talk about with your good friends Mike and John. Mike, wouldn't you love to see the Deuteronomy on the brass plates?
- [32:35]
Dr. Mike Day
Yes, I would. Because here's the thing. Jacob 4, where he says, all the prophets testify to Christ. What if the early versions of this stuff read more like the Book of Mormon, that they testify of the Messiah, the one who will come down and die. I believe that Moses taught this. I believe Exodus 12 with the Passover probably came with a lecture. And Moses said, this lamb we're killing is the Son of Man. That's not in Exodus 12, but I bet it was.
- [33:02]
John
Book of Mormon talks about Moses raising a brazen serpent and then testifying that this would be like the Son of God. And I'm like, that's not in numbers. That's where it happened. But it's not in there. But it's in the Book of Mormon. That. And then he testified, the Son of God will be raised up like this.
- [33:18]
Dr. Mike Day
Bill Hamblin wrote an article called Vindicating Josiah in Interpreter magazine. I think it really is a good balance to what I'm saying because once again, I don't know if I'm right. I know that there's different opinions on this, and I don't want to be dogmatic in this. I definitely lean a certain way. That's because of what I've read, but it doesn't mean I'm right. Hamblin's article is a really good counter to Ralphie's argument about Layman and Lemuel being Deuteronomous. We'll put those out there so you can read those and get an overall view of both sides of this argument. What's going on at the end of 2 Kings 23? What in the heck is Josiah doing there? Fighting the Egyptians? Big picture is this. Assyria's on their way out and Babylon's on the rise. The third empire is going to be Egypt. Babylon has chased the Assyrian warriors all the way to Haran. They've wrecked Nineveh in 612. It's completely wrecked. In a strange, really weird twist of politics, Egypt under Nico II decides to march north to help their former enemies, the Assyrians. Why do they want to do this? Well, they want a buffer. They want to check Babylonian power. And by having Assyria have some more power, they can check them so that they can have power as well. Now, anybody who studies geopolitics, we see this happening even today. Whether it comes with embargoes or controlling trade. There's so Much going on. Even today, when it comes to power, every leader wants to defend their people. Well, that's Egypt's take. What's Josiah doing? Why does he want to stop the Egyptians? He had just spent a ton of time reclaiming lands in the north from Assyrian dominance and changed their religion, as it were. And he didn't want Assyria to come back in and take it. He didn't want Assyria to have influence over the north. In Josiah's mind, we think we don't have Josiah's journal, but in his mind, stopping Egypt would help out. But this was a fatal move. Josiah viewed Babylon as the enemy of my enemy. And there's a phrase that goes, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Josiah seems to think, hey, if I do this, maybe something good will happen. Well, it kind of backfires. Babylon defeats Assyria and Nico at Haran in 609. But Nico doesn't give up. He stays at a place called Carchemesh on the Euphrates, and he tries to hold a slice of the pieces in Mesopotamia. He tries to hold on, but he gets wrecked. In 605. His army gets pushed all the way back to Egypt. And we read about that in 2nd Kings 24:7. At that point, Judah is a vassal to Egypt. Now that Babylon has power, Judah finds itself on the wrong side of power. Judah, now it's sitting in this really weak position where Babylon has risen up. They're still paying tribute to Egypt. But in this story of this war, once again, Josiah goes up north to defend against Assyrian might. So he's attacking Egypt.
- [36:13]
John
Why?
- [36:13]
Dr. Mike Day
Well, because Egypt's running to their defense. That's the backdrop to 2 Kings 23. If we read 2nd Kings 23. If we read verse 29, it says, in the days of Pharaoh, Necho, king of Egypt, went up against the king of Assyria to the river Euphrates, which Josiah went against him and slew him at Megiddo when he had seen him. And his servants carried him in a chariot, dead from Megiddo. This is Josiah dead. They bring him to Jerusalem and they bury him in a sepulcher. The people of the land took Jehoahaz, the son of Josiah, and anointed him king. That's the end of his reign. In my opinion, the Deuteronomistic reformers were not expecting this. They thought that he was going to be the greatest thing ever. There's these bits in Kings where they rewrite history like little editorial insertions. I want to read one of them now, after we just Read how he's killed in those verses, starting in 29, 30, 31. Let's go back. Go back to verse 24. In 24 it says, the workers with familiar spirits and the wizards and the images and the idols. These are all the things that Josiah quote unquote, put away. That's verse 24. Then verse 25. This is the greatest thing since sliced bread. Verse it says, and like unto him, meaning Josiah, there is no king before him that turned to the Lord with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his might. According to the law of Moses, neither after him arose there any like him. So in other words, from the perspective of the deuteronomistic historian, verse 25 of 2 Kings 23 says, There has never been a king better, or before or after. Once again, I want to give a shout out to the Book of Mormon. If you read Alma 13, verse 19, the author of Alma 13 says that the greatest king ever is Melchizedek. And Melchizedek, there's no record in Alma 13 of him going around killing a bunch of people. He preaches repentance and the city becomes righteous. So the Book of Mormon, I think, could be read as a lens to help us understand this text. I'm okay with this history. History is messy. If the history you're reading isn't making you uncomfortable, you're probably not reading history. So this is really uncomfortable. The Book of Mormon is going to give us another lens after it says he's the greatest thing ever. Verse 26, in my opinion, is an editorial insertion where a later editor is going to say, okay, he's the greatest thing ever. But then look at verse 26 notwithstanding, the Lord turn not from the fierceness of his wrath, wherewith his anger was kindled against Judah because of the provocations that Manasseh did. So it's like, well, we're still going to get wrecked because of Manasseh. The Lord said in verse 27, I will remove Judah out of my sight, as I removed Israel, and will cast off the city, Jerusalem, which I have chosen. And the house of which I said, here it is again. Hashem, my name. The name will be there. This is very much deuteronomistic theology. The name of God will be there even after it says Josiah is the greatest thing ever. You're still gonna get wrecked, in my opinion. And most scholars say, hey, this is an editorial insertion from a later redactor. I know that's a lot of stuff. Sorry if that's super boring, but it really helps you wrap your brain around this history. Like, what's going on? The son of Josiah takes the throne. We get a couple more leaders after Josiah, but this is the slide downhill.
- [39:31]
John
I actually had that note in my scriptures, I think from Josh Sears a few years ago. After verse 25, I had written. This could be the initial ending. It sounds like you said they added some more after that.
- [39:43]
Hank
They're like, oh, it didn't quite go the way we thought.
- [39:46]
Dr. Mike Day
Yeah.
- [39:47]
John
This is showing us this is history. This is messy. It's written by humans. They're writing it with a certain lens. Am I bashing the Bible by saying that? No, you're showing us. There's Deuteronomy, there's. What did you call there?
- [40:01]
Dr. Mike Day
Yeah. So the Yahweh is from the south. They portray God corporeal, the Elohist, the. They portray God in visions and dreams. He's accessible that way. They are representing a northern perspective.
- [40:12]
John
And all of them have influence on what we're reading.
- [40:15]
Dr. Mike Day
Yeah, everybody has a piece, Mike.
- [40:18]
Hank
We've looked at the Assyrian destruction of the Northern Kingdom. We've looked at Hezekiah and Isaiah. We looked at Manasseh for a little bit. Then we looked at Josiah. And the reforms wrap it up for us. What happens next?
- [40:34]
Dr. Mike Day
So this is where the Book of Mormon really picks up. We read in 24, Jerusalem is besieged and is taken by Nebuchadnezzar. Now Zedekiah is put on the throne. I'm kind of skipping a king here. But Zedekiah is put on a throne. We read about this in verse 17 of chapter 24. His name's Mattaniah, but they change his name to Zedekiah. And the author says, he did evil in the sight of the Lord. Jeremiah tells him and warns him in the 37th and 38th chapter that you're going to get wrecked if you don't listen to this. He says these words exactly. He says, if you will surrender to the officers of the king of Babylon, then your life shall be spared. This city will not be burned with fire. You and your house shall live. That's Jeremiah 38:17. For that, Jeremiah is thrown in prison. Lehi comes out and says kind of the same thing, and they want to kill him. This is the end of the monarchy, as it were. It's not good stuff. They burn the house of the Lord. They slay his sons. In verse seven of chapter 25, it says, they slew the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes. Then they put out the eyes of Zedekiah. So that's like the last thing that he sees is his sons being killed and the temple being destroyed. What's super fascinating to me is the end, if you skip to the end, and I think this is important. If you go to verse 27 at the very end, it says it came to pass in the 730th year of the captivity of Jehoiachin, king of Judah, in the 12th month, on the 7th, 20th day of the month, that evil Merodach king of Babylon, in this year that he began to reign, to lift up the head of Jehoiachin, king of Judah, out of prison, and he spake kindly to him. This king, who's a descendant of Zedekiah, who's a descendant of the Davidic line, he's freed from prison. Verse 28 says that he spake kindly to him and set his throne above the throne of the kings that were with him in Babylon. And he changed his prison garments, and he did eat bread continually before him all the days of his life. And his allowance was a continual allowance given him of the king, a daily rate for every day, all the days of his life. And I wrote this in here in my scriptures. I remember the first time I really was pondering this and I wrote, the Book of Kings ends with a ray of hope. Jehoiachin is released and allowed to live. After 37 years in prison, a Davidic king lives. This sparks, at least to some in the Jewish tradition, a hope for a return of the Davidic dynasty. This is considered by most scholars to be the Deuteronomistic redactors addition to the story that there is hope. I'm a Star wars nerd at heart. But there's this one line in Empire Strikes Back where Luke's taking off the spirit of Obi Wan turns to Yoda and says, that boy is our only hope. Yoda looks up and he says, no, there is another. That's this idea of a remnant shall return, the root shall grow a new branch. This is Isaiah 11. We're going to get another tree. In my opinion, Matthew chapter one is continuing 2 Kings 25, that the Davidic line is in Jesus. Even though they killed him. The tree is a symbol for the king. The tree will live. That's my conclusion to Second Kings. I don't want to end on the ruin, the calamity. Yeah, the temple's destroyed. But that's trauma that David Carr is talking about. That trauma preserved the Bible. Because these people were so traumatized, they wanted to know, what do we do now? Now that we've lost our land and
- [44:02]
John
our temple, one of the questions that sometimes comes up is, you read it. 2 Kings 25:7, they slew the sons of Zedekiah. But didn't Zedekiah have a son named Mulek? Where do we figure he came from?
- [44:16]
Dr. Mike Day
In the Hebrew text, it doesn't say all the sons of Zedekiah, it just says Zedekiah. What's interesting is that word mulek, it's voweled differently. But the word melech means king. Mulek is a really cool kingly word. It has the same Hebrew stem. They just vowel it differently. Maybe Mulek was like his throne name or maybe that was a code name. But yeah, the Book of Mormon says, here's a line of David that comes to the Americas. That's pretty cool.
- [44:43]
Hank
I think that's Omni one where we first hear about that group.
- [44:47]
John
It seems like they seem to be the ones that are the king men. Because they're claiming, hey, we came from a king, we came from Zedekiah.
- [44:54]
Dr. Mike Day
I think you're onto something. Isn't that an interesting, complex little wrinkle in the Book of Mormon? There's so many of those, aren't there?
- [45:01]
John
They were claiming to be of high birth because they could claim Zedekiah.
- [45:06]
Dr. Mike Day
Well, you can see why it's important. This davidic line is everything to these guys.
- [45:10]
Hank
That end of 2nd Kings 25 feels like a bit of a post credits scene where it's ending and then there's just after the credits. Oh, by the way, I'm gonna leave this open. We're gonna leave this open for a sequel.
- [45:23]
John
For a sequel.
- [45:25]
Hank
Mike, before we let you go, this has been fantastic. Speak to our listeners who have stayed with us this whole time. They've gone through this. They're loving it. At times our listeners assume that the guests we bring on have not seen the difficult times they have. But you have. Your family has. Yet here you are. You love this. You can feel it exuding from you this excitement for scripture. Could you speak to them for a second? What has scripture done for you in your difficulties?
- [45:53]
Dr. Mike Day
The Lord through the scriptures, honestly, it's literally saved my life. I didn't come from. I'm going to cry. But I didn't come from an active family. I didn't have a dad. My mom married three different men. And so I had different men in my life. But I didn't really have like a steady influence. I was not active in the church. And I remember being a 15 year old kid reading the Book of Mormon. Well, you know, when. You know, that's when I had to make a decision, because I wasn't living according to this stuff that I was reading. So I had to make a decision. It saved my life. I would be literally dead. I would be an alcoholic. My whole family. On my mom's side. My mom's side was what I knew. We were all alcoholics. Alcoholism runs deep in my family, and I know saved my life. I could talk about all day, but I have had spiritual experiences where I'm like, joseph Smith did not write this book. It is from heaven. It's just been everything to me. The amazing thing for me is, as I've chased biblical scholarship and really gone down some of these deep rabbit holes, the Book of Mormon is prophetic midrash on the Bible. It is prophetic commentary. It is interpreting it. It is showing you ways to read Isaiah, how to read the Deuteronomistic reforms, what Isaiah is doing. There is so much in the Book of Mormon, and I think we haven't even explored it all yet. I think there's more to come, which is so exciting. But I remember after, like, the 10th or 12th time I read the Book of Mormon, I remember thinking, okay, I got this. I know what it's about. Every time I read it, I walk away and go, how did I miss that? I just did a presentation two days ago on the liturgical aspects of Third Nephi. I was reading one day, like, about a year ago. I saw the Liturgy of the Temple in Technicolor in Third Nephi. Not the stuff in the Sermon on the Mount that John Welch has done, but other stuff. I thought, I've read the Book of Mormon more times than I can tell you, and I was learning something. I just thought, there's power there, and the restoration's real. I know people have issues about different social issues or whatever, but if you get to the bare bones, come into Christ and be perfected in him, that is gold.
- [48:05]
Hank
Thank you, Mike. Thanks for spending the day with us. I love it. When my hand is tired from writing, I'm trying to keep track of all the different scriptures. You know, I got fingers in different. I got fingers in Deuteronomy and some in First Nephi, some in Jeremiah, and I feel so uplifted. That is the. The power of Scripture. John, what a great day.
- [48:28]
John
That last part, speaking of ending on
- [48:30]
Dr. Mike Day
a beautiful, high note, I cannot deny what I felt. It was so powerful. It was almost like there was a angel in heaven going, look, Mike's awake. Let's get him yeah.
- [48:42]
John
Here is a Bible. Amazing scholar reading this and going, I am missing stuff every time I read it. That's coming out this time. What a testimony. Thank you for that.
- [48:57]
Hank
Thank you, Mike.
- [48:58]
Dr. Mike Day
Thanks for having me with that.
- [49:00]
Hank
We want to thank Dr. Michael Day for being with us today. It has been a treat, a joy, a feast. We want to thank our executive producer, Shannon Sorensen, our sponsors David and Verla Sorensen, and every episode we remember our founder, Steve Sorensen. We hope you join us next week we're going to do more Old Testament study on Follow Him. As a thank you to our wonderful listeners, we'd love to gift you the digital version of our book Finding Jesus Christ in the Old Testament. It offers short, meaningful insights drawn from our past Old Testament episodes. Visit followhim.co. that's followhim.co to download your free copy today and you'll also find the link to purchase the print edition. Thank you for being part of our Follow him family. Of course, none of this could happen without our incredible production Cross David Perry, Lisa Spice, Will Stoughton, Crystal Roberts, Ariel Cuadra, Heather Barlow, Amelia Kabwica, Sydney Smith and Annabelle Sorenson. Whatever questions or problems you have, the answer is always found in the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. Turn to him. Follow Him.