According to the Order of Melchizedek

Summary

Episode Summary: "According to the Order of Melchizedek"

Podcast: The Lord of Spirits
Hosts: Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick & Fr. Stephen DeYoung
Date: September 23, 2021
Theme: The Seen and Unseen World in Orthodox Christian Tradition; the mysterious biblical figure of Melchizedek and his profound connection to Christ, priesthood, kingship, and the messianic hope.

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Overview

This episode delves deeply into the enigmatic character of Melchizedek who appears briefly in Genesis 14 and resurfaces in Psalm 110 and the Epistle to the Hebrews. The hosts explore Melchizedek’s historical, spiritual, and theological significance, his role as a type and pattern of Christ, and what his story reveals about the priesthood, kingship, and the unfolding of biblical prophecy in both the seen and unseen spiritual worlds. The episode also unpacks the Old Testament’s ongoing tradition of prefiguring Christ and uses ancient Jewish texts to show how Second Temple Jews already anticipated a messianic Melchizedek figure closely resembling the Christian Christ.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Genesis Context: War, Giants, and Melchizedek’s Arrival

[00:49–04:30]

• Setting: The episode opens with the context of Genesis 14—Abram (Abraham) enters the narrative after the War of the Five Kings, a conflict involving Mesopotamian expansion and battles against Canaanite city-states and the "giant clans."
  • "Melchizedek... just disappears, and he sort of comes out of nowhere and disappears into nowhere." – Fr. Stephen [04:04]
• Giant Clans & Their Significance:
  • The Elamite king Chedorlaomer (Kedorlaomer) and his vassal kings are named; the Canaanite city kings resisting him are not, signifying the loss of importance to the biblical narrative (and their association with evil).
  • The city-states sided with both run-of-the-mill pagans and terrifying "giant clans" — tribes noted for extreme depravity (demonic activity, cannibalism, human sacrifice).
• Abram’s Role:
  • Abram, motivated by Lot’s capture, musters 318 men for a rescue mission, interpreted by the Orthodox liturgical tradition as a type of rescue from spiritual captivity (paralleling the Fathers' fight against heresy).
  • The number 318 is symbolically linked to the Holy Fathers at the First Ecumenical Council.

Memorable Quote:
"What the Fathers are doing is not trying to impose their power ... they're trying to rescue people who have been taken captive by the doctrines of demons ... and set them free." – Fr. Stephen [15:09]

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2. Melchizedek, King of Salem – Historical and Spiritual Identity

[21:39–41:21, 45:01–50:48]

• Meaning of His Name & City:
  • Melchizedek = Melchi (my king) + Tzedek (justice OR the name of a local pagan god).
  • King of Salem = Uru-shalem = “city of Shalem,” a local Canaanite deity, not a simple literary “king of peace.”
  • Comparison made to later kings of Jerusalem with explicit divine-titles (e.g., Adoni-Tzedek, "my lord is Tzedek").
• The Pagan Hypostasis Context:
  • Ancient pagans saw gods as possessing many "bodies" (hypostases) in different places (temples, celestial bodies), which contrasts with Hebrew monotheism and is key to understanding the confusion around Melchizedek's role.
  • Tzedek, as a hypostasis of the sun god Shemesh, shows how Jerusalem was originally devoted to pagan worship.
  • Despite all cultural indicators, Melchizedek is presented as a priest not of a local idol but "of God Most High," emphasizing his anomaly and typological role.

Memorable Quote:
"Anyone in the ancient world reading that first sentence ... that's a pagan. He's just as pagan as Chedorlaomer and everybody else. ... But every single [verse] has the phrase 'Most High God.' They're trying to tell you: This is different." – Fr. Stephen [51:11]

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3. Theology of the Priest-King and Remnant Faithfulness

[53:53–57:49]

• Priest-King Motif:
  • Melchizedek is both king and priest—something later separated in Israelite tradition.
  • "He comes out and finds Abram to offer the thank offering, which in this case is bread and wine...it's a Eucharist, as it were." – Fr. Stephen [55:37]
• Spiritual Remnant:
  • Melchizedek as an icon of the faithful "remnant" still worshipping the Most High God amidst the world's idolatry, echoing the 'remnant theology' later made prominent in Elijah’s story.
• Eucharistic Typology:
  • Bread and wine as a thank offering/Eucharist, which is distinct from tainted pagan spoils, suggest Melchizedek as a type of Christ, the eternal High Priest.

Memorable Quotes:
"Here's a guy that Abram can actually worship with because they worship the same God." – Fr. Andrew [56:21]
"There's at least two [men], and presumably more, out there in the world, even this far after Babel, who are still worshipping the Most High God..." – Fr. Stephen [52:06]

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4. Messianic Typology: From Judah's Scepter to David’s Covenant

[67:32–84:17]

• The Blessing to Judah (Genesis 49):
  • Jacob's testament singles out Judah as the royal tribe: "The scepter shall not depart from Judah... until he comes to whom it belongs." (Genesis 49:8–12)
  • This points prophetically to both David and, ultimately, the Christ.
• Davidic Monarchy and Messianic Hope:
  • David is depicted as a "prince," not king, because the ultimate king is still to come.
  • "The Messiah is something bigger" — the king to come, the Messianic Son of Man, will unite God’s kingdom and David’s house.
  • Deuteronomy and 1 Samuel’s view of kingship—the Old Testament is not anti-monarchy but anti-usurpation of God’s kingship.

Memorable Quotes:
"The kingship that the Melchizedek-Messianic priest has is not limited to earth. It's actually the kingship, the presidency, over the highest possible court – the court, truly, of the heavens." – Fr. Stephen [123:01]

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5. Melchizedek in Psalm 110 and the Messianic Priesthood

[100:54–129:03]

• Psalm 110’s Importance:
  • The most quoted OT text in the NT.
  • "The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand..." — interpreted as Yahweh inviting the Messiah to co-rule.
  • Christ points out that David calls the Messiah "Lord," indicating the coming One is greater than David (Luke 20:44).
• Order/Pattern of Melchizedek:
  • "You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek" (Ps 110:4) – the Messianic king shares Melchizedek’s dual office.
  • Order here means "pattern" or "type" — not a religious fraternity, but a way of being both king and priest in one person.
• High Priesthood Unbounded by Levitical Limitations:
  • Christ is priest "after the pattern of Melchizedek" (not Aaron)—his priesthood is eternal, cosmic, and heavenly, not simply earthly or hereditary.

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6. Second Temple Jewish Messianic Expectations

[130:30–140:43]

• Qumran’s Melchizedek Text (11Q13):
  • An ancient text from the Dead Sea Scrolls (ca. 100 BC) interprets Melchizedek as an eschatological figure who delivers captives, judges demons, and establishes God's kingdom.
  • Clearly pre-Christian Jewish sources anticipated a divine-messianic Melchizedek who would be "your God" and defeat the powers of darkness.
  • Example: “Your God is Melchizedek, who would deliver them from Belial (the devil/pagan powers).” [136:41–137:43]
• Demonstration of Continuity:
  • The New Testament’s interpretation of Melchizedek is not arbitrary or a stretch, but follows actual ancient Jewish expectation.
  • Christian readings are not eisegesis (reading back into the OT), but a natural unfolding of scriptural patterns.

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Noteworthy Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Typology of Spiritual Battle:
  • "What HAPPENS to people of the Church with heresy ... is that they're taken captive by the doctrines of demons. The Fathers are trying to rescue them and set them free." [15:09]
• On the Strange Insertion of Melchizedek:
  • "He sort of comes out of nowhere and disappears into nowhere ... and St. Paul’s Epistle to the Hebrews comments on this fact." [04:04]
• On the Nature of the Divine Council and Priesthood:
  • "He is the Great High Priest because he is God and man—can both lead worship and receive worship validly, unlike the pagan priest-kings and God-kings of Abraham's day." [126:54]
• On the Old Testament’s Cohesive Structure:
  • "Once you start digging into the Scriptures, even a little bit, you see there are these structures... There are ideas, there are realities the text is an expression of—...all pointing to the one person, Jesus Christ." – Fr. Stephen [147:43–148:35]
• On the Christ-centered Reading of Scripture:
  • "If it's not finally all being referred back to Christ... not only are we wasting our time, we might be harming ourselves." – Fr. Andrew [142:12]

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [00:49–04:30] – Genesis context, arrival of Melchizedek
• [14:57–17:47] – Why the Fathers’ rescue of heretics is paired with Abram’s rescue
• [24:55–28:35] – The meaning of Melchizedek’s name; city of Salem; Tzedek as a local god
• [35:00–37:07] – Pagan and biblical views of hypostasis
• [41:02–46:50] – Shemesh worship in Jerusalem; how the city was pagan before David
• [53:53–57:49] – Melchizedek as priest of God Most High; Eucharistic offering of bread and wine
• [67:32–84:17] – The scepter promise, Judah’s prophecy, Messiah’s kingship
• [100:54–108:05] – Psalm 110, Messianic age and Christ’s rule in the midst of his enemies
• [116:07–119:02] – “Order of Melchizedek,” high priesthood language, superiority over Levitical priesthood
• [130:30–140:43] – Dead Sea Scrolls (11Q13); pre-Christian Melchizedek Messiah
• [142:12–145:11] – The need to see all Scripture pointing to Christ

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Conclusion and Final Reflection

The episode masterfully demonstrates that the story of Melchizedek is not a random biblical curiosity but the revelation of a profound pattern pointing to Christ. From his fleeting appearance in Genesis, through the central prophecy of Psalm 110, and into ancient Jewish and Christian prayers, Melchizedek is the eternal archetype of the true king-priest—the one who unites heaven and earth, intercedes for creation, defeats darkness, and brings his people into the light. All scriptural roads lead to Christ, and Melchizedek’s scriptural cameo unveils a central Christian mystery: Christ as the priest after the order of Melchizedek, eternally offering and reconciling humanity through himself.

Notable Quote:
"All of it orients us toward... the Holy Trinity—God the Father, Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, Yahweh the God of Israel. All of it orients us toward who Christ is and what he will do." – Fr. Stephen [149:51]

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References for Deeper Study:

• Genesis 14:17–24
• Psalm 110
• Hebrews 5, 7
• Dead Sea Scrolls 11Q13 ("The Coming of Melchizedek")
• Deuteronomy 17, 1 Samuel 8, Zechariah 9:9
• The pattern of priest-king in Second Temple Judaism and its fulfillment in Christ

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For listeners wanting to understand how ancient Israelite history, liturgy, and scriptural typology unites in the figure of Christ, this episode is a deep, engaging, and eye-opening guide.

Transcript

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

He will be a staff for the righteous with which for them to stand and not to fall. And he will be the light of the nations and the hope of those whose hearts are troubled. All who dwell on the earth will fall down and worship him. And they will praise and bless and celebrate with song the lord of spirits. First Enoch, chapter 48, verses 4 through 5. The modern world doesn't acknowledge, but is nevertheless haunted by spirits, angels, demons and saints. In our time, many yearn to break free of the prison of a flat secular materialism, to see and to know reality as it truly is. What is this spiritual reality like? How do we engage with it? Well, how do we permeate everyday life with spiritual presence? Orthodox Christian priests, Father Andrew Stephen Damick and Father Stephen DeYoung host. This live call in show focused on enchantment in creation, the union of the seen and unseen as made by God and experienced by mankind throughout history. Welcome to the Lord of Spirits.

Welcome back to the Lord of Spirits podcast. I'm Father Andrew Stephen Damick in Emmaus, Pennsylvania and my co host, Father Steven DeYoung is with me from Lafayette, Louisiana. So unlike most of our episodes, this one actually is pre recorded. We're not live because when this actually does air, I'm going to be participating in the Ancient Faith Ministries staff retreat. So if you were to call right now, you're not going to get anyone on the other end. But we should be back again live in the future.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And this episode right now, we're talking to you from the past.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

That's right. We're time traveling voices.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

It's like a message in a bottle thrown into the airwaves.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. So this message for this episode is that we're going to be looking at the mysterious figure of Melchizedek. So Abram, who is going to be later called Abraham, meets him in Genesis chapter 14. Melchizedek gets mentioned again in Psalm 110 and then he shows up one more time in the Epistle to the Hebrews in its meditation on the priesthood. But I mean, who is this guy and why does Hebrews link him to Christ? Is he some kind of pre New Testament appearance of the Son of God? What's going on here? You know?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So to get us started, we're going.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

To focus on his appearance first in Genesis 14. But we're going to need a little bit of contextual backstory. So what's going on here, Father Stephen? What happens right before Abram actually meets Melchizedek?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. And this isn't some arcane lore.

Or Unearthed Arcana. You can. You can find this by reading the previous verses.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yes.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

A lot of times, you know, we're like, okay, well, let's talk about Melchizedek. Well, so we look at. We do a search. Bible Gateway. Right. Melchizedek. Oh, okay. So we read. We read Genesis 14, verses 18 through 20, which is where he appears. And don't read what comes before that and what comes after that.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, I mean, in this case, no archeological dig required. Just read your Bible.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes. You don't need to know Ugaritic. You don't need any of that.

But so.

Before these verses. Well, first, maybe we should read these verses.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Okay. Yeah, let's read those verses just to.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Remind everyone the context.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. Okay. So this is Genesis 14, verses 18 through 20. Then Melchizedek, King of Salem, brought out bread and wine because he was a priest for God Most High. So he blessed him, saying, blessed is Abram by God most High, possessor of heaven and earth. And blessed be God Most High who has delivered your enemies into your hand. Then he, that is Abram, gave to him a tithe of everything. And that's it.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes, that is it. And there are further conversations that Abram has right after this, but Melchizedek is just gone at that point. He just disappears, and he sort of comes out of nowhere and disappears into nowhere. And.

St. Paul's Epistle to the Hebrews comments on this fact, but we'll get to that later on. Right.

So in terms of the context, we'll start with what comes before this.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right, right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Because of course, this. This begins with a then.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So he's doing this. Melchizedek shows up with the bread and the wine for a reason. And so what we have at the beginning of Genesis chapter 14 is a description of the War of the Five Kings, which sounds like something in Tolkien.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I mean, could this be described as a battle of five armies?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Not really. It's just two armies.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, but.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. So, and so what's set up is that sort of our. Our main figure at this time is this fellow Keter Leomer, sometimes pronounced Cheddar Leomer by kids in Sunday school, uh, and then leading to cheese jokes. But.

Ketterleomer, who is labeled here as an Elamite king.

His name is from Kadore and Le Homer.

Which means servant of Gomer, who was a. An Elamite goddess. So this fella is a pagan.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Okay.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

But if you remember our last episode.

You know, Abram lives at the end of the OR three period, the Elamites are expanding their territory at this time.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Okay.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And they're the ones who ultimately end the OR three period when they capture or. But so the Elamites are expanding, and what we're reading about in Genesis 14 is them expanding into Palestine, into Canaan and its environs. They're moving in that direction.

And so he had. He has a number of Elamite kings who are vassals of his, whose forces are with him as they're expanding and subjecting the city states of that region to vassalhood. And to send tribute to the growing Elamite territory.

Encounters resistance. Several of these cities, including Sodom and Gomorrah, decide that they want to resist and throw off the shackles of.

Chederlaomer.

Now, when we read about the expansion at the beginning of Genesis 14, the people whomer is taking out and displacing as he expands into Canaan are a list of people who we should probably be familiar with already because we've co quoted Deuteronomy 2 a whole bunch of times on this podcast. It's the Girazites and the Hivites and. And the Em. And. And the Amalekites. Right. It's all the giant clans.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

That Komer and his Elamite armies, remember. These are Mesopotamians, like Abraham, like Abram are coming in and displacing them and taking their territory. So when Sodom and Gomorrah and the other cities of the plane decide they want to throw off in rebellion, they're siding with the Amorites and the other giant clans against the. The Mesopotamians. And interestingly, Genesis 14 names the names Cherule Omer and his vassals who are on his side. It does not name the kings on the other side.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

So what's that all about?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

The five kings who attack them are just the king of Sodom, the king of Gomorrah, the king of.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, I mean, I see, for instance, in Genesis 14:5, this explicit reference to Chedorlaomer and the kings who were with him came and defeated the Rephaites. The Rephaim.

And the Zuzim and the Emi. Yes. I mean, this is literally a list of giant clans here. Yeah, yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Who he came and defeated. And then. But then when it gets to the kings, the five kings who are going to try to overthrow him, it's just the king of this city. The king of that city. The king of this other city.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, Verse eight.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Their names are unimportant.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Because they're the. They're the bad guys. In fact, the the king of Sodom actually is going to, after the Melchizedek passage, have a conversation with Abram. And he's not named there either. He's just the king of Sodom.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

The guy who happened to be king of Sodom at that point, because he's not important. So remember, these are. These are priest kings who probably set themselves up as God kings.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. Which means they're in their worship.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. And in the place where Abram is living, these people are considered divine beings and sort of immensely powerful and important. And the biblical text doesn't even bother to record their names.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yes. May their names be blotted out.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes. So it's not even there.

So when they rise up, they're essentially siding with those conquered giant clans. Right. Because even now, even at this level in Genesis, just as we're going to see as the Torah continues, there are your run of the mill pagans, and then there are giant clans.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Hmm.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. And. And pagans are people who have become deluded who are now being held captive to these spiritual powers, who they. They worshiped and who that gave them power and control over them. Whereas the giant clans are the ones who are participating in sort of demonic sexual immorality, human sacrifice, cannibalism. Like they're the extreme end.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And there's this distinction made sort of even here.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So your run of the mill Mesopotamian pagan is still better than a giant clan. Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Achilles gets mentioned by name. Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes. And he could be used by God to render judgment against those giant clans for their. For their actions.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So because he's on the right side.

And his vassals wipe out, make pretty quick work of the five cities of the plain and their kings and go and plunder them. And plundering doesn't just mean we take all their gold and silver and all their nice stuff. It also means we take a bunch of their people to be slaves.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And one of those people who gets taken as a slave is Abram's nephew, Lot.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. Because he's hanging out in Zoar, which was one of the cities that got. Just got conquered.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right, Right. And which is near Sodom.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

He's sort of. Every time we see Lot, he's moved closer and closer to Sodom until when Sodom is. Gamora are going to be destroyed. He's actually living in town.

But so he's already in that area, so he gets taken to be a slave. So Abram.

Is not siding with the king of Sodom. Right. He doesn't go into the battle in the first place. But he is going to rescue his nephew Lot, right? Who's. Who's a member of his family who's been taken captive by the. By the Elamites. And so to do that, he goes and gets. Gathers together 318 fighting men. He's made some agreements with some people near the land he's living on. Those agreements would have been about who uses what water and how much for their crops and things. Remember, he's living outside of the city, outside of civilization.

And he gathers together 318 fighting men to go and pursue the Elamite armies to try to overtake them and get a hold of Lot and set him free.

If you are orthodox and you have heard this story, it was probably at vespers, Right?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. This.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Probably before a Feast of the Holy Fathers.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, exactly. Like especially the feast of the First Ecumenical Council, but any of the ecumenical councils. It's the point where the reader stumbles over the name Kedorlaomer, which sometimes has a G inserted into it somewhere, you know, between the.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

The A and the O. That's actually Correct.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Go more. Yes.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, right. There's a. There's an I in. In there. It's a long story.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. Yeah, right, right. So I mean, my sense of the reason why that would be done, like, there's this kind of facile. I've heard this, you know, this facile explanation which is, well, look, there's 318 people in this. In this little rescue operation. And while there were. There were 318 Holy Fathers at the First Ecumenical Council, you know, and I kind of wanted like.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Which is true.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, yeah. Which. Yeah. Although I have to wonder sometimes is like, is this a little bit of a chicken egg issue? Like, do we say there were 318? Because we're modeling it. But anyway, I mean, it doesn't super, super duper matter. But the, the understanding that I would have is the reason why this reading is chosen for the Feast of these Fathers is essentially to say that they're engaging in the same kinds of spiritual battles by virtue of what they're doing in those councils as was happening this specifically spiritual warfare, because it's warfare against demonized, you know, cannibals and so forth, you know, giant clans is my take on that. Is. Is that. Is that right?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. It's the same kind of rescue operation.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

I mean, and just like Lot isn't innocent, right?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

The.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

The person who falls into heresy of the church isn't innocent in it.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

They're involved.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

In following after the. The heresy arc or falling after the heresy. But from the perspective of the Church, just like lot got a little too close and now he's been taken captive. It needs to be rescued. That's what happens to people of the Church with heresy. And so what the Fathers are doing is not trying to impose their power and impose their will, impose their views on the whole Church, you know, through this act of force at the. At the councils, they're trying to rescue people who have been taken captive by the doctrines of demons. Yeah, right. And bring them back and set them free.

So, yeah, that's, that's the. I think the comparison that's going on there.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. Cool.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And yeah, the 318 thing is just a, you know, sub point. Interesting sub.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. I mean, right. I mean, I've heard, you know, I've read, you know, the people will say, okay, we don't really have a full list of all the bishops who were at the first ecumenical council. You know, the church tradition is it was 318. We don't really know how many were there. And you know, I don't know. From my point of view, it doesn't really matter exactly how many were there, whether there were exactly 318. And so, wow, what an amazing coincidence.

Or whether we assign that number because it connects back to this lot rescue operation.

To me, it doesn't matter really. You know, either way it works.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. Yeah. This also, this also should change our view of Abram a little bit, I think. I think sometimes we've grown up with the kids Bible story books, so we think he's just this kindly old man, right. You know, who, who sort of lives in a tent with a bunch of sheep. But he's just this really like, he just went to war with professional military of one of the great powers of his day and won with like ragtag militia he put together.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

So the, the first A team, as it were.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes. I love it when a plan comes together.

So, yeah, so he, he's. He's. And this is, you know, at. At, you know, age 80, you know, 85.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

So yeah, Isaac hasn't come along yet. This is still before.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

He's a right. He's a force to be reckoned with.

So, yeah, so that comes before. So it is after this victory and the recovery of lot that verse 18 says that Melchizedek, the king of Salem shows up with the bread and the wine and gives this blessing. So then immediately after that, right. Sort of the conclusion of the overarching story is that when Abram did this, he not only recovered lot, but he recovered a bunch of other people who were being taken as slaves. Slaves, right. Because they didn't have lots separate.

And he also recovered a lot of stuff, a lot of the gold and silver and other valuable stuff, you know, in the process. And so the king of Sodom shows up and says, hey, thanks for getting back my stuff. I'll cut you in for part of it as sort of a bounty. Right. Finder's fee or a reward you gave. I dropped my wallet in the Walmart parking lot. You found it. Hey, here's 20 bucks for being honest and returning it to me.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And Abram says, nope.

Abram says, I don't want any of your stuff.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right, right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And.

So we see already here foreshadowing, right. Of this stuff from Sodom and Gamora and the cities of the Plain, this stuff that belongs to the giant clans. Is it just sort of neutral stuff?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right, Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

You say it's just gold or silver or whatever. It's just objects, Right. Melt it down, make something else out of it. Right. Even if it's a gold idol, Melt it down and make something else out of it.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. I mean, we should. We should underline that this is a deeply weird thing to do in the ancient world.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

You. You defeat somebody, you take their stuff. Like that is like, no one would ever leave it aside. Like, it just. That would be a stupid, stupid thing to do. And it might even. And might even threaten your survival. Like, you. You take the stuff that you win on a raid or in a battle or whatever, because that's going to be useful for you. Why would you ever leave it? Right. But here you have Abram saying, no, this is all yours, King of Sodom. Take it.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, yeah. And he does say, you know.

During the. During the trip, some of his fighting men had to eat something, and so they ate some of the stuff that they retrieved.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

He said, that's sufficient whatever they ate. That's our cut, right?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

That's verse 24, right?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, yeah.

But so he wants none of it. Right. And that's because these objects, the material. Right. Has been tainted. It is connected to. So it's. It's the same reason why you're going to see Israel commanded not to take the plunder from the giant clans. Yeah, right. If. If someone attacks Israel according to the. The laws of war in Deuteronomy, if someone attacks Israel and Israel defends itself and Israel wins, they can take those people's Stuff.

But not the giant clans.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Not their stuff. Their stuff has to be destroyed.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. And this is. This, again, just underlines that Abram has been called out by God not to participate in the civilizations around him. And especially then not the giant clans, because they're the worst.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. I mean, Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities of the plane here end up shortly hereafter in Genesis being portrayed as worse than the giant clans. The giant clans get to go on longer than they do.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. God takes out Sodom and Gomorrah directly.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So. Yeah. So not very long after this.

So that's sort of the overarching context. So it's in the middle of this story that.

Melchizedek shows up.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. And it's interesting if you look at the chapter, right, you get the story about the victory from the war, and, you know, they grab hold of lot, they rescue him, they make the trip back, they bring back all the stolen property. And then, you know, the end of the chapter is Abram having the conversation with the king of Sodom, and then Suddenly, boom, verse 17.

I'm sorry, verse 18. Melchizedek just shows up. It seems like. So it says the king of Sodom went out to meet Abram, and then Melchizedek just shows up with bread and wine, like, in the middle of this meeting. I mean, that's how it looks, you know, as I'm reading this, like. Yeah, yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And has this interaction with Abram and then disappears. And then Abram goes, then sees the king of Sodom. Once again, he's gotten demoted as less important than someone else. Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

And it's interesting to look at just how this kind of works out in the text. Like, if this is a. Kind of. Like it's so disconnected from the rest of the text. Like, there's nothing about those few verses, the Melchizedek verses, that seem to connect to anything else around them. Right. At least on the face of it. And so, you know, you might suggest, oh, well, this is some kind of interpolation or something like that. But it's like, well, this is badly done if it's an interpolation, because it says, and Abraham. Abraham met the king of Sodom and the other kings. Oh, and then Melchizedek showed up.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Okay.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

And then Abram had this conversation with the king of Sodom. You know, like, it doesn't. It's not a really. It doesn't make sense as an interpolation.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. You end up with the weird thing that you end up with. With Most modern source, critical method, where you divide up the text and try and reproduce the editorial process.

Where you at once have someone who's a literary genius and a complete bumbler, like at the same time.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. Yeah, whatever. Whatever.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Looks worse. Basic literary things with the text, but, like, left all these seams showing, like he couldn't smooth them over at all.

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

And no one noticed that after him.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. Just really obvious about everything he did.

Yeah. So. Well, what, what, what then sort of is going on and what, what does connect this?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Well.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

We'Re told right off the bat that. That Melchizedek. And there really should be. We're not used to it, but there really should be a hyphen in the middle of his name.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Melki Zedek.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Milky Melki Zedek. Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Tz. Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So we're told that he's the king of a city. Right? So. So that's one connection. Because we've got a whole bunch of kings of cities here. Right. And he's the king of a city. So that's kind of a vague, vague connection at least.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. Salem is what it's usually given in most English Bibles. He's the king of Salem.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. And.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

And.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Sometimes people want to try to turn Salem into shalom and try to do he's the king of peace or something.

And you could. You could do sort of allegorical things with that. We'll talk about that in a second. But originally, the material level, this is referring to a city that we're all familiar with from later in the Bible. Jerusalem.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Because the city of Jerusalem, the name Jerusalem is derived from Ulu Shaleem.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Okay.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Which also has a hyphen in it.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. Take that apart for us.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So Uru Shaleem is the Akkadian name for.

For that city state. And it has two pieces. There's a hyphen in there. The first part is Uru, which you may recognize from like Ur and Uruk. That's a Sumerian word that has come over into Akkadian. That means city or settlement.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Okay.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And then Shalem is a Canaanite God.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Okay. So it is the city of Shalem.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, the city or settlement of Shalem. Right. And that's why you get it referred to as just Salim or Shalem.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. Here, just like here in Pennsylvania, we have Pittsburgh. The Berg part means a city or a fortified area. And William Pitt is the divinized God that is worshiped in Pittsburgh. No, probably not, but.

Sorry.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

St. Petersburg might work better. Yeah, There you go.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

So I just need a little inter. Pennsylvania Cattiness, since I'm on in eastern Pennsylvania. Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. And so that. That Uru, Sumerian word actually then makes its way through Acadian, being loaned into Akkadian, makes its way into. This is just a language nerd. Fun fact. Into Northwest Semitic dialects, which would be like Hebrew, Aramaic, Ugaritic, as the word yeru, which means a foundation.

It is used in the Bible to be a foundation. But so that's the city that he's the king of. And his name.

Means the Melchi. Melch is from Melek. Right. Which means king in Hebrew. And the e there, the Melchi, the E is a first person possessive. So it's my king.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Okay.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Melchi is my king. And then sedek, right? Is. Is a word that means justice.

But it's also the name of a God.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Who could have guessed that? Right? Yeah. You know, like. And so, yeah, the. For those maybe familiar with, like Arabic, for instance, there's Malik, Right. Which again, means king. And then even the word Melkite.

Referenced people involved connected with the imperium, you know, with the empire. Right. So all these words are connected, you know, so when you look at that Melchi at the beginning of Melchizedek, that's. That's this root. That's that. That king root. So, but, yeah, my king. My king is Sedek.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. And so.

There, There are. There are ways to try to get around this. Referring to a pagan God.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, okay.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

That people try to do, but there are a bunch of problems with them. The biggest one is the name of the next king of Jerusalem who we see, which is in the book of Joshua. The next one who's named and his name is Adoni. Tzedek.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. Which would be my lord Isedek.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. Which suggests there's this cult of Tzedek there, and he continues to be worshipped. Right, Right, right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And Tzedek is.

The main God who's worshiped, particularly once you start getting into the Jebusite period at that city.

And so.

Here'S where we're going to have a conversation.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. Because he's describing being a priest of God Most High.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Well, before we get to that, we got to explain who Tzedek is.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. Okay.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And.

We feel like our listeners are old enough now for us to have this talk. Sit down and have this talk.

This. This is what I've been a little leery of, because.

It'S not that someone might. Someone on the Internet will take this and run in all kinds of weird directions with it and misinterpret it.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

But no, no presses, bad press. I don't know.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah.

So. But here we go.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Here we go.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Okay, so.

If you've read Religion of the Apostles or other things I've written. Right. I've talked about how.

And we've talked about on the show before how.

The Israelites and Judeans of the Second Temple period already had the idea that their God was more than one person.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. At least two.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

What we would, what we would now call trinitarianism. Right. A version of that or the beginnings of that or the form of that without that particular language yet.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So.

The reason they were able to have that kind of idea in the ancient world is that pretty much everyone in the ancient world had a similar idea. Not the same, but similar. There's continuities and discontinuities.

But in the ancient world, they believed that all the pagans. We'll just talk about the pagans believed that any given pagan God could have a whole bunch of different bodies.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

A whole bunch of different localizations.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. And, and this is where I, this is something that we've, we've occasionally gotten questions about. This is where the notion that the sun, moon and the stars are bodies of gods, that's a pagan idea. Right. Whereas the, the, the, you know, the Israel idea about that is that they are two separate created things, that the one takes care of the other. Right. That angels are not stars identical to stars, and stars are not the bodies of angels. That's a pagan notion. But that angels are assigned to take care of stars. And the association is so close that the scriptures have no problem kind of referring to stars as angels and angels as stars. But there's still this understanding that they are two separate things. Whereas the pagan version is that these are bodies of gods.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right, Right, right. And so.

For example, you can have a sun God, right. And you believe that he is on top of a mountain somewhere in the council of the gods, and he's the actual sun in the sky and he's in the local temple to the sun God inside the image, the idol there. Right. And he's the king.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. All at once.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Those are all bodies of his. And he doesn't have to, like, leave one to use it. Right. Like the sun doesn't disappear from the sky when you're doing a ritual at the sun temple.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. Meaning that the spirit isn't like hopping from one body to the next. Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

You know, they all exist at the same time. And the word that's used uniformly by scholars to talk about this is to say that any given localization of one of those gods, we. We also see this, like with the Greek gods, like there's Zeus, boanergies. There's Zeus of a certain place. Right. Or BAAL of a certain place.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And they'll be depicted looking very different, for example. Right. The word for these different bodies in these different localizations is hypostasis.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

What?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Don't freak out.

No, that's the word that's used. So the idea that a given God could have multiple hypostasis is a universal idea in the ancient world right now. That's the point of continuity.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, but did pagans mean by that the same thing that we mean by it when we refer to Father, Son, Holy Spirit? And the answer here's all the not exactly.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

No, that's just.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

No, no. Okay.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So that's the continuity. The continuity is the idea that one God can be the same God but have multiple hypostasis at the same time that are all him or her. Right.

Here's the discontinuity. Okay. There are a list of discontinuities, I should say so.

In the pagan world. Huge discontinuity. And you'll notice as we go through these that a lot of the Old Testament commandments about worship and a lot of the things that Yahweh, the God of Israel says through his prophets are, are going to be trying to accentuate these differences. Right. Because the temptation is always going to be for the Israelites to think the way their neighbors and other ancient people do. Right. So here's the big first discontinuity for the pagans. You can make a body for the God.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

You could go and craft an idol, you could craft an image, you could perform the opening of the nostrils ritual or whatever parallel ritual is practiced in your place. And now that is a body of the God is now connected to it.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. Not a thing that way.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

The God of Israel says, no, you cannot do that.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. And thus the constant references to he does not dwell in things made by hands.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right, right. And he even has to then go beyond that to. They're like, well, okay, well, we can't make an image and put him there, but maybe we could make a building and put him there.

That's why he has to keep telling them with the temple, I am not bound by your building.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

We'll use it. But I'm not in that. I'm not bound by it anyway.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

The building itself is not an image of me.

So that's a major discontinuity.

In the pagan idea, relatedly.

Those hypostasis can come into existence and go out of existence.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

They're not eternal.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

They're not eternal.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

They're not eternal. And you can make them. So there's potentially infinite numbers of them.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And potentially none at all. Right. Whereas Yahweh, the God of Israel, has revealed himself in three. Only three. Exactly. Three hypostasis, which are eternal.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. And you think about this from a kind of, I don't know, spiritual, logistical point of view. If you're a demon and you want to deceive mankind, potentially infinite hypostasis is the way to go, because how many opportunities would that be?

I want to be everywhere.

Because that's what a demon kind of needs in order to be everywhere. His numerous, numerous bodies that he can inhabit and interact with people through. Right. It's so like it, it makes sense. Not that I'm saying I know what it is to be a fallen angel. I don't. I don't even know. Yeah. I don't even know what it's like to be the guy in the office next to my studio.

He seems nice, though. But, but, but, but, you know, just at least what I imagine might be the case, it seems, you know, good strategy to. To have as as many idols and hypostases as possible for a demon so that he can connect on a local level with as many, you know, people that he can try to dupe as possible.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right, right. And. And once you understand this, it makes sense of a whole bunch of things. Right? So, for example, the golden calves in the Old Testament, all of them. Right. Both when Aaron makes the one and when Jeroboam makes the golden calves. Right. It's not like, okay, I now made this idol, we're going to now worship this object. In both cases, they point at them and say, this is Yahweh.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Your God who brought you out of Egypt.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. So they're trying to craft a body, they're trying to craft a hypostasis for Yahweh, the God of Israel, to confine him and locate him.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. Which, I mean, without this understanding of this notion of hypostasis from the ancient world, that action looks just royally stupid. Like, wait, we were brought out by the God of all, you know, the most high God. And, and look, I made this, you know, this golden calf. This is your God. Like that. If you don't understand that that's what's going on, that just looks really stupid. And you, you know, maybe one crazy person would have come up with that. But why would all those Israelites then fall for it? Oh yes.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Oh yeah, right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

That's our God.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Sure.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

You know, because it plugged into their, to their pre existing experience of what spiritual life is about and how you connect with a God.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right, right. And so.

That laid out. So, so to put a fine point on it, and I know this won't be the part anyone quotes.

Right, Yahweh, the God of Israel, has eternally existed, is the most high God. Three hypostasis, right? Father, Son and Holy Spirit. That's it. There's no more. They didn't come into being. They're not going to go out of being. That's it. Right. That's in contrast to sort of the demonic parody of it, Right. Which is infinite, changing and malleable and the pagan thing. So that established. Why did we go into that now of all times, Right. Why did we risk everything.

To make.

To make the point that this Tzedek, right, this God is a hypostasis of Shemesh.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Okay, so remind us who Shemesh is, Father Stephen.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Shemesh is, Isn't he the one that.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Samson is named after?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes, yes. Actually he is the pagan God who Samson was named after.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Huh.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Suspiciously, despite him having been promised as Yahweh's chosen. Anyway.

Someone might make something out of that.

But Chemish, in addition to being the northwest Semitic word for the sun, is also the sun God.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Okay.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And there were, there were a few other hypostasis of Shemesh, but Sadek is one of the main ones.

And so you will sometimes find him referred to as just Zedek. Sometimes he's referred to as Shemech Zedeka. Right. Where it's, it's the Tzedekah that, that second word is telling you the name of the hypostasis, like Zeus, Boanerges.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right, right, right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

That language, this is a decide that we won't go into now, but may at some point in the future. That Shem language is picked up by the prophets. That's the Son of righteousness language that gets applied to Yahweh, the God of Israel, and specifically to Christ is actually a repurposing of that pagan language sort of in the same way that the Baal's cloud rider language gets taken over and given to Yahweh is the true, the real cloud rider, the true most high God.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So this is, this is a particular form we've talked about about justice before. Right? Justice is the, the right relation between things. And so the idea here is that this particular hypostasis of Shemesh is the Son as he establishes order upon, upon the earth.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. Thus, Son of, Son of Justice, Son of righteousness. Right, right, right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And so there, there's, there's more about this, the fact that he's worshiped in, in Jerusalem in the Old Testament when, when you look closely. So we'll bring up again Deuteronomy 4, verse 19, that the sun and moon and stars were some of the divine beings to whom the nations were assigned at Babel. But Then more specifically.

First Kings 11.

Verses 4 through 8 talks about the judgment that comes against Solomon, David's son, for having built all these pagan shrines and set up all these pagan altars in and around Jerusalem.

And there are a few details given, nothing specifically having to do with Shemesh.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

But.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

When you go to 2 Kings 23:11, we get to the second righteous king of Judah, there's not a lot of them.

And that's King Josiah, who is the other king. When you see.

The traditional icon of the Anastasis of the Resurrection, the heroine of Hades.

On the one side there's the prophets and then on the other side there's the kings. And the kings you always have are David and Josiah. And then sometimes you see some other crowns in the background or there's some kind of nondescript. Guys. It's hard to find righteous kings in the Old Testament or in.

Right. Yeah. There aren't a lot of Byzantine emperors who are saints. Yeah.

So, but one of the things that made Josiah so righteous is that he went and destroyed all of those shrines, pagan shrines that in and around Jerusalem, many of which had been there since the time of Solomon.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right, right. And so then the reference is given in 2nd Kings 23:11.

You know, speaking about Josiah, he removed the horses that the kings of Judah had dedicated to Shemesh at the entrance of the temple of Yahweh by the chamber of Nathan Melech, the chamberlain, which was in the temple precincts, and he burned the chariots of Shemesh with fire.

So that's, you know, letting us know then who these, you know, like, so we were told that Solomon set up these pagan shrines, and here's Josiah. It actually is identifying then who the shrines are to. It's Shemesh who, you know, was this locally worshiped God.

Who had been the.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Pagan God of that city.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So people have asked about sort of pagan creep, right? Like, can these fallen powers, once they're ousted Kind of start creeping back in. Well, this is an example.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right, Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

David had taken the city from the Jebusites and purified it, dedicated it to Yahweh, the God of Israel. Right. Made the plan so that Solomon could build a temple there.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So that, that God would be on Mount Zion. That's the place where Yahweh, the God of Israel, chose to place his name and oh, here comes Shemesh sneaking back in.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. This is actual syncretism where you're worshiping multiple beings. You know, that's. This is not the same as the way that pagan imagery and stories and stuff get used by ancient Israel and by the church, in which there's not actually worship being offered to these other beings, but rather there's a sense that their story gets kind of included in the Christian story in some way. You know, that's the difference. I mean, this to me is a really important point actually, because.

Sometimes when people, when Christians talk about paganism a lot, or even, for instance, as I like to do, read pagan mythology, right. The accusation can be one of syncretism because you're suddenly, you're including these stories and these, these beings and so forth and what you're talking about, what you're doing. But that is not the same thing as actually setting up shrines and altars to them and worshiping them. That's actual syncretism. Right. It's one thing to say these things fit into our story in the following ways. It's another thing entirely to say not only do they fit in their story, but here, let's go ahead and offer a sacrifice to them, let's go ahead and go into communion with them. That's not the same thing.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right, Right. Very different things. Right. And this is full on. Right. They have constructed. Right. So Shemesh, this is common iconography for all sun deities in the ancient world. Pretty much from Shemesh here in Canaan to Helios later.

That. Right. The sun God rides through the sky of this chariot.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, right, right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

With horses. So based on what Josiah destroys, they had a full on.

Sculpted horses constructed chariot idol of Shemesh in the temple courts in Jerusalem for hundreds of years.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

So many yikes.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes. Yeah, yeah. And now this is according to the Bible. I just want to make this point.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Again.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Because.

People who are Old Testament scholars who have devoted their life to studying this text will still do these kind of insane.

Documentaries that I have to watch through a bitter, terrible compulsion.

Where they will say.

Well, according to the Bible, Israel was monotheistic, so first of all, thank you for playing on that one.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

But.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Then say, but we found in the archaeology all these pagan shrines and amulets and stuff.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Busted.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. And it's like, well, if you actually read the Bible, the Bible said you would find all that stuff.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. So how long is it between Solomon and Josiah, Solomon setting these things up and then Josiah purifying them out?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

A couple hundred years.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, man.

Not.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. So this is most of Judah's history.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right? Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

There's active paganism going out of the temple. Yeah. So this is. This is.

There isn't really the closest thing you get to a golden age is like the 40 years of David's reign.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right, Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And even that David has his problems. Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

He does, but fortunately he repents. Yeah. So, I mean, so all of this combined together, then you get a guy showing up, this priest king whose name means my king is Tzedek, this hypostasis of Shemis, the sun God. And he rules over a city named Shalem, Urushalim, which is another.

Another pagan name. And then, you know, you later get these references to Shemesh being worshiped there in the courts of Yahweh's temple.

Why is Melchizedek not a pagan God, king, priest? Like everything about him says that he should be, except for this line where it says.

That he's not. That he's a priest of the Most High God.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Well, that's why he appears in three verses. And it says over at God Most High. God Most High. God Most High. He's a priest of God Most High. Right, Right. Because anyone in the ancient world reading that first sentence, a guy named Melchizedek. Right. Who's the king of Uru Shaleem. That's a pagan. Right. He's. He's just as pagan as Keter, Leoma and everybody else.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right? Right. Literally every single of these three verses, every single one has the phrase most High God or God Most High. And every single one, you know. Yeah, yeah. Over and over.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So that's why they keep saying it over and over, because it's sort of like, I know what you're thinking, but no, I know. Of course he didn't name himself.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right, Right, right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

He would have been named by his father.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Whose heir he was.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And he didn't name the city.

Right.

City already had a name when he showed up and became king. So what this is trying to tell us over and over again is that like we saw with abram in chapter 12 at his quote unquote call, which isn't Really a call.

Melchizedek here is another one of those people. Apparently there's at least two.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And presumably more out there in the world, even this far after the Tower of Babel, who are still worshiping the most high God and not worshiping these. These lesser divine beings.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

These. These fallen demonic beings, even though they've. He, like Abram is living in a city and a culture, and Abram, even his father, right. In a family, likely, that are all involved in this. This paganism.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right, right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Who have all fallen into this kind of worship. Here's one more guy who has. Who has kept himself pure and he comes out and he finds Abram right?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Now, I mean, we should underline. There's no. There's no indication in the scripture that there are any nations or tribes who have retained the worship of Yahweh. We just have as a whole. Right, yeah, exactly. We just have these individuals that.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

That.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

That are mentioned and I don't know, potentially families. I mean, certainly Abram's family becomes, you know, is that kind of family, him and his children and stuff. But, but yeah, there's no. Because, I mean, this is a question we sometimes get. Like, did. Did all of the principalities who govern the nations really fall? Like. Well, there's literally no indication that any of them didn't. You know, that's why God makes a new nation for himself, starting with. With Abram.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right, right. But there are these individuals, right? Yeah, and. And yeah, and just like with. With Abram, you would assume in ur.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

You'd assume he's a bit. But he's not.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And the same thing with. With Melchizedek.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So.

What'S the significance of that? Well.

Abram has just won this battle.

Right. And it's really as. As Abram is going to indicate, it's really Yahweh who won the battle for him.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Because it's not just that Abrams, a military genius, so him and his ragtag group of 318 people could beat one of the most powerful armies in the world at the time, right. And rescue him. Take all this stuff. Right. It's that Yahweh was on his side. Right. And so what you would expect to happen after that.

Would be thank. Offering.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

To the God. Right after the victory, which normally would involve like, in the pagan context, you would have offered some of the tribute that was taken.

Right. So some of that wealth would have been in, like, flocks and herds and stuff. So you would have sacrificed some of that depending on how Pagan. You were maybe some of the people, some of the slaves, some of the captured enemy military.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

As. As human sacrifices. But there would have been a sacrifice afterwards.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right, Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Because you. You don't want to be ungrateful when you're worshiping pagan gods because they're pretty fickle. They'll turn on you pretty fast. Right, Right, right. But so. So.

Melchizedek comes out and finds Abram for this purpose.

To offer the thank offering, which in this case is bread and wine.

It's a thank offering, meaning it's a Eucharist, as it were.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right, right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

But.

Why does he bring bread and wine? Well, remember, Abram wants nothing to do.

With any of the spoils. The spoils are all tainted. That means you can't offer them to God either.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. He doesn't want them either. That's what gets Saul into trouble later. That's excuse. He seizes the Amalekites livestock that he was supposed to kill, and he says, oh, no, I was gonna offer it as a sacrifice. Yeah, sure I was.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. But here's a guy that Abram can actually.

Worship with because they worship the same God.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. And.

When Abram takes an oath in Genesis 14:22. So right after this, when he's talking to the king of Sodom.

And says. Takes an oath that he's not taking any of the tribute, he says, I have lifted my hand to Yahweh, God most High, the possessor of heaven and earth.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Which is. He's mimicking Melchizedek's language, who said, blessed is Abram by God, most High, possessor of heaven and Earth.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right, right. I'm with that guy. That's what he's saying.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

But adding. Yeah. And adding the name Yahweh.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Just to make it clear, that's the most high God we're talking about. And that possessor of heaven and earth is not coincidental.

That those territories don't really belong to those gods who are over them right now.

That it's not. He's.

We're not saying, oh, yeah, there's a whole bunch of gods, but Yahweh's the best one or he's the toughest one. Right. He's the bestest one. It's. He's in a whole different category. He possesses everything that is, everything that is really belongs to him.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. Which is not something that any pagans ever said about their gods that I can recall, you know.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. The authority the other ones have is delegated to them.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, right. Right. Even what pagans themselves say about their gods is limited. Right. It's. There's. There's not competing omnipotent gods.

No one else is saying that about their God.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. There's. Mine could beat up yours, but there's not. Mine is omnipotent and created all the others.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

From nothing. And assigned them their places.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. Okay. So I wanted to bring up this question that I know sometimes comes up with regards to Melchizedek because of the apparent. I mean, we've just explained why this is not the case, but the apparent sort of sudden appearance in the middle of an irrelevant.

Narrative, not actually true. And then he sees this priest. He's offering bread and wine. Wow, that's Eucharistic. Some people say, oh, is this Jesus? Is this the Son of God showing up in the guise of a priest king from the local city? Right.

I thought it would be useful just to take a couple minutes and say why. The answer to that is no.

So certainly the angel of the Lord. Right. The angel of the Lord or the word of the Lord shows up a bunch of times in the Old Testament, but there's all kinds of ways that that's talked about and ways that this text lets you know that that is Yahweh, the God of Israel. And none of that happens here with. With Melchizedek. Right. For instance, you know, Abram does not offer sacrifice to this man. Right. That's usually. That's one of the things that often happens when the word of the Lord shows up. You know, there's not. He's not called. He's not called Yahweh. Right. He's not. There's no language specifically identifying him as being God. You know, there's not. It's not a vision. You know, all of these ways that tend to indicate that someone is encountering the angel of the Lord are not happening in this case. There's no indication that this is anything but a human person who's coming out and worships the same God as Abram and is the king of this nearby city. Probably a pagan city, weirdly enough. And his family clearly was pagan, given his name, but somehow he worships the one true God. We don't know why. There's no. There's no context for why he is a worshiper of Yahweh. We just simply do not know. But there's also no indication in the text that this is the angel of the Lord. Like all the markers that you would normally look for, none of those are here.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. Right. And two chapters before, Yahweh just talks to Abram and he says, I will bless you. I bless you, and I will do this. First person.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Why would third person.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Why would Melchizedek say, you know, you're blessed by my other hypostasis? Like, that doesn't make any sense if that's what's going on.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. And the chapter after this, Yahweh comes with two angels and he eats with him.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right, right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

At the Oak of Mamre. Right. So there's a pattern here that this is in the middle of it. It doesn't match that pattern.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right, right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So this is a different. This is a person. And. And as you mentioned, he doesn't sacrifice to him. He does tithe to him.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yes.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. But that's something you do to a priest who's a representative. Right. That's not offering a sacrifice.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right, right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And he ties from his own. Again, that's a part of a thank. Offering.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Giving thanks to God through. Through the. The priest who is acting as an icon or an image, as we've talked about before.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. Okay. So before we take a break, at the end of our first half here, there's a few things in this scene that actually kind of set up some other big issues for the future in Scripture. Why don't we just kind of quickly go over them?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. Well, we get a little bit of the very first seeds of what we call. Talked about as remnant theology in the episode on St. John the Forerunner.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

This idea that starting that. That really starts with the prophet Elijah. But you get the seeds of it here that even though in this case, in Genesis a few chapters before this, at the Tower of Babel, God has sort of dis. Had to distance himself from sinful humanity, that he hasn't abandoned humanity.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right, right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And it's not just Abram. Right. There's also Melchizedek. So there are these people who are still faithful.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. There's.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

There's this faithful most High God. Yeah. Scattered here and there. And they may not know that they all exist. Right. But they're out there who are still faithful. We also get from this whole story this pattern of doing battle with the giant clans with the spiritual evil and then victory and then the emergence of a king to offer sacrifice. So that pattern is going to play out sort of throughout the Old Testament into the New Testament in ways you could probably immediately see.

And we see within.

The figure of Melchizedek someone who is not a pagan, who is uniting the roles of king and priest in his person.

And so he's going to become sort of archetypal for the, you know, the Venn diagram overlap of king and priest theologically in the Old Testament.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right, right. Okay. Well, we're going to go ahead and take a break and we will be right back with more Father Andrew, Stephen.

Damick and father Stephen DeYoung will be back in a moment to take your calls on the next part of the Lord of Spirits. Give them a call at 855-237-2346. That's 855-AF-RADIO.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Hi, this is John Maddox. You know, when you support Ancient Faith Radio, you're not only helping to make this ministry possible for you, but also.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

For people like Bryce in Australia.

I'd firstly just like to say that.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

I love your show and what you do. It means a lot to all of us listening.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I'm down in Australia and over here.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Orthodoxy is basically unheard of.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I'm not orthodox.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

I was raised into an Evangelical Protestant family.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

However, from a gradual exposure and desire.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

To learn more about Orthodoxy, I've come.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

To agree and see truth in pretty.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Much everything the church teaches.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

The nearest English speaking Orthodox church is several hours away and I feel all.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Alone in my pursuit of the faith here.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Currently, my only exposure to Orthodoxy is through Ancient Faith Radio. And my friend, how should I introduce.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

The idea that I may be inquiring.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Into Orthodoxy to my parents? Thanks again, Bryce.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Would you consider a donation to AFR right now? You can do so on our app or go to our [e-mail] Support Ancient Faith Radio here for you and for.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

People all over the world.

We're back now with the Lord of Spirits with Father Andrew, Stephen Damick and Father Stephen DeYoung. If you have a question, call now at 855-237-2346. That's 855-AF-RADIO.

Welcome back. This is the second half of the show. Now normally we would start taking your calls here, but despite what the voice of Steve just said, this is a pretty pre recorded episode. So we're not going to be receiving any calls for this one. If you call the number, no one's going to be home.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

I could do a funny voice and ask you easy questions.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Very good. That'd be fun. Hello. Hello from Lafayette.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Do a whole, whole Phil Hendry thing? Yeah, Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I could just grab someone from the hall here in the tower of podcasting and see what they have to say. That would be fun, wouldn't it? Yeah.

Okay. Well, we just finished up talking about Melchizedek's appearance in Genesis 14. And now we want to actually connect to one of the themes that we talked about in the last episode where we talked about Abraham, but then we also talked about Isaac in particular, and how Isaac is this singular seed, this unique son of Abraham. And then, as you know, as we mentioned. So go listen to that episode first if you haven't listened to it yet. Okay. As we mentioned.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Welcome back.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, yeah, welcome back, everybody, from doing that. Thank you.

And that Christ is that seed. He is the seed, you know, the unique son. Right. Of the Father, who is the one who fulfills all these. These things. So, yeah, so we're going to connect actually this, you know, this question of who is Melchizedek with that. So pretty cool.

Wait, what? Actually, yes. So, all right, help us out here, Father, because that's probably not obvious to most people. Not to me, for sure.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right, so.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Well.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

We talked about how Melchizedek becomes.

Where we left off in the first half, how he becomes sort of the, the co. Location theologically in the Old Testament of king and priest. Right, right. And we, we talked, as you mentioned last time, about this idea that in addition to seed, plural, and this multiplication language that's used in the promises to Abraham, there's also the promise of this unique singular seed, this unique singular son.

And as anybody with even sort of a passing familiarity with the Bible and, or Christianity or even Judaism probably knows, that idea of a single descendant of Abraham who's sort of unique and special becomes sort of alloyed with the idea of kingship in the form of the Messiah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Mashiach, the anointed one, or Christos, the anointed one, and Greek.

And so really what we're going to be talking about this second half is sort of how that happens.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So we see this image here early on in the story of Abram, of a faithful king who is also a faithful priest, that there is one somewhere. Right. That's, that's a thing that exists. And that's the first image of that that we get in the Scriptures is Melchizedek. He's the first king who gets any kind of overall positive mention.

And so now how does that kingship get connected to this, this singular person? And we, we talked about last time how.

St. Paul makes this point in Romans 9, that, that you see the singleness first reflected in the line of Abraham, that there is a, an individual line that is going to lead to this ultimate seat. So it's, it's Isaac and not Ishmael. Who's in that line. And that's why, as we talked about last time, Isaac becomes sort of the icon for that ultimate, chosen, unique son. But then it also goes to the next generation. Right. It's Jacob, not esau.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

As St. Paul points out. But it then continues after that. Right. And after you get through Jacob or Israel, you now have 12 kids with four different women.

Where it spreads out even more and these become fathers of the twelve tribes of Israel.

And so when the time comes that Jacob or Israel is dying, he's on his deathbed, he gives what is now called his testament. This is the use of testament that's in last will and testament. But this actually we, we find this several times in the Old Testament where someone will be dying and they will sort of give final words to their, their children or other descendants. And often those have a prophetic nature.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. I mean sometimes it's blessings and stuff too, but. But not always.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. That there's this, there's this sort of wisdom imparted. Right. Of patterns and what's going to happen and who they're going to be and what's going to happen. And there is within Second Temple Judaism a vast array of apocryphal.

Non canonical testaments of different figures.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Testament of Abraham, Testament of Isaac.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Testament the twelve Patriarchs.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right, right, right. Testament the twelve Patriarchs is a very key and important one that people should read. But because that actually gets referenced and possibly even quoted at one point in the New Testament.

And, and our manuscripts for it are from Mount Athos.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Hey.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

But that's where it was preserved. Not in Jewish circles.

But so within this particular one that we find in, in Genesis chapter 49, which is the second of the last chapter of Genesis, Jacob or Israel is giving his testimonies. And some of, some of them are kind of harsh. You know, like Benjamin and Dan in particular get basically told they're the devil by their dad as he's dying. But that's talking about things that are going to happen in the future.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Harsh, dad. Yeah. Like really? Wow.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

These are skipped me.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

These are your last words. Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

But I never liked you. No.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And we talked about how firstborn status is not necessarily the same thing as being the firstborn.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Child.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right, right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So.

Jacob slash Israel's firstborn son is Reuben with Leia.

Reuben was not good.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. I mean, wasn't. He was, he was the ringleader that got rid of Joseph.

Yes.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And he also slept with one of his father's concubines to try to Take control of the family.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. As one apparently does.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Should not do. Yes. That's one of the episodes of that in the Old Testament out of several.

And he's just Ed. And he and Simeon, who's the second son, also masterminded the whole let's go murder all the men of Shechem for violating our sister episode.

In disobedience to his father. So the Reuben and symbiote get left out. Levi's next.

Levi has his own special destiny, we know, with the priesthood.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, right. Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So that brings us to number four.

Note, by the way. Number four, son of Leia.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Judah. Judah is one of the sons of Leah, not of Rachel.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Not the sort of favored wife.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. So things take interesting turns. And so he gets to Judah and offers this blessing to Judah that becomes critically important.

For what comes to be called the Messianic tradition and the rest of the Old Testament.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. Okay. So. Well, let's read it. So this is Genesis, chapter 49, verses 8 through 12. Judah, your brothers shall praise you. Your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies. Your father's sons shall bow down before you. Judah is a lion's cub from the prey. My son, you have gone up. He stooped down. He crouched as a lion and as a lioness. Who dares rouse him? The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet until he comes to whom it belongs. And to him shall be the obedience of the peoples, binding his foal to the vine and his donkey's colt to the choice vine. He has washed his garments in wine and his vesture in the blood of grapes. His eyes are darker than wine and his teeth whiter than milk, which, I mean, you know, I'm just imagining hearing this be the last thing my dad says to me. I'd be like, wait, what? Because, like, I don't see how this applies, but I like the scepter stuff. I'm. I'm on board with that, but I don't know about the rest.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right, right.

And this despite Judah himself not being perfect, Right? No, Tamar, but.

So. Yeah. So. So.

Now a note on how you read it. Right.

So you. You read this, the scepter bit, Right? The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet until he comes to whom it belongs.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Okay.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

That is, by all accounts, what the text says. Now, when I say by all accounts. Okay, so the oldest Hebrew of Genesis we have, of course, which comes from the Dead Sea Scrolls does not have vowels. No vowels. Notated.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right? Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Semitic languages are generally written without vowels.

And how things are vocalized, meaning what vowels you pronounce them with could change how things read.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right? Right. I mean, you know, in English, the word net, words net, knit and knot all have the same consonants. But, boy, that vowel makes a big difference.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, Better. Batter. Butter. Yeah. Bitter. Yeah.

So.

When you're. When you're translating from a Hebrew text that has no vowels into another language, you. You have to make certain choices, right? And. And those choices you make will reflect a certain understanding of the text.

So the way the translators of the Septuagint, the Greek translators, the way the Aramaic translators who translated the Aramaic Targums and the way the Syriac translators who translated the later Aramaic Syriac read that verse was the way you just read it, that the scepter will not depart from Judah until he comes to whom it belongs. Until the person to who it belongs arrives. Right.

Suspiciously.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

When you look at the medieval Masoretic text, which is, if you go and buy a Hebrew Bible, a Hebrew Old Testament today, that's what you will get, right? And the reason it's called the Masoretic text is that they've taken the Hebrew text, which is that Hebrew text, the Hebrew itself is identical, literally identical to the Hebrew we found in the Dead Sea Scrolls in terms of the written letters, okay? But it's called the Masoretic text because these fellows, the Masoretes, that's who it's named after, were scribes. They went in and put in vowel pointing, right? They put in marks to indicate the correct vowels. And they put in these marginalia, these two sets of the masura, these two sets of marginal notes about the text, right? So they preserved the text exactly as they found it, but then they annotated it, right? For how they thought it should be interpreted. And interestingly, by 1000 AD.

Until he comes to whom it belongs becomes. Until he comes to Shiloh.

There's no explanation as to what that would mean, Right?

Right. Because, I mean, even. Even they. Even rabbinic Jewish communities of the 11th century A.D. would say, well, yeah, this was talking about the Davidic King, right? So.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, right, right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So that dog don't hunt. So that's why we read it the way you read it, right? Even though if you pick up a given English Bible, some of them will have. Some of them will have this and have the Shiloh thing in a football note, some of them will have the Shiloh thing and this in a footnote. Yeah, they pretty Much all preserve it in a footnote because it's kind of obvious what's going on here.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

That this promise of a specific Messianic king has been edited out by the rabbinic Jewish scholars. Right.

But be that as it may. But so what we see here is that we see this. This kingship language with the scepter.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

That is applied to Judah and his descendants. But then specifically, that there's going to be. Because the scepter is going to be there, the ruler's staff is going to be there in Judah. There's going to be a line of kings that is going to culminate in a singular king.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

There is going to be.

It's not just. This is prophesying that David's going to show up. Right. That doesn't work because it says it won't depart. Right. And. And David is the first king from the tribe of Judah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Not the last.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And there are promises made to his line that we're going to talk about here in a little bit. So here we have this idea of this singular seed we've been tracking from Isaac to Jacob, and now it's going to go to Judah. And now we have this element of monarchy and kingship being brought in. And you even have this language of first, your father's sons shall bow down before you.

That's the first part. Right? Your father's sons, the tribes.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. Which kind of, you know, also, you know, suggests an elimination of them from this. This line of the seed.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

You know.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right, right. So. So this is going to be the king of Israel first, but then.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

His hands will be on the deck of the enemies. He's the one who's going to defeat those enemies. Remember, that was part of the promise to Abraham originally. They would camp in the gates of their enemies.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, right, right. Which means you've really got their city.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. And having your hand on their neck is pretty much. You get the idea. Right. You win.

Right. So you have that kingship idea. Now elements of this get picked up. We talked briefly in.

Our Christmas astrology episode about the fact that in this text, in this Testament, there's this animal imagery associated with. With each of the tribes, and that's not unrelated to certain constellations. Right. We have this lion language with Judah, lion of the tribe of Judah. There is actually orthodox iconography depicting Christ as a child.

Usually laying on a mat, which then will quote this thing about Judah being a lion's cup.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right, right, yeah, yeah. That icon is crouched. Yeah. Icon is called Anapason. Which I think is just the Greek word for that sort of lying down. Yeah, yeah. You often see this.

On the back wall, sometimes of churches or of narthexes.

That's one place that I've seen it, in a number of churches.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, right, right, yeah. And so there's. There's this rule over Israel culminates, and somebody who's going to rule over then over all the nations through the defeat of the enemies. And. And this person is then who comes to be called the Mashiach, the anointed One, the Messiah. This is that. The promised seed, the promised Son, the unique son, is going to be a king. And Christ himself, of course. Well, this gets further elaborated, gets picked up again in Zechariah 9, verse 9.

Which is an explicitly sort of messianic passage talking about the Messiah coming, riding on a donkey's foal.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. So it's the Palm Sunday prophecy, as we would, but there it is again in Genesis 49. Yeah, right, right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Zechariah is picking up on this imagery, right. To say he's coming. Right. Don't forget about this. It's been a long time.

It had been probably a good 1300 years by that point, but don't forget about it. And then that Zechariah passage sort of. This comes through that Zechariah passage into the story of Christ's triumphal entry in Jerusalem in Matthew 21, verse 2, Mark 11, verse 4. Remember, when he tells them to go and find the donkey, he says it's going to be tied to a vine.

Right. So he's. Christ is. Is explicitly identifying himself as this figure by doing. By acting this out.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And that's why it's totally clear to the crowds on that day that that's what he's saying.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right, right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And that's why they're all yelling Hosanna to the Son of David, because they know, hey, Messiah, right? He's doing Messiah stuff.

Right. So that. All that gets drawn in here. And.

So we mentioned this very briefly in the past.

In. In.

Our episode about the Theotokos, the queen stood on his right hand. But we'll. We'll talk about it a little again here in terms of the Davidic monarchy. Right. Which is then connected to this. We talked about there, how the Davidic monarchy serves as kind of this icon then.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right, right, right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Or a. As the language we used in our last episode is sort of the sign.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

The coming of the first king from the line of Judah is then a sign of the ultimate king. Who's going to come. Right. The beginning of the fulfillment of this prophecy that's made to Judah.

And we talked about that time, how there's this misunderstanding because of our Puritan ancestors.

In this country.

And by that I mean the United States. We have listeners all across the globe.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Hello, New Zealand.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes, but in the United States at least, our ancestors are a bunch of Puritans who got, got thrown out of Europe for being heretics.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Our cultural ancestors. Yes, right, right. Some of us are not literally descended. I mean, I'm sure probably I am on some level, but yeah, I'm literally.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Descended from some of the people who threw them out.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Hey, guys.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

We'Ve read. We've tended to read what goes on in First Samuel or First Kingdoms, chapter 8. This whole thing where Israel demands a king. We've been taught to read that as kings are bad. See, the Bible says kings are bad.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right, right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

God doesn't want kings.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Israel wants a king. God says, no. Like, yes, of course monarchy is bad. Right. I mean, I have to admit that I myself have actually made that argument while I was yet ignorant.

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And. And it's interesting that even though so many of us imbibed that as children in Sunday school and sort of culturally imbibed that, like it never crossed our mind. Well, wait, how does that work with the whole Messiah thing?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, the problem. The problem isn't kingship. It's the wrong king and. Andor the wrong kind of king. Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

A deformed type of kingship.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So. So, yeah. So in Deuteronomy 17, there are the commandments, Right. As we talked about before, where God says, when you get into the land and you have a king.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Here's the do's and don'ts.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. So basically saying, look, God knew that there was going to be a king, and so here's the commandment. He didn't say, you're going to get into the promised land, you're going to want a king. You better not do that ever, because you're not supposed to have a king. He gives commandments related to kingship.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right, right. We're keeping this a theocracy, people. No, there was none of those.

So, and, and even, you know.

Let'S make the obvious point at the beginning of the Book of Samuel when they ask for a king. Samuel's the judge of Israel, Right, Right. He's the one who's ruling over judging Israel and is the prophet. And the text says.

He'S training his verses 19:20. He's training his son to take over.

When you have one person in charge.

And that passes on to his son.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, right. I mean, what do you call that? Yeah, that's basically primogeniture monarchy. Yes.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. So the situation of a monarchy is not that different.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Than the situation with Samuel.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

In that respect. Right. In that sort of just detailed respect. So, so what is the difference and what is the problem there? Right. Since, since.

Deuteronomy 17.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Says there's going to be a king. And, and he even says in Deuteronomy 17.

He'S not just talking about David and the Davidic king, because in verses 18 through 20 of that, the positive command that Yahweh, God of Israel gives for the king is that the king is to make his own copy of the Torah, to study it and learn it so that the king's dynasties, plural.

They be successful and may be blessed.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. So he's setting it up in, in view of a long term, a whole.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Set of things, right?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

In those commandments.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right? Yeah. So, you know, what makes the, the, the desire for Saul different from God's vision that he's, he's imparting to them is they want a king who's going to act like the king's in their area. Like they see that. They see a king who, who conquers. Right. That's what they want. They want a conquering king, you know, a human person to be their conquering king. But that's not what the kind of kingship that God had described to them.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. And, and in, in 1st Samuel 8, verses 19:20, they, they use that language of we want a king to lead us out and bring us in.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, that's, you know, that's military. Yeah, exactly, exactly.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Lead us out to war and then bring us back. That's what we want.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. And so, and I was going to say, I think it's as an interesting side comment on this. Right. I mean, within, like, within modern Orthodox circles, there is sometimes a debate about monarchy amongst some people and some really kind of lionize it. See what I did there? And you know, kind of a thing in and of itself. But it's interesting that often the image that they have is exactly this image of monarchy, you know, the conqueror. Right. This military, you know, hero. Right. Whereas God's image of monarchy is, is Christ ultimately. Right. He's the image of what the king is supposed to be.

Yeah, it's, it's fascinating to me, you know, that.

You know, people can say, well, look, the kingdom of heaven is ruled by a king. And then they can kind of conclude from that that that means any kind of kingship must be the right way. But no, actually, lots of kings were clearly unfaithful and get judged by God for their unfaithfulness. And it's because the kind of kingship that they practice was not the sort that God was talking about when he was talking about kingship.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. So let me just say, since in Deuteronomy 17, 8, 20, the primary job there of the king is to copy and study the Torah, it really means that biblical scholars should be king.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

So.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes, when my administration starts, which should be any day now, once people realize the truth, all those of you who have been kind to me will have favored positions when you come into your kingdom. Yes.

I'm somehow dubious that that will actually.

But so, yeah, so the problem here, the rejection of Yahweh, the God of Israel here, is not that they want a human government with a single head, Right. Who is a representative of Yahweh on earth, because that's what they had before with Samuel. It's that they're no longer, as they were called upon to do throughout the end of the Torah and Joshua and Judges to. They're not willing to have Yahweh lead them into battle and fight the battle for them and win the spoils and bring them back.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Because they want to do it under their own power with a strong king to lead them.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. Because prior to this, at some points, right, he literally was leading them into battle, not just sort of like inspiring them, like, oh, I really feel like God is with us today. Like, like they, they saw him fighting in the battle. He was literally leading them. And so, I mean, what they're asking for is to replace him. They want to replace that.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

That. That role that God was, Was. Was had. Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And you say, why would, why would they do that? Well, because sometimes when they were unfaithful and sinful, as happened throughout the book of Judges, they lost.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. Yeah. And he left them, you know.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. And they don't like them having to be responsible to God. Right. They don't want to have to tow the, you know, to keep the covenant to have God fight for them and to bring them victory. They just want to have a man do it who's accountable to them.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Because of course, once you have a human king, if you don't like him, you can just ax him literally, and bring in a new one. Just ask the puritans there.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

We Go full circle. Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And right. So that's, that's the issue there.

That's the issue there. And so then of course, there's also when, when David becomes king and what's normally called the covenant with David, these promises made to David about his line are really then just the expansion of what was already said in Genesis to Judah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Because the scepter is going to come to Judah. Well, David's the one in whom it came. Right. So there's this sign, prophecy, relationship. So when he comes and speaks to David, he's saying, look, you're the sign. You're. You're here on the throne now.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And so reiterates the prophecy part, the promise part.

And there are a couple of interesting things to notes. This is recorded twice in, in Second Samuel or Second Kingdom 7, and in First Chronicles or First Chronicles 17, it's First Chronicles, either way.

And there's some interesting things to note in both of them. When Yahweh, the God of Israel, is speaking to David about this, he doesn't say at the opener, look, I have made you king.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Over my people, Israel. In both Second Samuel or Second Kingdom 7, 8, and 1 Chronicles 17, 7, he says, I have made you prince.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. So he's second in command. Second in command at best. Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Bringing out this sort of iconic or sign role, this preliminary fulfillment idea.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And then when the promise is made, there's an interesting difference between the two records. In 2nd Samuel or 2nd Kingdom 7, 16, he promises David that he will establish. He says, I will establish your house and your kingdom, meaning David's house and David's kingdom forever.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right, Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And so this, this record, right. This historical book is written at the time that Israel's going into exile.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So this is the earlier of the two. And so it's focusing on it in this way to make the point that, hey, yes, we're going into exile. Yes, everything looks about as bad as it could get. The temple's been destroyed. But number one, we had it coming. And number two, God did make these promises about David's line.

Right. So it's not all over then. In 1st Chronicles 17:14, which is written after the return from exile.

When the same thing is said, God says, I will establish you.

David's descendant, in my house and my kingdom, God's house and God's kingdom forever.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. An indication that the kingship really belongs to God.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. But also this indicates that whoever this figure is, this ultimate king, right. David's the prince. He's the icon. He's the sign this ultimate king is going to make David's house and kingdom and God's house and kingdom the same house and kingdom.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. Yeah. Which again, we talked about this in some detail in our episode. The queen stood at the right hand from, from. Oh, boy. It's almost been a year now, actually, I think since we had that episode.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

I don't think so. We just celebrated our one year anniversary. So I think it has to be less than that.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Almost been a year.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Okay, almost.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

But a year. I think it was November, if I remember correctly, or early December of last year. So it's not that far. Yeah, it's closer to having been a year than to having not. Okay. I guess so. All right. Well, so having established all of that, we're going to go ahead and take another break and we'll be back with the third half of the show.

Father Andrew Stephen Damick and father Stephen DeYoung will be back in a moment to take your calls on the next part of the Lord of Spirits. Give them a call at 855-237-2346. That's 855-AF-ADIO.

Big in Heaven, a collection.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Of short stories available now on the Ancient Faith Bookstore.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Sometimes poignant, sometimes funny, sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Conf, these stories of life in an inner city immigrant Orthodox parish are guaranteed to shake your assumptions and make you.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

See your life and faith in a new way.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

They are not for the faint of.

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Heart, but they are very much for all who want to embrace the truth more fully. And you didn't have to ask Raskova.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

For help cleaning, polishing, carrying in or out any work in the church.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

The woman was a stalwart, a tovarish you could count on.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

No one knew her suffering. They never bothered to look into her eyes. It surprised me that most of the church folks at St. Alexander the Willing Dervish Parish didn't even know her name. It wasn't anything they thought about. To find this book and others like.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

It, you can go to store ancient.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Again, that is store.ancient faith.com.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

We'Re back now with the Lord of Spirits with Father Andrew Stephen Damick and Father Stephen DeYoung. If you have a question, call now at 855-237-2346. That's 855-AF-RADIO.

Welcome to the third and final high half. That's right. We get that question a lot. Did you say third half? It's because it's a show and a half. So again, this is a reminder, though, that while we do love the voice of Steve, his own pre recorded voice does not know that this is also a pre recorded episode. So there are no calls being taken for this particular one on Melchizedek. So. Okay, well, we're now at the final, the third half of the show and now we're going to talk about Melchizedek's mention in Psalm 110, which, you know, as you've said a whole bunch of times, is the most cited text from the Old Testament in the New Testament. Right? Yes.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Is Psalm 110 or 109 in the Greek numbering?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, right, right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

In case you're looking it up in your orthodox study Bible and you won't get confused.

The. Yeah, it is the most often quoted text and.

Usually when it's quoted, people don't even notice what we're going to be focusing on in this third half in that it's very clearly. Right. The, the first verse is what's usually quoted. And we've talked before about how, you know, there weren't chapter and verse divisions.

And so when a New Testament author quotes a line, they're quoting the first line of a passage of a section of the Scriptures and you're to understand the whole section. Right, so you quote the first line of a psalm to reference the whole psalm.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, it's basically kind of like hypertext, essentially. Right, yeah. And, and the line that everyone's heard and the, probably the translation most people have heard begins, the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies the footstool of your feet, or something like that. The Lord said to my Lord, which of course Jesus himself quotes that.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right, right, right. Everybody quotes that, frankly. Yeah, right, right. Yeah. And it's the first, the Lord is of course Yahweh.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So it's, it's really Yahweh said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool. But yeah, there's. So there's no psalm number for them to reference. There's no title to the song. Right. So you just, you quote the first line.

And that would still work today. I mean, this show is evidence. I could quote the first line of a song and everybody automatically knows what.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Song I'm talking about. Sure. Right, right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

That's.

So.

That'S how it's, that's how it's referenced and that first verse.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

If we don't take the time to go and look up the whole psalm or we're not reading Hebrews, then that is very clearly a Messianic Thing, Right. That's very clearly right. Yahweh is on his throne. The Messiah sits at a throne at his right hand. Right. So this is a messianic thing. It has to do with the king.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

And he's going to defeat his enemies.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

But of course, deeper into the psalm, Melchizedek shows up again.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. There are more verses to the psalm, ladies and gentlemen.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Melchizedek all of a sudden pops up.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right, right, right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And if you've been reading straight through the Old Testament, as we've all done many times successfully last week alone.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

No.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. Then, you know, Melchizedek, who pops up for those three verses back in Genesis, is a distant, faded memory by the time you get to Psalm 110. Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

And then all of a sudden mentioned at all. Right?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Boom. Melchizedek.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So why is he getting looped back in here to this messianic tradition? I mean, you may have, you may have bought it earlier in this very episode when I told you that, well, he's sort of an image of kingship, and that's how it's connected. Hopefully several of you at least bought in, at least that much. But now this, now we're getting to, as usual, in the third half, why we're talking about this.

That, that the Scriptures themselves draw Melchizedek back into this messianic picture. And this psalm is, is the main place they do it. And then this psalm gets sort of dissected and applied in 13 different ways once we get to the, the various texts that make up the New Testament. So as you mentioned, Christ quotes this verse himself, that first verse himself, and one of the places where he references it is he quotes it to the Pharisees and scribes who are coming and badgering him with questions and trying to trap him.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So he says, I have a question for you. And so in Luke 20, verse 44, for example, he asked them, you know, so this is. They all agree that this is about the Messiah. Right? So. And they all agree that David wrote this.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right? Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So he says, so if it says, the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand, and if, if the Messiah is the son of David, that's one of his titles, that's who he is, how is it that David calls him his Lord?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. Which, the reason why that question is a question in case it's not obvious to people, is that in, well, I don't know, most of world history, almost everywhere.

No one's son is their Lord. There's always a relationship. It always goes the other direction. The Son's Lord is his Father. You know, there's never a, you know, you've done good, son. Now you're in charge of me. Like that's never a thing, right? So that's why this question is a question. How could he say that? How could David call him Lord? Even though he's the Son of David, shouldn't David be above him?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right, right. And so this is testimony that the Son of David is going to be greater than David.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

The Messiah is something bigger. But.

Part of what Christ is doing there by pushing that rhetorical question in, in that way is, is he is using an interpretation of this text that we also see in the vision of Daniel 7 that we've also talked about before in the podcast, which is this scene where the ancient of days comes to sit on his throne and the thrones, plural are set, right. We have this sort of divine council, right? Judgment scene that takes place at Daniel. That's when the Son of man comes riding on the clouds, right. And the Son of Man is enthroned, right? Well, if the Son of David, if, if the Messiah is this Son of Man, this heavenly Son of Man, well, that would make him greater than David, right?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And we have this enthronement scene sit at my right hand. And within Daniel 7, that's in the context of we have these beasts, right? And, and he's enthroned. And then there's this period of time before the beasts are judged, right? So there's this, there's this lapse, right? And so in, in the second verse of Psalm 110, that's referred to, right? The, the, the scepter, Remember that scepter from back in Genesis 49, right?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

The one, right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

That was hanging around Judah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Judah, right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. Right. It goes out from Zion.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Goes out from Zion to extend over.

To extend over the nations, right. So this is picking up that prophecy, right. That it's going to happen with this figure. But there is this element of ruling in the midst. Right. Of his enemies. And that's the, that's parallel to the. Until I make your enemies your footstool.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. This is verse two of that psalm, in case you're following along, looking at your copy of Psalm 110, 109.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. And so he is, he is enthroned. He is ruling. He is ruling not only over Israel, but over the nations, right? Because it's gone out from Zion, from Jerusalem, but his enemies are still out there. There's this period of Time, right, as we saw Daniel 7, that's referred to as a long time, right after the enthroned of the Son of Man. This is the idea that was called, referred to as the Messianic age, right?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

And. And this is what we're in now, right?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

That there's this met once the Messiah comes, that starts this Messianic age, and then the end of days is at the end of that.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right? And, you know, this answers the question of why it is that, you know, despite Christ having defeated his enemies, why they are still around and messing with us, you know, and of course, we're talking about the demonic powers here. It's because this, this is part of the prophecy that he's going to rule in the midst of his enemies. He's ruling, he is ruling, but the enemies are still around. So, you know, think about what that means in terms of like a battle. You know, the battle can be won, but then there's a kind of route that occurs, right? There's a retreat that's happening from, you know, the defeated enemies. And often they try to burn and pillage and do all kinds of mischief as they go. And that's what we're living through. That's what the current era is about.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right? And this is why now, I don't want to publicly shame or embarrass anybody.

But there are still folks out there every once in a while who think that AD.

Means after death.

That it's after Christ's death. No, like BC is before Christ and that it. Now the big problem there would be that. What would it be? While during Christ's life, there'd be like.

33 years of what? DC during Christ or.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

But I'm not a DC guy. Sorry.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, I am. But anyway.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

No.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Anno Domini, the year Anno Dominique, the year of our Lord.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

It is the year of our Lord, whatever.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Embedded in that understanding of time is this understanding of the Messianic age, right? That this is the period when Christ is ruling in the midst of his enemies. The year of our Lord, meaning the year of our Lord's rule. You start dating when the king takes his throne.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right? Right, right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I mean, in the Roman period, that's the way it was, you know, Tiberius 6 or whatever. I don't remember how long he ruled, but I mean, that's. That's the way that. That ancient chronologies always went. It always reset when there was a new emperor.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. Well, Genesis 14 that we just read in the 14th year of. Of Ketterleomer Yeah, right, exactly.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Everybody. Yeah. Except now it's 2021. Yeah, 2024, if you.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So.

I have to throw in a sorry premillennialist.

Right. Because.

It'S been utterly clear to the church. It was utterly clear what was going to happen in Second Temple Judaism, that the coming of the Messiah would start this Messianic age that would then end with the end of days of the final judgment, and that there would be this intermediate period in which the Messiah would rule over the world, but his enemies would still be there. That's not another period that's still in our future.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, right. The millennium dog.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Don't hunt with. With the Bible, with the way Christians have always interpreted the Bible, with the way we figure out what year it is.

Like, it. It just doesn't work.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So it's a. Sorry, not sorry, I'll admit it. But.

So then keep it going through the Psalms. Right, so it's describing this Messianic Age, verse 3.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

The. The people. The people of the Messianic king offer themselves on holy mountains.

On the holy mountains. Now, this is another place where the Hebrew can be read a couple of different ways.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Okay. But holy mountains is the way St. Jerome reads it.

And he had a cool lion for a pet, so I'm going with him.

But if you understand what's going on here, right, it talks about their garments, their clean garments. Right. And that they're offering themselves mountains make sense, because these then are high places. And the idea that there are holy mountains, plural.

Right. Mean there's been. Means there's been a change because remember, the scepter goes out from Zion, from Jerusalem, which was the one holy mountain with the one sanctuary.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. I'm seeing, like. I'm seeing an alternative reading of this is.

In splendor of holiness rather than holy mountains or holy hills.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Does that, I suppose. Does that depend on where you put the vowel points or.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Exactly.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

It's vowel pointing.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, man. Those vowel points again.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. But in the context, right, we have them offering themselves.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

This is sacrificial language. Right. And their purification of themselves and sanctification of themselves with the garments. Right, right. So it being sacrificial language, splendor of holiness. Doesn't make a lot of sense.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. And then just the context of like, it being sort of like at sunrise and then there's dew like this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And so this is this idea of living sacrifices that gets picked up in the New Testament.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

But so the. The people notice Also, it's your people.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Identifying the Messiah with. With his people.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

They're. They're his people.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Israel is the Messiah's people.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yahweh's people are the Messiah's people.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

But also this, this extension that there's going to be all over the place. Right. The scepter going out from Zion in Jerusalem does not go and just crush everyone who's a Gentile.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

It goes out there and makes a hundred other Jerusalems where people, the people are gathering in holiness for. For worship.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

During this, this Messianic period.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. You know, echoing, of course, the thing that Christ said to the woman at the well, you know, that God's going to be worshiped in spirit and in truth in every place.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Well, that doesn't mean in every place.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Okay, but you know, I got.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

I'm actually.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Okay, so not only in Jerusalem or on that mountain.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, yeah. The inspirited truth is a response to. Is talking about the Holy Trinity.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right? Yes, that I got.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, yeah. And it's as opposed to the other question she asks that we ignore where he says, where Christ says, you worship what you do not know. We worship whom we know.

Because salvation is from the Jews. But the time will come when everyone will worship him in spirit truth, meaning everyone will know God through the revelation of the Holy Trinity. Anyway, sorry, had to do it.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I agree with you. That's what I meant.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So, so now we come to verse four of the Psalm.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yes, yes. This is the one that actually does mention Melchizedek. Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And here's where he pops up. And so this is important for how we understand verse three also.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Because remember, verse three, if we understand his holy mountains, this is the sacrificial language of this worship language on all these hills.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So verse four.

I have sworn. It's usually I have sorted will not repent. Yeah, meaning not change my mind. Not.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's a usage of repent that's a little bit older than like we. We tend to think of repent as meaning like I'm sorry for my sins or some version of that. Right. Which is not wrong. But. But you know, to repent means to change your mind. You know, that. That's all it really. And thus, thus, that's why you get some language in the scriptures of. Of God, quote, unquote, repenting. It's not that God has sins that he has to repent of.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

It's.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

It's this notion that from the point of view of the person observing this that God seems to have changed his mind. Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Or changed what he was going to do. He was threatening something, but then the person repents and so he doesn't do it.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

He does.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah.

He said so. He swore, you are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So here's where Melchizedek pops up and again, out of the blue, and there's this much of the order of Melchizedek.

Where there's no order back in Genesis.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. There's just Melchizedek.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Melchizedek doesn't show up with like a bunch of followers or a school or. Right.

So order here should be translated too literally. We tend to think of order like an order of monks or in order.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

The net has. It is after the pattern of Melchizedek.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right, right. There's an order organization, the style, the type, the pattern, the. The genus.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. You're the kind that he was.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

So. So there's. There's a.

Superficial. Right. Level at which we can, we can immediately understand this. Well, this is saying that. And this is, this is part of. We're going to go into more depth, but this is the beginning.

Not only is he a king, Right. But he's also a priest. And specifically, he's serving as a sort of high priest.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

That. So he is in Zion. His scepter has gone out from there. And so he is sort of serving as the high priest over the people who are offering their worship in all of these scattered places.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

That it's sort of being taken up by him as high priest.

Right. In addition to being king. And so since he is both king and high priest, that's like Melchizedek, who is both priest and king.

In Zion. Right. So that's our first sort of superficial level. So it's sort of like. Oh, yeah, like that guy was right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Which is true. It is true.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

But so noting this now, especially in St. Paul's Epistle to the Hebrews, he's going to go deeper. Right. So I mean, you can see right away where he. He's going to get the. The language of Christ is the great high priest from this. Right. How you get the Messiah and the high priest together.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

But also he's going to make a contrast between.

The priesthood of Aaron and the priesthood of Melchizedek.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, yeah. What's that all about?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. Well, part of it is that, as he says.

Christ is not a Levite.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So he would not be eligible to be part of the Aaronic Priesthood.

And so he says no. Right. Christ is in this, with Christ's high priest. He's. He's the high priest in this, this other priesthood.

But also this is where he talks about. And this is where, as you were talking about, where some people want to say Melchizedek is the, the quote unquote, pre incarnate. That's problematic. But Christ.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

In, in, in Genesis, they're taking this a little too literally. So he makes some comparisons between Melchizedek and Christ. Right. In that Melchizedek kind of shows up out of nowhere. There's no genealogy of Melchizedek.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right, right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And he kind of disappears into nowhere. So his priesthood is in a certain way kind of eternal. Not in that it literally was, but in the sense that we're not told when it began and when it ended. Right, right. It's. He's not enclosed within the text, the store. There is no story of Melchizedek. Right. And in the same way, Christ's priesthood is not sort of limited and bounded the way Aaron's was. And the erotic line was. And we talked before in a previous episode when we were talking about sacrifice, about how priesthood was separated, was taken away from leadership and kingship within Israel.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. Gets split.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. Which was sort of a further limitation. And so the priesthood of Melchizedek is, is the understanding of St. Paul's Epistle to the Hebrews is understood to be this kind of limitless and eternal priesthood. Right. Of which the erotic priesthood was sort of a shadow or, or icon is too firm. It's more shadowy than that. Melchizedek would be the, the icon in this case. So it's this, this eternal unending priesthood. And it is for Hebrews, a, a priesthood that is carried out not in an earthly sanctuary, but in the heavenly sanctuary. Right. And so this is another place where our understanding of the Messiah, if we understand that the Messiah is going to be the Son of Man, the, the, the heavenly Son of man from Daniel 7.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

The heavenly Son of man does what in Daniel 7? He's enthroned in the heavenly places. And he as God's Son, God the Father's Son, Yahweh the Son presides over.

The divine council.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. So that the kingship that the, the, the Melchizedek messianic priest has is a kingship that's not bound. It's not, you know, limited to earth. It's, it's actually the kingship, the presidency over, you know, the highest possible court that can, can be the court, truly, of. Of the heavens.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. And. And we've talked about, when we've talked about Theosis, when we've talked about sainthood, we've talked about that primarily from the king side in the past on this show.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

That, that, you know, Christ is the king and then he has his royal court. Right. And the divine council is like his royal court through which he administers. Right. Who he shares out of love. He shares his administration of the creation with them. But there is also, remember, this priestly aspect that we haven't talked about as much.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

That we're going to talk about a little more now. Where, remember, as is reiterated in St. Paul's Epistle to the Hebrews, when the tabernacle is constructed, it's constructed after the pattern of what Moses saw on the mountain.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

He ascends the mountain and goes into the divine council and he's there. Right. With Yahweh speaking face to face with him, with the angelic beings.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

The law is given through angels.

And he then creates the tabernacle, the place where the priests serve.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, right. And this is the image, as I say, and this is reflected. I mean, we just, you know, so we're recording this on the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross on our calendar. That's where we're speaking to you from.

So this morning we just celebrated liturgy for the feast, and this kind of thing is reflected all over the Divine Liturgy. But I just thought just now, for instance, about the prayer that gets said right before what's called the little entrance, which in the ancient church would have been the point at which the clergy and the people are really entering into the church. It's not. It wouldn't at the time, it would not have just been the clergy kind of leaving the altar area and then coming back into it real quick. It was really their first entrance into it. And that prayer explicitly asks God to make that entrance be accompanied by angels. Right. And there's all kinds of references then in the Divine Liturgy to angels serving alongside the celebrant who's there. Right. So. So like you said, there's this image of, you know, the royal court and the king on his throne and so forth. But at the same time, this is the priest, Christ is the priest, and the angelic beings serve alongside him the way that deacons and altar servers do, you know, and indeed that their vestments, those servers, vestments are designed to remind one of angels. Right. That this is all going on, that we still need to do episodes on the Divine Liturgy, we have to. But. But you know that this is all going on there as well. And it's. And it is. You know, mystically speaking, it is the same thing. Both are really the same thing. These are just kind of two different angles of talking about it. Two different images that are given in Scripture of it.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. And they. They overlap and they're drawn together, you know, in St. John's Apocalypse. Right. And we've quoted this before when we were talking about the saints. Right. He says that in the first resurrection, they'll come alive and reign with him during this period and that they will be priests.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Those two things go together.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And. And Christ as the second Person of the Holy Trinity, the second Person of Yahweh, the God of Israel presiding over the council, also means that he is the high priest who is leading the worship of that council, because that's what they do. And he is the great high priest because he is God and man can both worship, lead worship, and receive worship validly, unlike the pagan priest kings and God kings of Abraham's day.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. I mean, that he is the only one that can do that.

Right. You know, is justifiably able to do it.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. Anyone else who does is an antichrist.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right, right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

The rest, in the most literal sense.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Usurpers in one way or another. Yeah, yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. And so that is the picture we're Getting from verse 3 and 4 of the Psalm of. Of Psalm 110, is this image of earthly and heavenly worship being united in the figure of the Messianic king, who is also a priest like Melchizedek.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right, right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

During this Messianic age. And so the primary thing, from the perspective of the Psalms.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

From. From David's prophetic vision, the primary thing that characterizes the Messianic era between now and the end is the worship of the liturgy.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

That's. That's the character of this age. And then outside of that, there are the enemies. And so in verses 5 and 6 of Psalm 110, we get the final destruction of those enemies.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

The. The demonic kings and chiefs of the nations.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. He executes judgment against the nations. That's how it begins.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. And. And smashes their kings and their chiefs. And so those enemies are finally done away with. And then in verse seven, we have this image of him stooping and drinking out of a brook. And the idea there is to. It's a pastoral scene of Pete, this final era of perfect peace with the enemies gone.

Within the creation. So Psalm 110 is quoted more than anything else, obviously, because it gives this important span, this important.

Prophetic layout of what's to come. And then once Christ comes, the New Testament authors are then saying, this is what's now arrived. And so they go back to it again and again to characterize the age that's now begun.

So over the course of this episode, we've sort of pulled a whole bunch of things together.

From all over the Old Testament based on how they're used in the New Testament and different things. And we've even pulled in some things from the last episode from Abraham and Isaac.

And a lot of times Christians get accused, especially by.

Some of our Jewish friends, rabbinic Jewish friends, and even sometimes by non religious people that we just kind of go to the scriptures, especially the Hebrew scriptures, that just kind of pillage them for stuff that sounds a little bit Christ. Like so, you know, Nietzsche said any stick of wood that shows up in the Scriptures automatically becomes the cross.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And like we're just kind of, you know, playing fast and loose, right. And kind of constructing Christian theology, this sort of foreign edifice to it.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And that you. We're, we're only doing that sort of a posteriority, Right. We've received this Christian religion and so we're now going back and looking for evidence of it in the Old Testament. And lo and behold, when that's what you're looking for, you find it.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right? Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So to counter that you're at the end of our third half.

I would like to offer an ancient text.

Which is.

Called 11Q13. Rolls off your tongue. Sounds like somebody's non personalized license plate.

This is one of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Okay, so the way the Dead Sea Scrolls are labeled is the first number is which cave they came out of.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right? Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So 11Q13 came out of Cave 11. The Q is for Qumran, which is the place where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered. And then the second number is just the order in which they found and identified them. Right. So this is 11Q13. It's sometimes called the Melchizedek document or the coming of Melchizedek.

This text was written around 100 BC. So this is a hundred years before the birth of Christ by this incredibly fundamentalist Jewish group.

That'S living out in the desert because they thought the Pharisees were too liberal. And this is actually their exegesis of the commandment about the jubilee year in Leviticus 25.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. Right. So if you look at Leviticus 25, what gets commanded There is, it's called the Year of Jubilee. And it's basically this sort of big economic reset, like all the debts are, are forgiven, all the captives released. Everyone has to go back. You know, everyone gets the land back that belonged to their forefathers.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Slaves are freed.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. So I mean, it's, it's.

I mean, we could have a whole episode about the Jubilee, but.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And we may.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, we should. Yeah, it's a good, it's a great idea, but that's the context. So, you know, if you haven't read Leviticus 25. Okay, welcome back.

So, but yeah, this, as you said, this, this text is, this text is about that. This is their sort of commentary on that. So I'm going to read it to you, to everybody, and I'll just, you know, there are, it's fragmentary, so there's bits where the manuscript got damaged. Okay, so where, where that happened, I'm going to, I'm going to say dot, dot, dot, just so you know that there's a break in what I'm saying. And then also, you know, it quotes a number of places in the Old Testament. So when it does quote it, then I'm just going to mention what that reference is. Okay. So as, as I read it here. Okay, so it's a little long, but please, just, just, just bear with me. So listen this.

And concerning what the scripture says, in this year of jubilee, you shall return every one of you to your possession. Leviticus 25:13. And what is also written, and this is the manner of the remission. Every creditor shall remit the claim that is held against a neighbor, not exacting it, of a neighbor who is a member of the community. Because God's remission has been proclaimed. Proclaimed. Deuteronomy 15:2. The interpretation is that it applies to the last days and concerns the captives. Just as Isaiah said to proclaim the jubilee to the captives, Isaiah 61:1.

Just as.

And from the inheritance of Melchizedek. For.

Melchizedek, who will return them to what is rightfully theirs, he will proclaim to them the jubilee, thereby releasing them from the debt of all their sins.

Then the day of atonement shall follow after the 10th Jubilee period, when he shall atone for all the sons of light and the people who are chosen for Melchizedek upon them.

For this is the time decreed for the year of Melchizedek's favor. And by his might he will judge God's holy ones, and so establish a righteous kingdom as it is written. About him in the Songs of David a God has taken his place in the council of gods. In the midst of gods he holds judgment.

Scripture also says about him over it, take your seat in the highest heaven. A God will judge the peoples.

Concerning what Scripture says. How long will you judge unjustly and show partiality with the wicked?

The interpretation applies to Belial and the spirits chosen for him because all of them have rebelled, turning from God's precepts and so becoming utterly wicked. Therefore, Melchizedek will thoroughly prosecute the vengeance required by God's statutes. Also he will deliver all the captives from the power of Belial and from the power of all the spirits chosen for him. Allied with him will be all the righteous gods.

The visitation is the day of salvation that he has decreed through Isaiah the prophet, concerning all the captives. Inasmuch as Scripture says, how beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger who announces peace, who brings good news, who announces salvation, who says to Zion, your God reigns. Isaiah 52:7. This scripture's interpretation. The mountains are the prophets, they who were sent to proclaim God's truth and to prophesy to all Israel. The messengers is the anointed of the Spirit, of whom Daniel spoke after 62 weeks and anointed shall be cut off. Daniel 9:26. The messenger who brings good news, who announces salvation, and is the one of whom it is written to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor, the day of the vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn. Isaiah 61:2, the Scriptures interpretation. He is to instruct them about all the periods of history for eternity and in the statutes of the truth, and then dominion that passes from Belial and returns to the sons of light.

By the judgment of God, just as it is written concerning him who says to Zion, your God reigns. Isaiah 52:7. Zion is the congregation of all the sons of righteousness who uphold the covenant and turn from walking in the way of the people. Your God is Melchizedek, who would deliver them from the power of Belial concerning what Scripture says, then you shall have the trumpet sounded loud in the seventh month. Leviticus 25:9.

Before you go into, you know, talking about this, I just wanted to mention something that I noticed as I was reading it, which I kind of loved. You know, there is this interpretation out there of Psalm 82 saying that this council, this divine council that God stands up in the midst of, is really just human rulers or the rulers of the people of Israel. And I just wanted to point out that Here is this, this, you know, Judean text from 100 Years before the birth of Christ that explicitly says that this is about God judging the demon Belial and those who are allied to him. I just wanted to point that out. This second Temple Jewish text explicitly says that this is about God judging the fallen, you know, the fallen angels. So just wanted to point that out.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yep. Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

That, that the, the, what we would call the quote unquote, literal interpretation. The, the fact that every 50 years they were supposed to release their slaves and forgive their debts. That's like the sign. Yeah, right. Of, of the real prophecy, which this is saying is about this figure they're calling Melchizedek coming, who is both the anointed one who gets cut off, you.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

May have noticed and called your God, like that's the last thing it says. That line, your God is Melchizedek is the Melchizedek. Now again, it's this figure they're calling Melchizedek. Right, Right. We're not saying this means that the man whom Abram met is going to come back and do these things.

The point is, like when it said that David is going to do X, Y and Z, they don't mean King David. The point is that there is this figure who in himself.

Is what David is in his fullness, that this figure is Melchizedek in his fullness.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Melchizedek is the pattern, remember the order.

The sign.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes. And so this is Messiah, divine Messiah, who stands in the Council of the Gods, renders judgment against Belial, frees the people from their sins, remits their debts. Right. All the language we've been talking about today is all drawn together here. Plus stuff we've talked about in the past, as you just pointed out. Right. This was all being drawn together and understood.

100 B.C.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right? Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And so the New Testament authors are not making anything up. Right. Christianity is a continuation of this religion that already existed when Christ came.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

But it's now shifted to now we know who that person is, who Melchizedek was, the pattern of. And it's Jesus Christ. Yeah, right. That's the only thing that's changed is that what was prophesied to happen has now happened. We've now moved into this new phase, into this, into this new period. So it's not us, a posteriori, coming back and pulling all these things together. This was all pulled together beforehand. This is how the Scriptures were understood, Right. By the people who took it seriously and studied it and were reading.

The, the Hebrew Scriptures at. At the time, nothing new. Very old indeed.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Well, to wrap up this episode about Melchizedek, the thought that I had that to me ties it all together is, you know, it's often the case that a lot of the things that we discuss, that people could take a superficial image of them and kind of walk away and think, okay, you know, a lot of this stuff is a kind of bestiary, right? Like, it's a collection of weird and mysterious and strange things you find in the Bible, you know, and have this kind of antiquarian, exotic, you know, feeling about this stuff. And of course, you know, Melchizedek is one of these kinds of figures. Like, whoa, who is this guy? I mean, this is really strange and mysterious, right? You know, of course, you know, we talk about giants and angels and demons and the various names of fallen angels. And I think that it can be possible for some people to.

You know, as the cliche goes, to miss the forest for the trees. Meaning that we can get really caught up in looking at individual figures or stories or whatever it might be.

Which are, I mean, cool. This is really interesting, fascinating, fascinating stuff.

But if it's not finally all being referred back to Christ.

Then we're not only wasting our time, we actually might be harming ourselves.

The Bible is not a collection of ancient texts that you can find weird, cool, mysterious things in. I mean, that's probably literally true on some level, but that's not its point, right? It's not a kind of book of magic spells.

It's not.

You know, again, it's not a collection of curiosities and things that just sort of titillate the mind, right? It all points towards Christ. And to me, this episode is one of the ones that, I mean, I think we, God willing, we're doing this in every episode, but I love where the last part where we ended on with this text from 100 BC from the Qumran community, talking about Melchizedek as being this messianic, kingly savior figure, right, who's proclaiming release to the captives and rescuing his people from demons. And how it's like, whoa, that is so Christian, right? It's so clearly Christian. And yet this is a hundred years before anyone was or 130 years before anyone was being called a Christian, right? That was not even a term at this period.

It's clearly about Christ. You don't even have to. You don't have to stretch it at all to see Christ in that this is about him. And that's the goal of everything. That we're doing on this podcast is to direct people to Jesus Christ, to direct them to worshiping him, to direct them to being faithful to him, to direct them to knowing him better. And I think this particular topic we discussed on this episode is especially about that latter bit. It's about knowing Christ better. When people say, I look at the Old Testament or, and I see Christ everywhere, that's not a stretch. It's not a stretch. That's reality. And so we've looked at one figure from the Old Testament, this image of Melchizedek, who, you know, as far as we know, it's a real person. Abram meets him.

But he also, in himself, just as David does. He in himself is an icon of the one who is to come, the one who is the prophet, the priest, the king, the Messiah, the Savior, the rescuer of captives, the messenger proclaiming the good news, the defeater of the demons. He's an image of all of that, as we heard summarized in this text from the Dead Sea Scrolls. So, again, it all points to Jesus Christ. That's where we should always end up in every single journey that we take. Father.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, so building off that a little, one of the most basic questions when you start studying the Scriptures seriously is.

Essentially whether the Bible is a thing.

And what I mean by that is, obviously, we of course buy a Bible and it's a book, right? But in actuality, it's a collection of texts across centuries, you know, millennia, virtually.

That have been touched by countless hands, different authors. And.

Especially when you take into account the fact that modern scholarship, you know, our 19th century German friends, have done everything possible to try to make not just every book of the Bible, but every piece of every book of the Bible look as disparate from every other piece as possible.

Whether this collection we have.

Actually constitutes anything, whether it's just put together by habit, whether it's just put together by historical accident.

Whether there's anything connecting it other than those series of historical accidents. And.

I think this is a place of.

Differentiation that you can clearly see between.

The Christian understanding of Scripture and the rabbinic Jewish understanding of Scripture.

Because on the Christian side.

Once you delve deep into the scriptures, and I hope this is what comes out on this show, this is the thing that in. In this show, in this podcast, in, in the Bible studies I do, the thing I most want to try to bring people in touch with is the fact that once you start digging into the Scriptures, even a little bit, you start to see that there is this. There are these Structures that lie beneath the scriptures that connect the texts to each other, the different parts of a text to each other, that connect the whole. There are ideas, there are realities that the text is an expression of.

And trying to draw those out. And the interesting thing coming at it as an orthodox Christian is that it doesn't even really matter what canon of the Old Testament you use.

Whether you're using the, the Hebrew Bible canon, the, the usual Greek collection, usual Sylvanic collection. You can go get yourself an Ethiopian Old Testament, right? With, with the extra dozen books, any of those you take, you will find the same structure, the same themes. You will find the whole thing in all of its parts. When you see the links and tie them together, all pointing toward the one person of Jesus Christ.

You could include or exclude first Enoch, you still get the same Christ. You can include or exclude Third Maccabees, you still get the same Christ.

It fits. We don't have to go back and cut out pieces of the tradition we've received from our forefathers in the faith. I'm talking about the ones before the coming of Christ. We don't have to go and weed out pieces of that tradition in order to make ours hang together.

I don't think you can say that about the rabbinic Jewish view of the Old Testament. I don't think there is a logical internal reason why Ecclesiastes is in and Tobit is out.

I don't see any cogent reason for most of those decisions other than. Other than.

To obscure as much as possible those links and structures and themes that I was just talking about. When we let the tradition we've received.

Since Abraham, right? When we let that speak for itself, all of it orients us toward.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

The.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Holy Trinity, God the Father, Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, Yahweh, the God of Israel. All of it orients us toward that. All of it orients us toward who Christ is and what he will do. All of it gives us the same picture of who Christ is and what he will do. All of it gives us the same picture of how we find our salvation, right? So it becomes a unit sort of in and of itself. And.

That to me is the greatest argument not only for the fact that the Bible is a thing, that the Scriptures are a thing, that they are a cohesive whole, but also that they're a cohesive whole with the whole rest of the orthodox faith, which also speaks with that same voice, same voice that the apostles spoke with, the same voice that Second Temple Jewish teachers spoke with, the same voice that the teachers of ancient Israel, who were faithful spoke with the same understanding that Abraham had and that Isaac had and that Jacob had and that David had and Saints Peter and Paul had. The fact that we find it in the Scriptures, regardless of our Christian tradition, we find it in our liturgy, regardless of our ancient Christian tradition, shows us that this is not just a construct, this is not just something we built over time, but this is an expression of a deep and eternal reality.

So that's what I wanted to focus on here at the end.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

That's our show for today. Thank you very much everyone for listening. This was not a live broadcast, but we would still nonetheless love to hear from you, either via email at Lord of spirits ancient faith.com or you can message us at our Lord of Spirits podcast Facebook page. We do read everything but don't respond, but can't respond to everything. Until we don't respond, we can't respond to everything. And we do save what you send for possible use in future episodes.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Some of those things I just don't respond to Join us for our live broadcasts on the second and fourth Thursdays of the month at 7pm Eastern, 4pm Pacific.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

If you're on on Facebook, you can like our Facebook page, join our discussion group, leave reviews and ratings everywhere, but most importantly, share this show with a friend whom you know is going to love it or, you know, one that's gonna hate it.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, one that's gonna claim I'm a pagan all over the Internet. And finally, be sure to go to ancientfaith.com support and help make sure we and lots of other AFR podcasters stay.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

On the air and buy my new book, Arise O God and All. Also, make sure you pick up Father Stephen's book Religion of the Apostles. You can get [e-mail] thank you, good night and God bless you.

You've been listening to the Lord of Spirits with Orthodox Christian priests, Father Andrew Stephen Damick and Fr. Stephen DeYoung, a listener supported presentation of Ancient Faith Radio. And I beheld and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne, and the beasts and the elders, and the number of them was 10,000 times 10,000 and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and Blessing. Revelation, chapter 5, verses 11 through 12.