Nobody to Blame
Part 3 of 3
Note on attribution: In the Gospel Revolution podcast published April 3, William Ethan Massengill suggested, with considerable persuasion, that what happened from Ezra forward: the introduction of the Aramaic block letters, the addition of numerical values to the letters, and the other changes of the post-exilic scribal tradition, were part of the fulfillment of Isaiah 6. That the pre-ordained blindness declared by the prophet was accomplished in part through these specific institutional decisions. This document is an examination of that insight. The insight is Massengill’s. The examination is shared work. The testimony, as always, belongs to the one it speaks of.
Part One of this series established what Moshe wrote, Paleo-Hebrew pictures speaking the identity of YHWH directly in the first word and in the divine name. Part Two established what covered those pictures, the Aramaic square script, the gematria system, the language change that protected the extended numerical framework from accountability to the pictures underneath it.
This document asks the question that sits underneath both of those examinations. Why? Why did the covering happen? Why did the pictures become invisible to the covenant community that had them in their hands every day? Why did the people who had the testimony bearing witness about him not recognize the one it was bearing witness about when he stood in front of them?
The answer was declared five hundred years before the covering was built.
Isaiah 6
The Declaration Before the Covering
Approximately 740 BCE, more than two hundred and fifty years before the Babylonian exile, more than three hundred years before Ezra introduced the Aramaic square script, YHWH spoke to Yeshayahu (Isaiah) in the vision of the throne room. And at the close of that vision YHWH gave Yeshayahu his commission.
Isaiah 6:9-10. Go and say to this people, hear and hear but do not understand. See and see but do not perceive. Make the heart of this people dull and their ears heavy and blind their eyes lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their hearts and turn and be healed.
The blindness was declared before it happened. Not as a warning that could be avoided. As a declaration of what would occur. Make their heart dull. Make their ears heavy. Blind their eyes. The declaration is so specific, eyes, ears, heart, that it reads as a description of a condition that YHWH could see from where he was standing in time. He saw the covering coming. He declared it through the prophet. And he declared it three hundred years before the scribal tradition that would produce the covering had formed.
The blindness was declared five hundred years before Ezra stood on the migdal etz. YHWH, who is the Aleph and the Tav, simultaneously at both ends of the covenant testimony, saw the covering from the appointed time of the revealing looking back. He declared what he saw. Nobody to blame in the ultimate sense. Pre-ordained.
The passage Yeshayahu wrote in chapter 6 was quoted three times in the apostolic writings. Three times the writers reached back to the same declaration to explain the same phenomenon, the people who had the covenant testimony in their hands could not see what it was bearing witness about.
Yeshua quoted it in Matthew 13:13-15 when the disciples asked why he spoke in parables. He was standing in the middle of the covenant community that had the Torah, the Prophets, and the Psalms, all of it marturousin, bearing witness about him, and they could not see it. Seeing they do not see. Hearing they do not hear. The blindness Yeshayahu declared was present.
Paul quoted it in Acts 28:26-27 at the end of his time in Rome, addressing the Jewish community that divided over his message. The same passage. The same blindness. The same declaration from Isaiah 6 as the explanation.
Yochanan (John) quoted it in John 12:37-41, though he had done so many signs before them they still did not believe in him so that the word spoken by the prophet Yeshayahu might be fulfilled. The signs were visible. The one performing them was present. And still they could not see. Because the blindness was pre-ordained. Because the appointed time of the seeing had not yet fully arrived for everyone who would eventually see.
The Insight
Massengill’s Observation
The observation that William Ethan Massengill brought to the Gospel Revolution podcast on April 3 is this. The specific mechanisms of the blindness, the Aramaic square script covering the Paleo-Hebrew pictures, the numerical system filling the space the pictures left, the gematria tradition replacing the direct pictographic declarations with encoded meanings requiring authorized interpretation, were not incidental departures from the covenant text. They were the fulfillment of what Isaiah declared. The blindness Isaiah described is precisely the condition produced by these specific institutional decisions.
The eyes were blinded, not by the pictures disappearing but by a system being placed over them that made them invisible to eyes trained to see the system rather than the pictures underneath it. The ears were made heavy, not by the covenant declarations being silenced but by a tradition of interpretation being built around them that required the authorized voice of the scribal tradition to tell people what the text meant rather than letting the pictures speak directly. The heart was made dull, not by the covenant being withdrawn but by an institutional framework being constructed between the people and the covenant that made their engagement with the text an engagement with the institutional framework rather than with the pictures.
The scribal tradition did not intend to fulfill Isaiah 6. The Sopherim who removed the name six thousand eight hundred and twenty-eight times thought they were honoring it. Ezra who introduced the Aramaic square script thought he was serving the covenant community. The gematria practitioners who built the numerical system thought they were finding hidden depths in the text. The motivation in most cases was genuine reverence. The result was the pre-ordained blindness.
This is what pre-ordained means in this context. Not that the scribes were puppets executing a divine program. Not that the departures were not real departures. They were real violations of the instruction in Deuteronomy 4:2, do not add to what I command you and do not take away from it. The covering was a real covering. The accountability of those who built it was real accountability. Pre-ordained means that YHWH, who declared the blindness five hundred years before it was built, saw it coming and declared it and used it for the purpose of the appointed time.
The people who built the covering were accountable for what they built. The covering was a real covering. The violations were real violations. Pre-ordained does not dissolve the accountability. It declares that YHWH, who holds both sides, worked through the covering to protect the appointed time of the seeing.
Nobody to Blame
The Full Weight of That Statement
Yeshua said in Matthew 13:16-17, but blessed are your eyes for they see and your ears for they hear. For truly I say to you many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see and did not see it and to hear what you hear and did not hear it.
The appointed time arrived. Not because the pictures suddenly became more obvious. Not because the institutional covering was dismantled, it was not dismantled, it continued and continues. But because the one the pictures had always been declaring arrived. And when he arrived he said I am. And the soldiers fell backward in the garden without a single Paleo-Hebrew letter in sight. And the Samaritan woman left her water jar at the well. And Thomas looked at the nail marks in the hands of the one standing before him and said my Lord and my God. And the disciples on the road to Emmaus had their eyes opened as he broke bread.
Nobody to blame in the ultimate sense does not mean nobody made the decisions that produced the covering. It means that YHWH, the one whose name was being covered, the one whose pictures were being replaced by abstract strokes, the one whose identity was being encoded in numerical systems rather than declared in drawings a child could read, was simultaneously the one who had declared the blindness five hundred years before it happened and the one who arrived at the appointed time and said I am.
The covering was real. The pictures underneath the covering were always real. The blindness was pre-ordained. The seeing was pre-ordained. The one whose name the Sopherim removed six thousand eight hundred and twenty-eight times was the same one who declared through Isaiah that the removing would happen and the same one who arrived at the well and in the garden and on the road to Emmaus and said I am and opened eyes that the covering had kept closed.
The appointed time. Declared before it arrived. Arrived on schedule. The pictures confirmed. The testimony bearing witness about him confirmed by the one the testimony was bearing witness about, standing there, saying I am, with the nail marks in his hands showing Thomas the Vav, the nail, the third letter of the name that had been covered and was now visible in the body of the one who had always been the nail.
The covering was real. The pictures underneath were always real. YHWH declared the blindness before it happened. YHWH arrived at the appointed time and said I am. The covering was insufficient to keep the obvious invisible when the one the pictures declared was standing there saying so himself.
Blessed Are Your Eyes
This is where the three-part series ends. Not with a condemnation of the scribal tradition. Not with a triumphalist claim about who sees and who does not. With the words Yeshua said to the people whose eyes were open.
Blessed are your eyes for they see.
The pictures were always obvious. The Paleo-Hebrew Bet was always a house. The Paleo-Hebrew Vav was always a nail. The Paleo-Hebrew Yod was always a hand. The first word of the Torah was always declaring the building project and the head of all things in the house and the hand and the cross mark. The divine name was always saying behold the hand, behold the nail. These declarations did not become true when the covering was removed. They were always true. Always obvious. To anyone who could see a drawing.
The covering was pre-ordained. The seeing was pre-ordained. The appointed time of the seeing arrived when the one the pictures declared arrived and said I am. And the seeing is still arriving, every person who looks at the Paleo-Hebrew pictures for the first time and understands that the nail is not what happened to him, the nail is him, is arriving at what was always obvious. The pictures are still there. Still speaking. Still direct. Still requiring no authorized interpreter. Still declaring the same identity they were always declaring.
Behold the hand. Behold the nail. The house before the creation. The head in the house. The building project complete. The builder home. The covenant of peace permanent. For all who slept. For all flesh. From Adam.
Blessed are your eyes for they see.
The pictures were pre-ordained to be covered. The seeing was pre-ordained to arrive. The one whose name was covered arrived and said I am. The covering was insufficient. It always was going to be.
Isaiah 6:9
See and see but do not perceive.
Pre-ordained.
Nobody to blame.
Matthew 13:16
Blessed are your eyes for they see.
Behold the hand.
Behold the nail.
Always obvious.
The Gospel Revolution • Mike Williams Ministries
William Ethan Massengill • Michael Lilborn Williams • Daniel Thomas Rouse
Published by Audrey Williams