Isaiah 54:5.

[John D. Brey]

For your maker is your husband---the Lord almighty is his name --- the holy one of Israel is your redeemer; he is called the God of all the earth.

Isaiah 54:5.​

In a reciprocal manner, this verse, with Genesis 17:17, and Genesis 2:21, form an exegetical triumvirate able to utterly disable the malfeasance foisted on all mankind by the graft of the Masoretic interpretation of the holy text. The barrenness of Israel's modern sages, and Christianity's Masoretes-mimicking exegetes, can finally be put to rest, finalized, by unifying the three verses in the crosshairs that form the crux of a proper examination of Isaiah 54:5.



John

 

[paradox]

The meaning of Isaiah 54:5 in the context of entire chapter 54 talks about barrenness of Israel, God gives promises of progeny to infertile Israel.

Your verses from Genesis don't make much sense to me, rather see Genesis 21:1-3 which is where God kept his promise to Sarah who was infertile and brought child to Abraham.
The point here is that God made that promise to both Sarah and Abraham (see Genesis 17:15-17) and fulfilled it, so that progeny of Abraham become true for entire Israel as promised by God.

Promise is important because Abraham's 2nd wife was maidservant who also had son with Abraham but his progeny was not promised and she wasn't infertile unlike Sarah whose son was blessed and to be called the father of Israel later.

Another more likely explanation of Isaiah 54:5 is Marry conceived by the Holy Spirit and giving progeny to "infertile" Israel because Jesus finally brought long awaited fertility.

 

[John D. Brey]

The meaning of Isaiah 54:5 in the context of entire chapter 54 talks about barrenness of Israel, God gives promises of progeny to infertile Israel.

The prophet now directs his word to Tziyon, Israel's spiritual mother, who is destined to awaken from a long and anxious galus night to greet a joyous, sun-filled future. This will then be a time when she will proudly welcome her returning children.

Julian Hirsch, The Book of Yeshayah, Isaiah 54.​

If she's barren, how is she to welcome her returning children?

Thinking of the past, the prophet refers to Tziyon as עקרה, "barren one," pointing to those whom she hoped to be able to call her children during the flowering period of the young state, but who regretfully were not motivated by the spirit of Torah. Tziyon's children they were certainly not. . . The children returning joyfully to the home of the "lonely one" are products of the exile; לא חלה ---she did not beget them.

Ibid.​

Your verses from Genesis don't make much sense to me, rather see Genesis 21:1-3 which is where God kept his promise to Sarah who was infertile and brought child to Abraham. . . The point here is that God made that promise to both Sarah and Abraham (see Genesis 17:15-17) and fulfilled it, so that progeny of Abraham become true for entire Israel as promised by God. . . Promise is important because Abraham's 2nd wife was maidservant who also had son with Abraham but his progeny was not promised and she wasn't infertile unlike Sarah whose son was blessed and to be called the father of Israel later.

In the thread seeder, I noted the malfeasance of the Masoretic interpretation of the holy text. To understand what's going on in Isaiah 54, a person must properly understand what's going on in Genesis 17:17.

Sarah and Abram, formerly barren as a couple, are going to begin two lines of progeny. The first line is through Abram and Sarah, as promised --already--- in Genesis chapter 15, such that Abarbanel asks concerning Genesis chapter 17, "What is the point of this vision? Hasn't the Holy one already promised him land and offspring? He made a covenant with him about all these things already in chapter 15." As Abarbanel notes, the promise of a son, and land, was already made in Genesis chapter 15. Chapter 17 is discussing a new line, another son, a matriarchal line, not between Sarah and Abram, ala chapter 15 (the prophesy of the birth of Isaac), but a new, matriarchal line, beginning with barren Sarah. Sarah will conceive and birth her firstborn, who, remarkably, isn't Isaac, by herself, without Abram.

Can anyone guess, without reading the exegesis noted, who Sarah's true firstborn son is? Irony upon irony, it's Abra-h-am. Correct exegesis of Genesis 17:17 reveals that Sarah's true firstborn son isn't Isaac at all, but Abraham (Abram after he's born again to Sarah as Abra-h-am):

Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed saying in his heart, Shall a hundred year old be born and shall Sarah, barren ninety years, do the bearing? . . . How can a man be born when he's old? can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born? . . . Marvel not that I said you must be born again. . .[For] circumcision is not a completion of, or supplement to, physical birth, but . . . marks the second, higher birth . . ..

Genesis 17:17; John 3:4-6; The Hirsch Chumash at Gen. 17:23 (quotations as noted in Exegeting Genesis 17:17).​

John

 

[paradox]

Can anyone guess, without reading the exegesis noted, who Sarah's true firstborn son is? Irony upon irony, it's Abra-h-am. Correct exegesis of Genesis 17:17 reveals that Sarah's true firstborn son isn't Isaac at all, but Abraham (Abram after he's born again to Sarah as Abra-h-am):

Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed saying in his heart, Shall a hundred year old be born and shall Sarah, barren ninety years, do the bearing? . . . How can a man be born when he's old? can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born? . . . Marvel not that I said you must be born again. . .[For] circumcision is not a completion of, or supplement to, physical birth, but . . . marks the second, higher birth . . ..

May I suggest you to take correct translation? the translation is not that "Shall a hundred year old be born" but rather "Can a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old?"

Genesis 17:17 NABRE - Abraham fell face down and laughed as - Bible Gateway

 

[John D. Brey]

May I suggest you to take correct translation? the translation is not that "Shall a hundred year old be born" but rather "Can a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old?"

To appreciate what's going on in this thread a person needs to understand how we get our "translation" of the original Hebrew text. That's a whole thread (or two) in itself. But in a thumbnails sketch, first comes the Masoretic Text, which is the Jewish interpretation of the original Hebrew consonants.

To call the Masoretic Text an "interpretation" shocks most Jews and Christians since most Jews and Christians assume the Masoretic Text (from which we get all of our English translations) is a simple and clear version of the Hebrew original. It's not. It's a dubious Jewish "interpretation" of the original, naked, Hebrew consonants. We say "naked" Hebrew consonants, since the original Hebrew of Genesis 17:17 looks like this:

ויפלאברהמעלפניוויצחקויאמרבלבוהלבנמאהשנהיולדואמשרההבתתשעימשנהתלד

The Masoretic Text looks like this:

וַיִּפֹּל אַבְרָהָם עַל־פָּנָיו וַיִּצְחָק וַיֹּאמֶר בְּלִבּוֹ הַלְּבֶן מֵאָה־שָׁנָה יִוָּלֵד וְאִם־שָׂרָה הֲבַת־תִּשְׁעִים שָׁנָה תֵּלֵד

The consonants are identical. But see all those little dashes and dots and separation of consonants? They are all, every one of them, used to determine where one word stops, and another starts, punctuation, and all the things that go into determining what the original, naked, text, is saying. Which is to say, they're interpretive. A person must already think he knows what the text is saying in order to order the text with the Masoretic points that cause a person to read the text the way it's pointed by the punctuation on the Masoretic Text. . . But if he already knows what the Hebrew says, why the need to add the punctuation that makes it read that way? Precisely so that it appears that that's the only way the consonants can be read, interpreted, and punctuated. It's not. That's false. That's cunning. Sinful.

The Masoretic Text is an interpretation that presents itself as the singular signature revelation. That's its primary crime: tricking Hebrew illiterates into thinking the very interpretation that led to nailing down the living breath of the Torah in the first century CE, is the only interpretation found in the Hebrew of the Torah.

Remove the Jewish interpretation from the text --the Masoretic points/punctuation ----and the text can produce a narrative that frees itself, and mankind, from all the errors associated with the attempt to nail down the word of God so that it can't speak for itself ----against the Jewish tradition ----that's usurped the authority of the spirit of the original text.



John

 

[dybmh]

the original Hebrew of Genesis 17:17 looks like this:

ויפלאברהמעלפניוויצחקויאמרבלבוהלבנמאהשנהיולדואמשרההבתתשעימשנהתלד

Can you provide a souce for this? Specifically that there are no spaces between words.

 

[Shaul]

You are way off base.

It is true that original written Biblical Hebrew was an abjad. However the addition of diacritics by the Masoretic text is not an interpretation. It was simply a codification of the text as spoken. The very word masoret means “that which is handed down” or traditional. These scholars simply recorded the vowels and other aspects of the spoken language. If they had changed any of the vowels during the process the Jews who lived while that happened would have noticed and objected.

 

[John D. Brey]

Can you provide a souce for this? Specifically that there are no spaces between words.

In his intro to the book of Genesis, Ramban's commentary states that it appears that the original text was in the form of an unbroken string of consonants.

It's only after God is fed up with Israel that he commands Moses to use the cantillation to the song in Deuteronomy 32 as the means of breaking up the letters into the harsh, lawful, Torah we have today. As Ramban, Rashi, and others note, referencing Isaiah 51:4, a new way to read the original string of consonants will be given by Messiah. That cantillation will be Good News rather than the bad news found in the song recorded in Deuteronomy 32.

The pointing used by the Masoretes comes from the cantillation associated with, or as, the oral Torah (delivered to Moses). The punctuation is a product of the cantillation. The cantillation isn't a product of the Masoretic points.

The Masoretic points codify the cantillation by the invention of the Masoretic points. In this way, a Torah given as bad news, as a curse against Israel, is used as the way to read the Torah text as though it's the singular way the text can be read. But it's not. There's a new song; Good News, that reads the Torah text in a new, legitimate, way.



John

 

[John D. Brey]

It is true that original written Biblical Hebrew was an abjad. However the addition of diacritics by the Masoretic text is not an interpretation. It was simply a codification of the text as spoken. The very word masoret means “that which is handed down” or traditional. These scholars simply recorded the vowels and other aspects of the spoken language. If they had changed any of the vowels during the process the Jews who lived while that happened would have noticed and objected.

The very dichotomy of the "written" versus the "oral" Torah ---- a dichotomy God told Moses never to infringe on (the oral Torah can only be memorized, not written), means that the vowels related to speaking, or singing/cantillating, the Torah, are related to just one of two, important, binary realms, that God demanded not be mixed.

Placing the vowels (related to "oral" Torah, singing or saying the words), on the written text, implies that there's only one song, one way of reading the text, and that that one way is the one tradition given to Israel.

The traditional vowels given to Israel were given as a curse (the song Moses made part of the text in Deuteronomy 32-33). That curse is to be lifted with a new way to read the original consonants without in any way distorting the nature of the original string of consonants. By placing the traditional Jewish vocalization onto the holy string of consonants (combining written and oral revelation) Israel is continuing the curse indefinitely through their own misunderstanding of the relationship between a written, versus an oral (vocalized) revelation.

As early as the ninth century, Natronai ii. b. Hilai, who was Gaon or spiritual head of the College in Sora (859-869), in reply to the question whether it is lawful to put the points to the Synagogal Scroll of the Pentateuch, distinctly declared that "since the Law, as given to Moses on Sinai, had no points, and the points are not Sinaitic [i.e. sacred], having been invented by the sages, and put down as signs for the reader; and moreover since it is prohibited to us to make any additions from our own cogitations, lest we transgress the command `Ye shall not add,' &e. (Deut. iv. 2); hence we must not put the points to the Scroll of the Law.

Elias Levita, Being an Exposition of the Massoretic Notes on the Hebrew Bible (p.11).​

Since, as you note, the original text is from an abjad, there's no need to place the vocalization on the text since the readers already know the traditional vocalization or cantillization required to read the text. And the Masoretic points weren't added to the text until after the Christian's began to read the text against the traditions of Judaism such that the Masoretic pointing system (the system of vocalizing the text) wasn't to assist the reader, but to imply, against the Law itself, that this vocalization is the singular way of reading the text correctly.



John

 

[John D. Brey]

The prophet now directs his word to Tziyon, Israel's spiritual mother, who is destined to awaken from a long and anxious galus night to greet a joyous, sun-filled future. This will then be a time when she will proudly welcome her returning children.

Julian Hirsch, The Book of Yeshayah, Isaiah 54.​

If she's barren, how is she to welcome her returning children?

Thinking of the past, the prophet refers to Tziyon as עקרה, "barren one," pointing to those whom she hoped to be able to call her children during the flowering period of the young state, but who regretfully were not motivated by the spirit of Torah. Tziyon's children they were certainly not. . . The children returning joyfully to the home of the "lonely one" are products of the exile; לא חלה ---she did not beget them.

Ibid.​

In the thread seeder, I noted the malfeasance of the Masoretic interpretation of the holy text. To understand what's going on in Isaiah 54, a person must properly understand what's going on in Genesis 17:17.

Sarah and Abram, formerly barren as a couple, are going to begin two lines of progeny. The first line is through Abram and Sarah, as promised --already--- in Genesis chapter 15, such that Abarbanel asks concerning Genesis chapter 17, "What is the point of this vision? Hasn't the Holy one already promised him land and offspring? He made a covenant with him about all these things already in chapter 15." As Abarbanel notes, the promise of a son, and land, was already made in Genesis chapter 15. Chapter 17 is discussing a new line, another son, a matriarchal line, not between Sarah and Abram, ala chapter 15 (the prophesy of the birth of Isaac), but a new, matriarchal line, beginning with barren Sarah. Sarah will conceive and birth her firstborn, who, remarkably, isn't Isaac, by herself, without Abram.

Can anyone guess, without reading the exegesis noted, who Sarah's true firstborn son is? Irony upon irony, it's Abra-h-am. Correct exegesis of Genesis 17:17 reveals that Sarah's true firstborn son isn't Isaac at all, but Abraham (Abram after he's born again to Sarah as Abra-h-am):

Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed saying in his heart, Shall a hundred year old be born and shall Sarah, barren ninety years, do the bearing? . . . How can a man be born when he's old? can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born? . . . Marvel not that I said you must be born again. . .[For] circumcision is not a completion of, or supplement to, physical birth, but . . . marks the second, higher birth . . ..

Genesis 17:17; John 3:4-6; The Hirsch Chumash at Gen. 17:23 (quotations as noted in Exegeting Genesis 17:17).​

To understand what's going on in Isaiah 54, it's not enough to properly understand what's going on in Genesis 17:17, since Genesis 17:17 is allegory for the prototype found in Genesis chapter 2, with emphasis on 2:21. In correct exegesis, and science too, the female comes prior to the male, so that the first human, contrary to the traditional understanding found in the Masoretic Text, is a female androgyny, not a male androgyny. The first human is created with a female body, as a virgin, already pregnant with the first male, Messiah (her husband as it were and will be seen).

If Adam had not sinned the world would have entered the Messianic state on the first Sabbath after creation, with no historical process whatever.

Gershom Scholem, The Messianic Idea in Judaism, p. 46.​

When Messiah wasn't born as soon as ha-adam thought meet, she sought out a different help-meet and met the serpentine surgeon who, in Genesis 2:21, put her under anesthesia, removed some flesh, cloned it, and sewed up the opening where it was removed, forming the first anomalous, bi-gendered, flesh, the phallus. She, was now, a he. The birth of the true firstborn of humanity (Colossians 1:16) is aborted in Genesis 2:21, so that ha-adam can be transformed into a quasi-male, a phallic-male (which is merely a female with modification).

Though all of this can be found in the original Hebrew of Genesis chapter 2, we hardly need to do the hard exegesis since we have the clear allegory of the prototype in Genesis chapter 17. Abram, like Adam, goes outside God's original plan to father his own son. For Adam, it's Cain, while for Abram, it's Ishmael. And although the adultery is reversed in the two stories (Eve conceives Cain without Adam, as Abram conceives Ishmael without Sarah), nevertheless, both sons are ******** such that Adam thereafter father's Seth as his second-firstborn (irony of irony) while Abram thereafter father's Isaac as his second-firstborn.

In both cases we needn't worry too much about the oxymoronic "second-firstborn" since none of the four firstborn (Cain, Seth, Ishmael, Isaac) are the true firstborn of humanity. And thus it behoove us, having come this far in our understanding, to make sense of the three formative texts above in order to uncover the true identity of the actual firstborn of humanity whose existence and nature is all tangled up in two ********, and the two faux-firstborns, already mentioned.



John

 

[John D. Brey]

Sarah and Abram, formerly barren as a couple, are going to begin two lines of progeny. The first line is through Abram and Sarah, as promised --already--- in Genesis chapter 15, such that Abarbanel asks concerning Genesis chapter 17, "What is the point of this vision? Hasn't the Holy one already promised him land and offspring? He made a covenant with him about all these things already in chapter 15." As Abarbanel notes, the promise of a son, and land, was already made in Genesis chapter 15. Chapter 17 is discussing a new line, another son, a matriarchal line, not between Sarah and Abram, ala chapter 15 (the prophesy of the birth of Isaac), but a new, matriarchal line, beginning with barren Sarah. Sarah will conceive and birth her firstborn, who, remarkably, isn't Isaac, by herself, without Abram.

In a corrected interpretation and translation of Genesis 17:17 (as carefully exegeted and interpreted here) Sarah births Abraham, just as ha-adam was supposed to birth her own husband, Messiah: "For your maker is your husband." -----Isaiah 54:5 speaks of ha-adam, Sarah, and Israel, as archetypal virgin-brides who's husband is a messianic/divine character existing before his bride, and emanating out from his bride, rather than being conceived by means of phallic-sex.

In this sense, Cain is to Eve, as Ishmael is to Abram: an illegitimate firstborn. Eve conceives Cain out of wedlock, as Abram conceives Ishmael out of wedlock. To remedy the crime, Adam birth's Seth as his firstborn, and Abram births Isaac as his firstborn.

Nevertheless, as already stated, none of these firstborn are the messianic firstborn each and everyone of them represents in some illegitimate way. According to the Talmud, Cain is conceived between Eve and the serpent, even as Ishmael is conceived between Abram and Hagar. And though both Seth and Isaac are attempts to remedy the *******/illegitimate nature of the first firstborn (Cain and Ishmael), neither of the second-firstborn, though a cut above the first, are themselves what the Masoretic Text loosely implies they are in its interpretation of the matter. Neither Seth nor Isaac are the messianic firstborn who's the husband and Lord of his mother (Isaiah 54:5).



John

 

[John D. Brey]

Nevertheless, as already stated, none of these firstborn are the messianic firstborn each and everyone of them represents in some illegitimate way. According to the Talmud, Cain is conceived between Eve and the serpent, even as Ishmael is conceived between Abram and Hagar. And though both Seth and Isaac are attempts to remedy the *******/illegitimate nature of the first firstborn (Cain and Ishmael), neither of the second-firstborn, though a step above the first, are themselves what the Masoretic text loosely implies they are in its interpretation of the matter. Neither Seth nor Isaac are the messianic firstborn who's the husband and Lord of his mother (Isaiah 54:5).

Thinking of the past, the prophet refers to Tziyon as עקרה, "barren one," pointing to those whom she hoped to be able to call her children during the flowering period of the young state, but who regretfully were not motivated by the spirit of Torah. Tziyon's children they were certainly not. . . The children returning joyfully to the home of the "lonely one" are products of the exile; לא חלה ---she did not beget them.

Julian Hirsch, The Book of Yeshayah, Isaiah 54:1.​

In the sense of not birthing the genuine firstborn intended by God, ha-adam, Eve, Sarah, and Israel, are all barren women up until the birth of the true firstborn of mankind. All of the children, every one of them, come through Cain, Seth, Ishmael, Isaac, are, regretfully, not motivated, sired, nor conceived, by the true spirit of Torah. They're not the "multitude of nations" (promised to Abraham), who represent the largest cadre of human beings there will ever be, implying that more are the offspring born during the bereavement of the mothers of God than any other group born, naturally, conceived patrilineally (phallically), from one of the four ******** noted above.

Rabbi Samson Hirsch's son, Julian, says "She did not beget them." Which isn't technically true. She begets them to be sure; just not in the natural manner associated with the four ********. They're all conceived matrilineally, i.e., according to Jewish law, and not, ala the circumcision, through the male organ bled to death (at least symbolically) in the seminal ritual. The true firstborn of mankind comes through, is born to, every one of the mothers noted above.



John

 

[TransmutingSoul]

For your maker is your husband---the Lord almighty is his name --- the holy one of Israel is your redeemer; he is called the God of all the earth.

Isaiah 54:5.​

In a reciprocal manner, this verse, with Genesis 17:17, and Genesis 2:21, form an exegetical triumvirate able to utterly disable the malfeasance foisted on all mankind by the graft of the Masoretic interpretation of the holy text. The barrenness of Israel's modern sages, and Christianity's Masoretes-mimicking exegetes, can finally be put to rest, finalized, by unifying the three verses in the crosshairs that form the crux of a proper examination of Isaiah 54:5.

John

Just a note of interest John. From the Baha'i perspective, this passage refers to the wife of Baha’u’llah.

KJV 5 "For thy Maker is thine husband; the Lord of hosts is his name; and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel; The God of the whole earth shall he be called."

Baha'u'llah is known as the 'Lord of Hosts'

Navvab was his wife
Navvab | Bahá’í Quotes

Regards Tony

 

[Shaul]

Diacritic marks in the Masoretic text don’t “add to” the text. You refer to passages by chapter and verse number. But those aren’t in the original text either. So there you go.

 

[John D. Brey]

Diacritic marks in the Masoretic text don’t “add to” the text. You refer to passages by chapter and verse number. But those aren’t in the original text either. So there you go.

Chapter and verse tell me where a narrative is found not what it says or how to read it.

And as you point out, the Masoretic points merely tell us how the Jewish tradition reads the text. The diacritical marks tell us how Jews interpret the text. They're an a priori interpretation added to the text as though that's the only way the consonants can be read. But it's not. And that's why the points are added, to make it appear that the traditional interpretation is the only voice the text can vocalize.

And the point isn't that the traditional reading is wrong. It's not. It's just not the singular revelation. To say it is, is what's wrong.

And the Rabbi, our master R. Elijah ha-Kohen, may his memory be blessed, the author of Shevet Mussar, and more [books], has written in a manuscript treatise [Quntres]: It should be assumed that this [nonvocalized] Torah, which was in front of the Holy One, blessed be He, before it was delivered to the mundane realm, its letters were in the [same] number in His front, but it was not formed into words as is the case today. And the reason for its arrangement [in words] is [to reflect] the way the world behaves. Because of Adam's sin, He arranged the letters in front of Him, according to the words describing death and the levirate and other issues. Without sin there would have been no death, and He would not have arranged the letters into words telling another issue. This is the reason the scroll of the Torah is neither vocalized nor divided into verses, nor does it have cantillation marks, thus hinting at the original state of the Torah, [consisting in] a heap of unarranged letters. And the purpose of His intention is that when the king messiah will come and death will be engulfed forever, there will be no room in the Torah for anything related to death, uncleannes, and the like, then the Holy One, blessed be He, will annul the words of the scroll of the Torah, and He will join a letter of one word to a letter of another word in order to create a word that will point to another matter. And this is [the meaning of] "A new Torah will proceed from Me." Is not [however] the Torah eternal? [The answer is] the scroll of the Torah will be as it is now, but the Holy One, blessed be He, will teach its reading according to the arrangement of the measure of the letters that He will be joining to each other to form one word, and He will teach us the [new] division and the joining of the words.

A quotation from a kabbalist found in Moshe Idel's, Absorbing Perfections, chapter 12.​

John

 

[dybmh]

It's just not the singular revelation. To say it is, is what's wrong.

As you remove precision, the confidence in the revelation is decreased.

 

[Shaul]

Chapter and verse tell me where a narrative is found not what it says or how to read it.

And as you point out, the Masoretic points merely tell us how the Jewish tradition reads the text. The diacritical marks tell us how Jews interpret the text. They're an a priori interpretation added to the text as though that's the only way the consonants can be read. But it's not. And that's why the points are added, to make it appear that the traditional interpretation is the only voice the text can vocalize.

And the point isn't that the traditional reading is wrong. It's not. It's just not the singular revelation. To say it is, is what's wrong.



John

But the chapter and verse number are arbitrary and change the delineation of the text. Therefore they change how sections are connected or disconnected. An example is even in Isaiah. The Christians, who added the chapter and verse numbers, set the beginning of chapter 53 in such a way that the verses just before it are detached from it. Thereby changing the meaning and interpretation. You accept the verse structure but reject the non-interpreting diacritic marks. So you see, you are being dissonant and inconsistent.

 

[John D. Brey]

As you remove precision, the confidence in the revelation is decreased.

In most cases the Jewish reading is precise, and correct, within a traditional Jewish context. But if the text is delivered as a string of consonants, without a key to how they should be read, we have not a standard kind of text, but rather, a cipher, that can be read multiple way depending on the key used to determine a reading of the cipher.

The traditional Jewish reading is correct for a time and place since God gave the key to read it that way (Deuteronomy 31-33). But read that way the Torah is a funeral dirge and not the Good News of the Gospel we need. Messiah is said to produce a new key in order to read, vocalize, chant, chantillate, the cipher in a new way.

Behold, in the future when the sin of Adam will already be forgiven and things will return to their original state, the very Torah of our master Moses, blessed be his memory, with the number of its letters, without any subtraction or addition, arranged according to other words, as it was worthy to be arranged had Adam not sinned, and this is the new Torah that God preaches to the righteous . . ..

Moshe Idel (quoting a kabbalistic sage), Absorbing Perfections, p. 371.​

John

 

[John D. Brey]

But the chapter and verse number are arbitrary and change the delineation of the text. Therefore they change how sections are connected or disconnected. An example is even in Isaiah. The Christians, who added the chapter and verse numbers, set the beginning of chapter 53 in such a way that the verses just before it are detached from it. Thereby changing the meaning and interpretation. You accept the verse structure but reject the non-interpreting diacritic marks. So you see, you are being dissonant and inconsistent.

I'm totally willing to dispense with the chapter and verse delineation if you are?

For what it's worth, we should tell those Christian charlatans that neither the chapter and verse delineations, nor the Masoretic points, are found on the synagogue scroll(s) in the Torah ark. Both are profane tools that aren't part of the divine revelation.

Oh . . . and for the really uneducated, we might throw in that there's no red letter edition synagogue scroll where Jesus' words are printed in red.



John

 

[John D. Brey]

Behold, in the future when the sin of Adam will already be forgiven and things will return to their original state, the very Torah of our master Moses, blessed be his memory, with the number of its letters, without any subtraction or addition, arranged according to other words, as it was worthy to be arranged had Adam not sinned, and this is the new Torah that God preaches to the righteous . . ..

Moshe Idel (quoting a kabbalistic sage), Absorbing Perfections, p. 371.​

Although the nature of the original text of the Torah is only an adjunct to the genuine topic in this thread, it's been covered in threads for years, most notably the thread titled Masoretic Malfeasance. That thread was edited into an essay, here. And pages 13-15 focused on the topic at hand:

The subject of the ברית [covenant] between God and Israel is not הדברים [the words], the fixed written words which are visible to the eyes, but פי הדברים [mouth of words], the full living content of the words, which existed in Moshe's mind before the words were fixed in writing, and which even after the words were fixed remains a living thing in the minds and mouths of Israel. The written words are merely a reminder [see Plato's Phaedrus] of their full content.

Rabbi Samson R. Hirsch, The Hirsch Chumash, Shemos, 33:27 (bracketed comments mine).​

The Torah existed in the mind, before it was fixed in writing. That's where it was the full, living, content. And even after the words were fixed in writing, the spirit remains a living-thing in the minds and the mouths of Israel. A knowledgeable Jew knows that "word of mouth" speaks of the oral Torah:

כתב [katab, "write"] is related to קטף [qutap] (to bend, tear off), קטב [qutab] (to kill), גדף [gadap] (to abuse) . . . From this we may infer that although the written word is a bearer of ideas and thus of great benefit, nevertheless, by itself it is incomplete, and it is likely to jeopardize the completeness, the vitality, and the truth of ideas. . . God's Torah is entrusted to the living word, not to the lifeless letter. . . Hence, not על הדברים האלה, not regarding the bare meaning of written words alone, but על פי הדברים האלה, i.e., regarding the content of these words ---- content that remains alive in the oral tradition and that is not fixed in writing ---- did God establish His covenant with Israel. . . The written word is to remind you ever anew of what was entrusted to your mouth.

The Hirsch Chumash, Shemos 34:27; 13:9.
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Rabbi Hirsch, with Jewish tradition, is implying that the Song is the cantillation for the entire Torah. The written Torah is the body, and the Song is the soul and or spirit. You have to have both, such that Professor Idel says (speaking of the kabbalistic worldview):

The Torah scroll, written without vowels, is therefore pregnant with a variety of vocalizations, all of them possible without any change in the canonical form of the sacred text. . . The fluctuation of the vocalization, as it causes shifts in the meaning of a given combination of the consonants, alters the meaning of the sentence and of the Torah itself.
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Professor Idel then quotes an anonymous kabbalist writing at the end of the thirteenth century:

Since the vowel [system] is the form of, and is soul to, the consonants, the scroll of Torah is written without vowels, since it [the scroll] includes all facets [i.e., aspects] and all the profound senses and all of them interpreted in relation to each and every letter, one facet out of other facets, one secret out of other secrets, there is no limit known to us . . . If we should vocalize the scroll of Torah it would receive a limit and measure . . . would not be interpreted but according to the specific vocalization of a certain word.
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Professor Idel replies:

Freedom of interpretation is presented here not as a sheer accident arising from the special nature of Hebrew; rather, this freedom is implied, according to this Kabbalist, in the very prohibitions against vocalizing the Torah scroll, a prohibition that permits an unlimited range of possible understandings for the divine text.
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Rabbi Gikatilla is quoted (by Professor Idel) from his commentary on, The Guide for the Perplexed, giving an actual example of how vocalization can determine word meaning:

According to this path you should know that Moses, our master, had been given a way of reading the Torah in many fashions, which are infinite, and each and every way points to the inner wisdom. This is the reason why the scroll of the Torah is not vocalized so that it may bear all the sort of science found in the divine will. Because would it be vocalized, it would be like a matter to which a form had arrived, because the vowels are, for the words, like the form for the matter, as if you would say 'Adam, 'Odem, 'Edom. If it was not vocalized, it could bear each of the three, but if it were, it would bear only the limited one.
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Finally, Professor Idel goes to the heart of the issue:

Despite the fact that these Kabbalists maintained the traditional order of the morphe of the Torah, they still conceived its meaning as amorphous, allowing each and every interpreter an opportunity to display the range of his exegetical capacities. This initial amorphousness is not, however, identical to indeterminacy, a concept that would assume that the meaning of a given text cannot be decided.
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Even a general compendium of knowledge like Wikipedia has this:

The cantillation signs also provide information on the syntactical structure of the text and some say they are a commentary on the text itself, highlighting important ideas musically. The tropes are not random strings but follow a set and describable grammar. The very word ta'am, used in Hebrew to refer to the cantillation marks, literally means "taste" or "sense", the point being that the pauses and intonation denoted by the accents (with or without formal musical rendition) bring out the sense of the passage.

Wikipedia.
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[End of quote]

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John