THE TEN COMMANDMENTS were the first instructions given to Moses upon Israel’s arrival at Sinai. And the first command was “you shall have no other gods before me.”

We discuss the commandments and the reasons God had for emphasizing that directive and the one that followed, a prohibition on carved images to represent Him or any other spirit being in heaven, on earth, or “in the water under the earth” (i.e., the abyss). In a nutshell, it’s because the small-g “gods” are real and the pagans believed that idols gave the gods “locality,” sort of like spiritual radio transceivers.

For details on the Amorite kispum ritual, drawn from peer-reviewed, academic, secular research, see our book Veneration.

Join us in Israel next year! We will lead another tour through the Holy Land April 18-May 1, 2021, with an optional four-day extension to Mount Nebo, Wadi Rum, and Petra in Jordan.

For more information, log on to www.SkyWatchinIsrael.com.

Our latest book Veneration is now available for Amazon’s Kindle e-book reader! Click here and find out why readers rate Veneration 4.7 out of 5, describing it as “a must read” that “opens up…the Bible’s hidden mysteries.”

Download these studies directly to your phone, tablet, or iPod! Get our free mobile app for iOS and Android. Links to the iTunes App Store and Google Play are on the main page at www.GilbertHouse.org.

Sharon’s last novel Realms of Fire is available for Amazon’s Kindle e-book reader! The print edition should be available this week. For more information, see Sharon’s website, www.sharonkgilbert.com, or www.TheRedwingSaga.com.

Click here for the complete archive of our New Testament Bible studies to date, and click here for the Old Testament studies to date. Or go to www.spreaker.com/show/gilbert-house-fellowship for all of the audio.

Gilbert House Fellowship #280: Exodus 18-20

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WISDOM IS NOT a female deity who’s been written out of Jewish and Christian theology over the last 3,000 years.

This week, we study three more proverbs dealing with the value of wisdom and explain why “wisdom” has female pronouns in scripture. In short, it’s because all nouns are gendered in Hebrew and “wisdom” happens to be a feminine noun. That does not make personified Wisdom a female entity, much less the consort or wife of God—especially when we read the New Testament carefully and see that Luke, Paul, and the author of Hebrews explicitly linked Wisdom to Jesus.

See these articles by Dr. Michael S. Heiser:

• Personified Wisdom in the Old Testament (bit.ly/4dKjpiC)
• Jesus as Wisdom (bit.ly/4blrCIz)

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Thank you for making our Build Barn Better project a reality! Our 1,200 square pole barn now has HVAC, a new floor, windows, ceiling fans, upgraded electric service, and insulation. We’re now producing programs out there. Thank you for your support! If you are so led, you can help out at GilbertHouse.org/donate.

Get our free app! It connects you to these studies plus our weekly video programs Unraveling Revelation and A View from the Bunker, and the podcast that started this journey in 2005, P.I.D. Radio. Best of all, it bypasses the gatekeepers of Big Tech!

The app is available for iOS, Android, Roku, and Apple TV. Links to the app stores are at www.gilberthouse.org/app/.

Video on demand of our best teachings! Stream presentations and teachings based on our research at our new video on demand site!

Check out our online store! www.GilbertHouse.org/store is a virtual book table with books and DVDs related to our weekly Bible study. Take advantage of our monthly specials!

Coffee! We’ve partnered with Kevlar Joe’s Coffee (KevlarJoe.com) for Gilbert House blends: Amazing Grace, a mild cookies-and-cream flavored coffee; Snarling Dachshund, a medium-roast Sumatran; and Bunker Buster, a dark-roasted Colombian that’s sure to get you moving. Find them at GilbertHouse.org/store/.

NEW DATES FOR OUR NEXT TOUR OF ISRAEL! Our 2025 tour features special guests Timothy Alberino, Dr. Judd Burton, and Doug Van Dorn! We will tour the Holy Land March 25–April 3, 2025, with an optional three-day extension in Jordan. For more information, log on to www.gilberthouse.org/travel.

Our favorite Bible study tools! Check the links in the right-hand column at www.GilbertHouse.org. For the complete Gilbert House Fellowship archive, go to www.spreaker.com/show/gilbert-house-fellowship.

Gilbert House Fellowship #411: Proverbs 7–9

ANOTHER WARNING of the spiritual consequences of adultery is the theme of this week’s study. 

As we noted last week, there are two layers to this fatherly warning against dallying with prostitutes or the wives of other men: On the one hand, it’s a path to disgrace, ruin, and death; and on the other, ritual sex was common among the pagans around ancient Israel, and it was forbidden. So, the path to Sheol was not simply a metaphor, it was a warning of the ultimate end of those who reject this wise counsel.

Thank you for making our Build Barn Better project a reality! Our 1,200 square pole barn now has HVAC, a new floor, windows, ceiling fans, upgraded electric service, and insulation. We’re now producing programs out there. Thank you for your support! If you are so led, you can help out at GilbertHouse.org/donate.

Get our free app! It connects you to these studies plus our weekly video programs Unraveling Revelation and A View from the Bunker, and the podcast that started this journey in 2005, P.I.D. Radio. Best of all, it bypasses the gatekeepers of Big Tech!

The app is available for iOS, Android, Roku, and Apple TV. Links to the app stores are at www.gilberthouse.org/app/.

Video on demand of our best teachings! Stream presentations and teachings based on our research at our new video on demand site!

Check out our online store! www.GilbertHouse.org/store is a virtual book table with books and DVDs related to our weekly Bible study. Take advantage of our monthly specials!

Coffee! We’ve partnered with Kevlar Joe’s Coffee (KevlarJoe.com) for Gilbert House blends: Amazing Grace, a mild cookies-and-cream flavored coffee; Snarling Dachshund, a medium-roast Sumatran; and Bunker Buster, a dark-roasted Colombian that’s sure to get you moving. Find them at GilbertHouse.org/store/.

SOLIDARITY MISSION TO ISRAEL! This is “last call” for our one-week trip to Israel May 6–13, 2024 to bear witness to what’s happened there since the war with Hamas began. We plan to visit Hostage Square in Tel Aviv, Sderot, an exhibition of the Nova Music Festival, and more. For details, go to www.gilberthouse.org/travel.

NEW DATES FOR OUR NEXT TOUR OF ISRAEL! Our 2025 tour features special guests Timothy Alberino, Dr. Judd Burton, and Doug Van Dorn! We will tour the Holy Land March 25–April 3, 2025, with an optional three-day extension in Jordan. For more information, log on to www.gilberthouse.org/travel.

Subscribe to our new YouTube channels!

• Unraveling Revelation: www.YouTube.com/UnravelingRevelation

• These weekly studies and Derek’s podcast: www.YouTube.com/GilbertHouse

Our favorite Bible study tools! Check the links in the right-hand column at www.GilbertHouse.org. For the complete Gilbert House Fellowship archive, go to www.spreaker.com/show/gilbert-house-fellowship.

Gilbert House Fellowship #410: Proverbs 4–6

WE RETURN to our regularly scheduled reading this week with proverbs that are paternal calls for wisdom—and a warning against communing with spirits of the dead.

Contrary to some who seen in these chapters a female deity named Wisdom, perhaps even the consort of Yahweh, the mundane explanation is simply that the word chokhmah (“wisdom”) is a feminine noun. Grammatical gender has nothing to do with biological gender. So, attempts to see in Proverbs a feminine spirit named Wisdom are misguided—an example of eisegesis, reading a desired, predetermined meaning into the text, rather than exegesis, drawing the intended meaning from the text.

We also dig deep into Proverbs 2:18:

[F]or her house sinks down to death, and her paths to the departed;

We find in the passage what may be a reference to the cult of the dead that surrounded the Israelites. First, the word translated “departed” is rephaim, the spirits of the Nephilim destroyed in the Flood. This is confirmed by the Greek Septuagint, translated about 200 years before the birth of Jesus, which translates rephaim as “giants.”

Further, the Septuagint uses axonas for the word translated “paths,” where three verses earlier the words triboi and trochiai are rendered “paths.” The Brenton translation of the Septuagint renders Prov. 2:18 this way:

For she has fixed her house near death, and guided her wheels near Hades with the giants.

We explain why this is relevant: On the Golan Heights, ancient Bashan, there are literally hundreds of funerary monuments that feature concentric rings of stone around a central tumulus or cairn. The largest is Gilgal Refaim (“Wheel of Giants”), which we visited last March, but there are three others nearly as large that are practically unknown. Gilgal Refaim appears to have been built as a cult site for ritual circumambulation around a sacred central core in which a priest or shaman would descend to make contact with spirits of the netherworld.

In short, Proverbs 2 appears to be a warning against participating in rites that were clearly still taking place in the time of Saul, David, and Solomon (see 1 Samuel 28, Saul’s visit to the medium of En-dor). In fact, based on the writings of the prophets, communing with spirits of the netherworld continued in Israel for at least another three or four hundred years, down to the time of Jeremiah and the Babylonian captivity.

Thank you for making our Build Barn Better project a reality! Our 1,200 square pole barn now has HVAC, a new floor, windows, ceiling fans, upgraded electric service, and insulation. We’re now producing programs out there. Thank you for your support! If you are so led, you can help out at GilbertHouse.org/donate.

Get our free app! It connects you to these studies plus our weekly video programs Unraveling Revelation and A View from the Bunker, and the podcast that started this journey in 2005, P.I.D. Radio. Best of all, it bypasses the gatekeepers of Big Tech!

The app is available for iOS, Android, Roku, and Apple TV. Links to the app stores are at www.gilberthouse.org/app/.

Video on demand of our best teachings! Stream presentations and teachings based on our research at our new video on demand site!

Check out our online store! www.GilbertHouse.org/store is a virtual book table with books and DVDs related to our weekly Bible study. Take advantage of our monthly specials!

Coffee! We’ve partnered with Kevlar Joe’s Coffee (KevlarJoe.com) for Gilbert House blends: Amazing Grace, a mild cookies-and-cream flavored coffee; Snarling Dachshund, a medium-roast Sumatran; and Bunker Buster, a dark-roasted Colombian that’s sure to get you moving. Find them at GilbertHouse.org/store/.

SOLIDARITY MISSION TO ISRAEL! We’re planning a one-week trip to Israel May 6–13, 2024 to bear witness to what’s happened there since the war with Hamas began. We plan to visit Hostage Square in Tel Aviv, Sderot, the site of the Nova Music Festival, and more. For details, go to www.GilbertsInIsrael.com.

NEW DATES FOR OUR NEXT TOUR OF ISRAEL! Our 2025 tour features special guests Timothy Alberino, Dr. Judd Burton, and Doug Van Dorn! We will tour the Holy Land March 25–April 3, 2025, with an optional three-day extension in Jordan. For more information, log on to www.GilbertsInIsrael.com.

Subscribe to our new YouTube channels!

• Unraveling Revelation: www.YouTube.com/UnravelingRevelation

• These weekly studies and Derek’s podcast: www.YouTube.com/GilbertHouse

Our favorite Bible study tools! Check the links in the right-hand column at www.GilbertHouse.org. For the complete Gilbert House Fellowship archive, go to www.spreaker.com/show/gilbert-house-fellowship.

Gilbert House Fellowship #409: Proverbs 2–3

IRAN ATTACKED ISRAEL late last night, the first time the Islamic Republic has struck at Israel directly. The sight of missiles over the Temple Mount is startling, evoking images of the end times.

We discuss the events of the last 24 hours and what may come in the days ahead, and we look at prophecies from Jeremiah and Zechariah about the role of Jerusalem and the Jewish people—no, God is not done with Israel yet—in the end times.

The title of this week’s study comes from the Septuagint translation of Zechariah 12:2, which reads in the ESV: Behold, I am about to make Jerusalem a cup of staggering to all the surrounding peoples.

In other words, at some point in the future, Israel’s neighbors will be so overcome with hatred that they will behave irrationally, as though they are drunk. What we have seen since October 7, 2023, is just prelude.

Here is a link to the online books by 19th century author and clergyman H. Clay Trumbull, author of The Threshold Covenant, The Blood Covenant, and The Covenant of Salt. All three books, along with his other works, are available to read online for free here: bit.ly/hclaytrumbull

Thank you for making our Build Barn Better project a reality! Our 1,200 square pole barn now has HVAC, a new floor, windows, ceiling fans, upgraded electric service, and insulation. We’re now producing programs out there. Thank you for your support! If you are so led, you can help out at GilbertHouse.org/donate.

Get our free app! It connects you to these studies plus our weekly video programs Unraveling Revelation and A View from the Bunker, and the podcast that started this journey in 2005, P.I.D. Radio. Best of all, it bypasses the gatekeepers of Big Tech!

The app is available for iOS, Android, Roku, and Apple TV. Links to the app stores are at www.gilberthouse.org/app/.

Video on demand of our best teachings! Stream presentations and teachings based on our research at our new video on demand site!

Check out our online store! www.GilbertHouse.org/store is a virtual book table with books and DVDs related to our weekly Bible study. Take advantage of our monthly specials!

Coffee! We’ve partnered with Kevlar Joe’s Coffee (KevlarJoe.com) for Gilbert House blends: Amazing Grace, a mild cookies-and-cream flavored coffee; Snarling Dachshund, a medium-roast Sumatran; and Bunker Buster, a dark-roasted Colombian that’s sure to get you moving. Find them at GilbertHouse.org/store/.

SOLIDARITY MISSION TO ISRAEL! We’re planning a one-week trip to Israel May 6–13, 2024 to bear witness to what’s happened there since the war with Hamas began. We plan to visit Hostage Square in Tel Aviv, Sderot, the site of the Nova Music Festival, and more. For details, go to www.GilbertsInIsrael.com.

NEW DATES FOR OUR NEXT TOUR OF ISRAEL! Our 2025 tour features special guests Timothy Alberino, Dr. Judd Burton, and Doug Van Dorn! We will tour the Holy Land March 25–April 3, 2025, with an optional three-day extension in Jordan. For more information, log on to www.GilbertsInIsrael.com.

Subscribe to our new YouTube channels!

• Unraveling Revelation: www.YouTube.com/UnravelingRevelation

• These weekly studies and Derek’s podcast: www.YouTube.com/GilbertHouse

Our favorite Bible study tools! Check the links in the right-hand column at www.GilbertHouse.org. For the complete Gilbert House Fellowship archive, go to www.spreaker.com/show/gilbert-house-fellowship.

Gilbert House Fellowship #408: Zech. 12:1–10; Jer. 25:17–31

IT’S APPARENT why the Song of Solomon is not often preached in church.

It is a beautiful and poetic description of the love and desire felt by a husband and wife, but the euphemisms that describe physical intimacy between Solomon can raise awkward questions from children in the congregation! But if you have been blessed with a loving marital relationship, you know.

We also begin the proverbs of Solomon this week. Chapter 1 emphasizes the importance of wisdom, which begins with the fear of (or reverence toward) God. We also explain why the personification of Wisdom in Proverbs 1, and later in Proverbs 8, does not mean that there is a feminine aspect to the godhead, nor does it mean that God has a “wife.”

Thank you for making our Build Barn Better project a reality! Our 1,200 square pole barn now has HVAC, a new floor, windows, ceiling fans, upgraded electric service, and insulation. We’re now producing programs out there. Thank you for your support! If you are so led, you can help out at GilbertHouse.org/donate.

Get our free app! It connects you to these studies plus our weekly video programs Unraveling Revelation and A View from the Bunker, and the podcast that started this journey in 2005, P.I.D. Radio. Best of all, it bypasses the gatekeepers of Big Tech!

The app is available for iOS, Android, Roku, and Apple TV. Links to the app stores are at www.gilberthouse.org/app/.

Video on demand of our best teachings! Stream presentations and teachings based on our research at our new video on demand site!

Check out our online store! www.GilbertHouse.org/store is a virtual book table with books and DVDs related to our weekly Bible study. Take advantage of our monthly specials!

Coffee! We’ve partnered with Kevlar Joe’s Coffee (KevlarJoe.com) for Gilbert House blends: Amazing Grace, a mild cookies-and-cream flavored coffee; Snarling Dachshund, a medium-roast Sumatran; and Bunker Buster, a dark-roasted Colombian that’s sure to get you moving. Find them at GilbertHouse.org/store/.

SOLIDARITY MISSION TO ISRAEL! We’re planning a one-week trip to Israel May 6–13, 2024 to bear witness to what’s happened there since the war with Hamas began. We plan to visit Hostage Square in Tel Aviv, Sderot, the site of the Nova Music Festival, and more. For details, go to www.GilbertsInIsrael.com.

NEW DATES FOR OUR NEXT TOUR OF ISRAEL! Our 2025 tour features special guests Timothy Alberino, Dr. Judd Burton, and Doug Van Dorn! We will tour the Holy Land March 25–April 3, 2025, with an optional three-day extension in Jordan. For more information, log on to www.GilbertsInIsrael.com.

Subscribe to our new YouTube channels!

• Unraveling Revelation: www.YouTube.com/UnravelingRevelation

• These weekly studies and Derek’s podcast: www.YouTube.com/GilbertHouse

Our favorite Bible study tools! Check the links in the right-hand column at www.GilbertHouse.org. For the complete Gilbert House Fellowship archive, go to www.spreaker.com/show/gilbert-house-fellowship.

Gilbert House Fellowship #280: Exodus 18-20

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