24 God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”
25 The woman said to Him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When He comes, He will tell us all things.”
26 Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am He.” John 4.24-26
They are without Ephod or Teraphim. So, what is the Ephod. You have the High Priest’s garment, and there, on his chest, you’ve got the Ephod by which you can discern what is called the Urim and the Thummim.
According to Numbers chapter 27,
21 He shall stand before Eleazar the priest, who shall inquire before the Lord for him by the judgment of the Urim. At his word they shall go out, and at his word they shall come in, he and all the children of Israel with him—all the congregation.” Numbers 27:21
Now, we’re not sure how this worked but there appeared to be some means by which they could discern the will of God through the breastplate on the High Priest through what is called the Urim and the Thummim. These were ways of discerning God’s will which speaks to us somehow of the prophetic word of God being revealed.
Through them God could reveal to them direction how they should live, how they should behave.
Now, I say we don’t know exactly how this worked but it’s applied in the scriptures there. They would discern the will of God and it speaks to us also of the prophetic office.
If you put all these things together, you have the Messiah as the Priest, the Prophet and the King all fulfilled in Jesus the Messiah. Without Him, you’ve got a long, long period of prophetic silence in which the warnings of the prophets have been fulfilled but no further prophetic word is given from the Lord apart from through Yeshua / Jesus the Messiah.
They’re also going to be without Teraphim. There’s a picture of the Teraphim there, ‘the speaking Oracles of the Heathen’, the idols, the household gods which are used in paganism.
According to research, we’ve found out that the pagans used these household gods to discern the will of the gods or which way they should go. And you find one of the famous stories about the Teraphim in Genesis chapter 31 where Rachel steals the teraphim of Laban, the household gods and hides them under her body when she was in the way of women which I think means she was menstruating and says,
33 And Laban went into Jacob’s tent, into Leah’s tent, and into the two maids’ tents, but he did not find them. Then he went out of Leah’s tent and entered Rachel’s tent. 34 Now Rachel had taken the household idols, put them in the camel’s saddle, and sat on them. And Laban searched all about the tent but did not find them. 35 And she said to her father, “Let it not displease my lord that I cannot rise before you, for the manner of women is with me.” And he searched but did not find the household idols. Genesis 31:33-35
Rachel says to Laban, don’t look under me because that’s where the the teraphim were hidden when Laban came to find them. According to one Rabbi Aben Ezra Rachel stole these things that Laban might not be able to discover the direction of their flight by means of these oracles. Whether that’s the case or not, it is interesting. But there is a tradition that somehow you could discern things from God through using these teraphim and they’re associated with Israel’s apostasy and worship of false gods in Judges chapters 17 and 18.
Now there was a man from the mountains of Ephraim, whose name was Micah. 2 And he said to his mother, “The eleven hundred shekels of silver that were taken from you, and on which you put a curse, even saying it in my ears—here is the silver with me; I took it.”
And his mother said, “May you be blessed by the Lord, my son!” 3 So when he had returned the eleven hundred shekels of silver to his mother, his mother said, “I had wholly dedicated the silver from my hand to the Lord for my son, to make a carved image and a moulded image; now therefore, I will return it to you.” 4 Thus he returned the silver to his mother. Then his mother took two hundred shekels of silver and gave them to the silversmith, and he made it into a carved image and a moulded image; and they were in the house of Micah.
5 The man Micah had a shrine, and made an ephod and household idols; and he consecrated one of his sons, who became his priest. 6 In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes. Judges 17:1-6
And Isaiah condemns Israel for using them. He says Isaiah 8: 19
19 And when they say to you, “Seek those who are mediums and wizards, who whisper and mutter,” should not a people seek their God? Should they seek the dead on behalf of the living? 20 To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, it is because there is no light in them. Isaiah 8:19-20
so Hosea is saying that these are going to be missing in Israel
4 For the children of Israel shall abide many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred pillar, without ephod or teraphim. 5 Afterward the children of Israel shall return and seek the Lord their God and David their king. They shall fear the Lord and His goodness in the latter days. Hosea 3:4-5
And, by and large since the Babylonian captivity, idolatry, using these household gods has not been ever part of Israelite worship. They have kept faith in one God through Judaism. They’ve kept an identity separate from the Gentiles, they’ve kept the Torah as far as they could, they’ve upheld moral and family values which is, in many ways, a great achievement.
And although I’m in some ways being a bit critical of rabbinic Judaism, one has to say that the preservation of the Jewish people down through the ages has been because of the influence of Judaism, of the Torah, on the people, keeping them together as a people and often keeping them together under situations of intense persecution and terrible things being done to them sadly, often in the name of Jesus the Messiah who is the One they should be believing in to get the answer to all these things.
But they preserved Israel and the Jewish people in very trying circumstances. And because of the false witness of the church, the majority of Jewish people are alienated from Jesus and the New Testament and will not read the New Testament, will not enter a church building, not even read one of our pamphlets as we give it to them.
That is probably the greatest tragedy in the history of the church because Yeshua is the Jewish Messiah and He is the One from whom our Salvation comes, from the Jewish people. We should return it to them but, instead, the church has done the opposite.
Nevertheless, He is the One who has fulfilled and will fulfil the positive side of all these three couplets. He’s the rightful rightful King, He is the true and the final sacrifice, He is the One who mediates the New Covenant and the Word of God to us by the Holy Spirit.
So, we should pray for Israel to be saved. He fulfils all of the positives, He is the Prophet, the Priest, and the King. He is a prophet like unto Moses who brings us the Living Word of God to direct our lives.
Deuteronomy 18
15 “The Lord your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your midst, from your brethren. Him you shall hear, 16 according to all you desired of the Lord your God in Horeb in the day of the assembly, saying, ‘Let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God, nor let me see this great fire anymore, lest I die.’ Deuteronomy 18:15-16
In Acts 3:18-26 we read:
18 But those things which God foretold by the mouth of all His prophets, that the Christ would suffer, He has thus fulfilled. 19 Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, 20 and that He may send Jesus Christ, who was preached to you before, 21 whom heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began. 22 For Moses truly said to the fathers, ‘The Lord your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your brethren. Him you shall hear in all things, whatever He says to you. 23 And it shall be that every soul who will not hear that Prophet shall be utterly destroyed from among the people.’ 24 Yes, and all the prophets, from Samuel and those who follow, as many as have spoken, have also foretold these days. 25 You are sons of the prophets, and of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying to Abraham, ‘And in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’ 26 To you first, God, having raised up His Servant Jesus, sent Him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from your iniquities.” Acts 3:18-26
Jesus is our great High Priest who offered Himself as a final sacrifice for sin as stated in Hebrews chapter 9,
11 But Christ came as High Priest of the good things to come, with the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is, not of this creation. 12 Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. Hebrews 9:11-12
And he’s our coming King to take up his role as King of the Jews reigning from Jerusalem in the coming time of restoration of all things at His second coming see Zechariah 14
16 And it shall come to pass that everyone who is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the Feast of Tabernacles. 17 And it shall be that whichever of the families of the earth do not come up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, on them there will be no rain. 18 If the family of Egypt will not come up and enter in, they shall have no rain; they shall receive the plague with which the Lord strikes the nations who do not come up to keep the Feast of Tabernacles. 19 This shall be the punishment of Egypt and the punishment of all the nations that do not come up to keep the Feast of Tabernacles.
20 In that day “HOLINESS TO THE LORD” shall be engraved on the bells of the horses. The pots in the Lord’s house shall be like the bowls before the altar. 21 Yes, every pot in Jerusalem and Judah shall be holiness to the Lord of hosts. Everyone who sacrifices shall come and take them and cook in them. In that day there shall no longer be a Canaanite in the house of the Lord of hosts. Zechariah 14:16-21
Revelation 19-20 also speaks of Jesus, the One who brings us whether we’re Jewish or Gentile to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the true God, the Creator who is revealed in the Torah and in the Prophets and in the writings of the Tanakh and was made manifest in the pages of the New Covenant.
4 And I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was committed to them. Then I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their witness to Jesus and for the word of God, who had not worshiped the beast or his image, and had not received his mark on their foreheads or on their hands. And they lived and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. 5 But the rest of the dead did not live again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. 6 Blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection. Over such the second death has no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years. Revelation 20:4-6