Is God (and Divine truth) to be found in the ideas commonly shared by a large number of peoples? Is safe
guidance to be found in the social tendencies of the general population? Should the believer stick to the
opinion of those whom the crowds have elevated to the status of “experts”?
In other words,
-- Was Noah wrong simply because nobody else believed in a coming deluge?
-- Was Lot wrong for being the only citizen who disagree with the Sodomite lifestyle?
-- Were Moses and Aaron a pair of elderly fools, being the only Hebrew males daring to confront Pharaoh,
telling him what he ought to do?
-- Were Joshua and Caleb a pair of idiots, pretending to know better than the whole Israelite assembly [of
600,000 men!] that wanted to turn back to Egypt?
-- Was Gideon a madman for being the only one to believe he could do with 300 men what was already
impossible for 32,000 men (conquering the immense Midianite army)?
-- Was Jonathan (King Saul’s son) wrong for being the only Israelite who believed that, when it comes to
God bringing salvation and deliverance, numbers are simply irrelevant (“And Jonathan said to the young man
that bare his armour, Come, and let us go over unto the garrison of these uncircumcised: it may be that the
Lord will work for us: for there is no restraint to the Lord to save by many or by few”- 1 Samuel 14:6, King
James Bible)?
-- Was Jeremiah a false prophet, for being the only one preaching that Judah would be destroyed unless it
placed it’s neck under the joke of the pagan Babylonian king? (“And it shall come to pass, that the nation and
kingdom which will not serve the same Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, and that will not put their neck
under the yoke of the king of Babylon, that nation will I punish, saith the Lord, with the sword, and with the
famine, and with the pestilence, until I have consumed them by his hand”- Jeremiah 27:8).
Thus, we see that Divine truth has little to do with numbers. In fact, the more lofty and holy a particular thing
is [a particular theology, a particular person, a particular lifestyle, a particular scripture, a particular tradition,
etc) the fewer people will rally around it (“It’s lonely at the top, but it is worth the effort, as you will surely
like the view!”).
God’s Law states that, when a thing has become impure (unacceptable to God), it can be made pure again by
water. And, if the thing is just too hard (or “metal-like”), it can be made pure instead with fire. What moral
teaching is Torah trying to convey with the former allegory? That, when a man’s heart has become impure
[by sin], it can be made pure again by water [the latter being a symbol of the watery tears of sincere
repentance]. And, if his heart is just too hard to shed any tears, it can always be softened [and thereby
purified] by the “the fire” of suffering and chastisement
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