Hebrew Word Study – Tasteless – Tiphelah תִּפְלָה– Taw Pei Lamed Hei
Jeremiah 23:13: “And I have seen the unseemliness in the prophets of Samaria; they prophesied in Baal, and caused my people Israel to err.”
I grew up in a fundamentalist Baptist church which taught that prophets no longer existed. I went through Calvary Bible College an independent fundamentalist school which mocked those who believed prophets exist and Moody Bible Institute which simply believed prophets and prophecy ceased to exist. But during this time there was the rise of the Jesus Movement, the Charismatic movement, CBN and PTL Television which all believed prophets and prophecy still exist today.
I still approached the idea of the gift and office of a prophet as for today with much caution but I could not remain sheltered in the fundamentalist movement for long before I started running into real genuine prophets. Most were prophet wannabees. I had so many prophecies said over me I would have live three lifetimes to fulfill them. But there were those rare occasions when I could not deny that the prophet had some sort track record. I recall one student I had that I really believed had a gift of prophecy. That was scary because he knocked on my door and woke me up at 2:00 in the morning and said he was driving around pleading with God not make him deliver a prophecy to me. When he told me what it was I wanted in the worst way to return to my fundamentalist skepticism. What he had to say was not good news. Within 24 hours the chain of events that I had not expected nor could have foreseen began to happen just as he prophesied. There was a good part to the prophecy but it would take 35 years before I would begin to see it and it came just as he prophesied. But still, even today, if someone comes up to me with a prophecy, my old fundamentalist doubts still kick in.
Would you like Chaim Bentorah as your personal Hebrew teacher?
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I’ve seen prophets who built huge platforms as a prophet, who made tons of money appearing on television, writing books, selling CDs, DVDs, etc. I am not saying they are all false prophets. I am not even saying that if they get a prophecy wrong they are false prophets. I do, however, question their office after they make millions off their television appearances and book deals and they drive through the gates leading to their mansion in their Porsche thinking: “Oh well, what do you know, I was wrong. The Talmud does teach that prophet is not to remain in one place but to continually move to new audiences so people will not depend upon them and they will not take advantage of them.
All that to say, I believe God does have His prophets today and I also believe, like in Jeremiah’s day there were many false prophets. So. with that thought in mind, I take you to Jeremiah 23:13. God had seen the prophets of Samaria, this is the Northern Kingdom of Israel, God’s country where there were many prophets. It was a real profession in those days and the lucky ones could make a fortune and build quite a platform. There was also the belief that just by saying something good would happen, it would happen. Yet, Jeremiah was prophesying that God knew the phonies. He sees the unseemliness. What is that God saw? Unseemliness in Hebrew is the word tiphelah, which means folly or foolishness. Then what is that a prophet does that makes him foolish? Tiphelah comes from the root word taphel which in its Semitic root means tasteless, unseasoned. It was used by the Phoenicians for unsalted fish. My guess and it is only my guess that God sees what many Christians see but will not admit. The prophets they hear speak a good line but it is “Hoo hum, I’ve heard it a million times.” You know stuff like: “You will overcome,” “There is a breakthrough coming in your life.” “God is going to bless you” Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, tell me something that has some seasoning to it, something that excites my taste.” A prophet may say: “God is really going to bless our nation.” Ok, good, fine, I am sure we will get something that looks like a blessing. That is a taphelah prophecy. But if, like the prophet mentioned above, says: “God is going to send a president who will weed out the corruption in the White House” (which he did predict), that does not qualify as a taphelah, that is salted fish, well seasoned.
Then he calls these false prophet, prophets of Baal. I don’t think that means they declared themselves prophets of Baal or that they spoke in the name of Baal. It says they cause His people to err. These were false prophets who prophesied in God’s name, who infiltrated the community of God just as false prophets infiltrate the Christian community today. You see baal as a verb means to take possession, to rule over and control. In other words these false prophets are easy to spot, because they give prophecies not to express the heart of God but to establish control over you. They may have some accurate hits, maybe even through demonic power, but these hits are meant to lure you, trust in them and then depend upon them. The word con, for con man does not come from the idea he was a convict, but it stands for confidence. A false prophet will seek to build confidence in you that he is genuine. A false prophet will be your friend with his first prophecy, then he will be your guide with the next prophecy and then he will be your master with the next. He will become your baal, he will control you. The Talmud teaches that a prophet should always be on the move, lest people come to depend upon him. A prophet cannot be a pastor.
Please leave all comments below. Thank you, Laura & Chaim
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Great timing Laura, was just asking myself this…
Is it wrong to name names Chaim? If it’s so easy,
yet we cannot do it simply because they get one
thing wrong, but if they are doing it to get book
deals & amass a personal empire. . .and to shift
#trust away from God over to depend on them.
No one seeks after God though, and we are all
corrupt & prone to err—can you name names?
FP: No man can serve God & mammon [Mt 6:24]
False Prophets don’t do it for God but money, &
#followers are lured bc they like what they hear
or they want a magic-eight-ball to tell them what
is going to happen, so they can feel assured and
some false sense of security of uncertain future.
Matthew 13:20-21 The seed falling on rocky
ground refers to someone who #hears the
word and at once receives it with joy. ²¹ But
since they have no root & only endure for a
short time, but 𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝘁𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗼𝗿 𝗽𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗲𝗰𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻
𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘀 𝗯𝗰 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗱, 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝘆 𝗳𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝗮𝘄𝗮𝘆.
Matthew 6:24 No one can serve two masters.
Either you will hate the one & love the other,
or you’ll be 𝗱𝗲𝘃𝗼𝘁𝗲𝗱 to the one, and 𝗱𝗲𝘀𝗽𝗶𝘀𝗲
the other. We can’t serve both God & money.
I so struggle with the same thoughts!
I have a hard time deciphering who is what,and what is being prophesied
I keep trusting man to be my go to
The problem is I need Jesus and you have a problem it’s me Lord help me thank you for your message shalom
This study clarifies quite a number of confusing personal experiences in the charismatic church since I left the dead traditional church.
Over many years I concluded that in both these domains the ultimate goal of the business plan is to dominate and take control.
Thank you for confirming this with scripture how the wolves operate in the church of Jesus Christ.
Isn’t that fundamentally witchcraft?
Thank you for linking that together with witchcraft, David. Interesting how witchcraft [wolves: #domination/influence/charm, this ties with your post on baal] is more front & center in certain circles of Christianity, which I was told is pharmakeia [drugs & medication] but C0v!d19 involved a ton of #manipulation [massaging the numbers], & resulted in massive chaos/rebellion, which drove people to even more insatiable appetite for what JESUS termed:
As it was in the days of Noah, so will it be at the coming of the SON of MAN. 38 For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the Ark. [Matthew 24:37-38]
Baal: chaimbentorah.com/2024/03/hebrew-word-study-tasteless-tiphelah
I’ve been a tiny bit obsessed with this turn of phrase & read book on Enoch & OT paternal figures, that said it was going to excess of these things that are “good,” through disordered loves. For example, gluttony will lead to obesity, and uncontrolled appetite for things in general, marry-divorce-marry-divorce, rinse & repeat non-stop. And yesterday night I realized, isn’t Isaac the one who saw Rebekkah in the field & immediately wed her by taking her to bed? As in, no wedding, just sleeping with someone constitutes a wedding…?
Anyhow, I shared this with someone on March 17 & was flat out denied it’s plausibility.
But if we lend this phrase with the lifting restraint of the SPIRIT on the evil in the world, it makes sense to me people would have greater difficulty controlling their carnal urges. Plus I glimpsed the headline of article a month ago, which said it is a fact that people who work-out & eat healthy are more over-weight than their counterparts from the 1990’s.
But I digress: Also saw two days ago, the US/UK governments are now blaming certain pharmaceutical companies for the deaths, since there is massive push back on the mortality & doctors losing licenses to tell the truth—all to #distract the masses from their spiritual death or urgent need for JESUS.
Personally I assumed the excessive quarantine was an answer to prayer. Many asked GOD for a #revival, and HE caused many people to be driven mad by the non-stop repeat of the death toll [newsflash you’re dying], so they’d read the Bible & listening to sermons/devotionals, which in large part people did.
chaimbentorah.com/2015/08/word-study-witchcraft-%D7%A7%D7%A1%D7%9E/
2015-08-13 You covered this topic on King Saul’s ‘rebellion/arrogance. Incredible how you tied his rebellion to his belief that the sheep held some mystic rite to victory & more blessing [which makes sense how he later went into nacromancy, an illegal form of witchcraft under sentence of death, foreshadowing of things to come]; the end goal his pleasure not GOD’s, which is obedience.
[clean the inside of the cup, or squeeze/empty out the evil from the festering wound? We did that to some of my wounds, ointment over top pebbles, which migrated to other parts of my body..2 Timothy 2:21 So if anyone cleanses himself of what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house.]
And how word rebellion in the Hebrew in its root form is marrah. We know from the Book of Ruth that Naomi wanted to be called Marrah because she was bitter. An old Akkadian word for anointing & smearing a healing ointment on a wound. It was the idea of rubbing good ointment on the evil wound.
This is reminiscent of the 10 Virgins: 5 Virgins ran out of oil/joy, probably became bitter?
I Samuel 15:23: “For rebellion [is as] the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness [is as] iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the LORD, he hath also rejected thee from [being] King.”
It’s interesting that despite GOD’s promise in Mark 16:18 [they will pick up serpents, and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them], yet many believers still feared they would die, if they contracted this invisible killer. I was in the camp that refused because it might be the Mark of the Beast. But now that I’ve had time to think on GOD more, it seems we all were found lacking, if we didn’t trust GOD. Since HE promises the crown of life to the one who stands firm in trials (James 1:12)
Revelation 18:23 | 22 And the sound of harpists and musicians, of flute players and trumpeters, will never ring out in you again. Nor will any craftsmen of any trade be found in you again, nor the sound of a millstone be heard in you again. 23 The light of a lamp will never shine in you again, and the voices of a Bride & BRIDEGROOM will never call out in you again. For your #merchants were the great ones of the Earth, because all the Nations were deceived by your sorcery.”
I assume merchants are influencers/entertainers, anyone able to distract people with shiny bobbles & fancy outfits, or funny antics, anything but to become obsessed with GOD? 2014 I remember every person I knew was trying to learn to program, so they could create an app & make their millions. Now more than ever with the ability to generate revenue on your existing assets, people are madly never at rest: Renting out B&B, driving around for Uber, their master class DIY…etc.
It’s really sad to see, guess we need to pray for one another more & ask GOD about everything before making a move.
Wow very beautifully laid out, thank you.
Question : By the Apostolic times, isn’t word “Prophet” meant to say teacher of Word? Can you please throw some light on this many commentators seems to elude to…
Shalom
Aren’t there only about 48 prophets recorded in the entire Bible ?
That’s not very many compared to the billions of people on the earth today, and the countless ones in the grave from past generations.
I personally don’t believe there are any true prophets today. Especially on television or the internet. I’ve heard a plethora of false prophets over the past 26 years since God delivered me out of the occult. I even know one false prophet personally. He’s not even converted. How does that work?
I do like your word studies a lot. I gleam a lot from them, But I am not sure about this particular study because of my past experiences. But I could be mistaken. That’s why we study right?
I believe this also.
Excellent W-RD!
Thank you Chaim, thats very interesting insight and i for one appreciate it especially in these times. God bless you today and forever my brother.
Hallelujah! Thankful as can be given the present condition of the temple that lies in ruins as deep healing continues to be needed.
What is the difference between reacting and responding?
Responding is simply thinking before we act. What are we thinking about before we make any said decision?
This all stems with what do we believe.
Wether it’s a reaction or a response depends on the individual that is judging and the measure we use.
As human beings. Even though made a little lower than the angels is imbued with a glory that far outweighs. The answer to the void problem.
What if we only spoke about things that brought profit. And for the greater good. What then does one profit from and what is the greater good?
This dives into what we treasure. What we treasure is what we find profit in and the greater good consists of all of us together, joy. What made Jesus beam, the thought of you and me. That’s why he endured the cross.
He envisioned getting to enjoy what would make him happiest of all, having a family and getting to enjoy what He created.
Pregnancy is no pretty thing and helps us to understand spiritual things.
Could you imagine being all alone?
So if we have seen Jesus we have seen the heart behind the master mind who is our Heavenly Father. We do not know where the void came from. However we see in scripture that even though there is a force behind every bad thing that we can explain.
Not fighting against flesh and blood but rulers, powers and authorities. As we believe that one day like Him we will have access to the tree of life and have our own vines and fig trees. Love keeps on growing. This universe that is taking over and who knows what the future fully holds.
”Everyone will live in peace and prosperity, enjoying their own grapevines and fig trees, for there will be nothing to fear. The Lord of Heaven’s Armies has made this promise!“
Micah 4:4 NLT
“But the Lord is in his holy Temple. Let all the earth be silent before him.”“
Habakkuk 2:20 NLT
”And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us, And establish the work of our hands for us; Yes, establish the work of our hands.“
Psalms 90:17 NKJV
Thank you! What you are saying is so true. God tells us in the Bible how to tell a true prophet. Their prophecy must come true in a short time. There were and still are many false prophets and teachers. In Biblical times it was said that they ” tickled the ears of people” and it meant that they told people what they wanted to hear and not what was and is true. God promises that if anyone alters His words a curse will come upon them. That is why I always try to be careful of what I say and back it up with scripture. Now I’m not sure that a curse would be catastrophic; It just might mean that you won’t prosper in what you want to do.