TESTAMENTS OF THE TWELVE PATRIARCHS - BENJAMIN
(Posted 08/01/2024)_
TESTAMENTS OF THE TWELVE PATRIARCHS INSIGHTS by S N Strutt – published December 2022
TESTAMENT OF BENJAMIN CHAPTER 1
[N.B All original text from the TESTAMENTS OF THE TWELVE PATRIARCHS is in bold and italics: Comments taken from my book are denoted C.1 C.2 etc. There are also Bible cross verses that correspond with the text. - Author]
20 And he (Jacob) embraced him (Joseph) (his long lost son of 20 years time), and kissed him for two hours, saying:
21 ‘In thee shall be fulfilled the prophecy of heaven concerning the Lamb of God, and Saviour of the world, and that a blameless one shall be delivered up for lawless men, and a sinless one shall die for ungodly men in the blood of the covenant, for the salvation of the Gentiles and of Israel, and shall destroy Beliar and his servants.’
C.8 This last verse is talking about Jacob meeting his long lost son Joseph after 20 sad lonely years. Jacob then prophesies over his son Joseph:
C.9 Jacob is explaining that his long-lost son Joseph being the most obedient of his sons in spite of great affliction, imprisonment, privation, great temptations, persecution and immense difficulty still stayed true to God and to his father and therefore Jacob compares him to the Christ or the Messiah that was to come.
C.10 What an amazing prophecy given by Jacob when he met his long lost son Joseph whom he hadn’t seen for 20 years and he both embraced him and wept for him as he thought was dead, and his emotions spilled out to such a degree that he received an amazing prophecy, which is backed up by the book of Isaiah the prophet in the Old Testament and also by the New Testament. Here is another similar prophecy about Jesus the Messiah.
Isaiah 53.3-5 He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely, he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.
C.11 Jacob was also saying that without Joseph the future of the budding nation of Israel and the resultant coming of the Messiah never would have happened.
Isaiah 49:6 “And he said, It is a light thing that thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel: I will also give thee for alight to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth.”
Isaiah 62:1-4 For Zionʼs sake will I not hold my peace, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest, until the righteousness thereof go forth as brightness, and the salvation thereof as a lamp that burns. And the Gentiles shall see thy righteousness, and all kings thy glory: and thou shalt be called by a new name, which the mouth of the LORD shall name. Thou shalt also be a crown of glory in the hand of the LORD, and a royal diadem in the hand of thy God. Thou shalt no more be termed Forsaken; neither shall thy land any more be termed Desolate: but thou shalt be called Hephzibah, and thy land Beulah: for the LORD delights in thee, and thy land shall be married. Hephzi-bah: that is, My delight is in her.
1 John 1.29 The next day John sees Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.
1 John 4:14 - And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world.
Luke 1.47 “And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.”
1 John 2.2 And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.
Romans 5.8,12 But God commended his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:”
22 See ye, therefore, my children, the end of the good man?
23 Be followers of his compassion, therefore, with a good mind, that ye also may wear crowns of glory.
Isaiah 62.3 Thou shalt also be a crown of glory in the hand of the LORD, and a royal diadem in the hand of thy God.
‘TESTAMENT OF THE TWELVE PATRIARCHS INSIGHTS’- TESTAMENT OF BENJAMIN CHAPTER 2
5 Nevertheless the temple of God shall be in your portion, and the last temple shall be more glorious than the first.
Comment 5 In summary of all the following points about man’s temples verses God’s temple: The first temple represents the temples of man and that which is of the flesh and worldly. The last temple is talking about Christ the Messiah. The connection between the physical and the spiritual is shown so well by Jesus in his dissertation to the Pharisees, when he said while standing in front of their fancy temple in Jerusalem:
John 2.19-21 “Jesus answered and said unto them, ‘‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” “Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days?” “But he spake of the temple of his body.”
C.6 Jesus made this point to the Jewish leaders, to try and show them that physical temples were of little value. What was valuable, was knowing the Messiah and being saved by believing in Him.
John 3.36 He that believes on the Son has everlasting life and he that believes not on Him shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.
C.7 What is the point of building religious temples of any religion if you are not saved and not going to heaven? Most temples are idols in the sight of God and will be destroyed in the ‘Wrath of God’ when all of man’s cities are totally destroyed along with all of his idols such as the temples of man.
Revelation 16.13 And the great city (Jerusalem) was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell: and great Babylon came in remembrance before God, to give unto her the wine of the fierceness of his wrath.
C.8 The 1st temple built in Jerusalem in Israel, was the temple of Solomon, which was built around 1000 BC. This 1st temple was destroyed by king Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonian world empire around 589 BC.
C.9 The 2nd temple was built in the 5th century BC in the time of Ezra and Nehemiah under Artaxerxes the emperor of the Medio-Persian world empire. The 2nd temple was totally destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD.
C.10 The 3rd temple, it is prophesied, that it will be built in the time of the coming Anti-Christ.
*Revelation 11:8 And their dead bodies (The 2 End-time prophets) shall lie in the street of the great city (Jerusalem), which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified.
C.11 There is a very large temple, and its magnificence is described in the book of Ezekiel. Where does that vision fit in the picture of the 3rd temple?
C.12 The famous and ‘yet to be-build’ 3rd physical temple is mentioned in the Book of Revelation chapter 11, as being under siege by the Anti-Christ world government – the 7th world empire of man and the last one.
C.13 The Jews state that the 3rd Temple can only be built when the Messiah arrives or in the time of the Messiah. Since they have already rejected the true Messiah – Jesus, when the Anti-Christ comes on the scene, they will flock to him. Eventually they will realize to their absolute horror, that he is a false Messiah, and Great Tribulation will follow for 3 and a half years according to both the book of Daniel and the book of Revelation. A time when the False Christ or Anti-Christ will seek to destroy all religions except for the worship of himself as he will state that he is god.
C.14 The Anti-Christ will set up an Image of himself in the newly soon to be build 3 Temple in Jerusalem known in Revelation chapter 13 as The Image of the Beast. He will set out to brand every human-being with a ‘mark’ in their hands or their foreheads. All the world will be seemingly forced to bow down and worship this Image of the Beast. It is now becoming apparent that transhumanism has a lot to do with this future technology of the Beast.
6 And the twelve tribes shall be gathered together there, and all the Gentiles, until the Most High shall send forth His salvation in the visitation of an only-begotten prophet.
C.15 Who is the Patriarch talking about in this verse? It sounds like the Messiah at the 2nd Coming and his rescuing all of his people - the saints of the Most High, but why does the Patriarch Benjamin call him: only begotten prophet and not Son?
C.16 The key is the word ‘only-begotten’. The Greek term translated “only begotten” is monogenes, a word used nine times in the New Testament that can mean one of a kind or unique. For example, Luke uses the term three times to refer to an only child (Luke 7:12; 8:42; 9:38). The writer of Hebrews uses the term to refer to Isaac, the only son of Abraham and Sarah, the son of the promise (Hebrews 11:17). Modern translations generally translate monogenes in John 3:16 as «one and only Son» or «only Son» to reflect this definition.
SOURCE: What does ‘only begotten Son’ mean? How is Jesus God’s only begotten Son? (compellingtruth.org)
Definition: Only begotten Son of God - born of a woman, unique because Jesus was born of a woman but did not have a physical father but God was His Father.
C.17 Was Jesus a prophet? Yes, he certainly was, and he prophesied that their temple would be destroyed because of the Jews rejection of Him the Only begotten Son of God. The temple was totally destroyed some 40 years after the Jews crucified their own Messiah.
7 And He shall enter into the first temple, and there shall the Lord be treated with outrage, and He shall be lifted up upon a tree.
C.18 Was Jesus lifted up upon a tree? He was crucified upon a wooden cross which by definition came from a tree.
C.19 By the time of the birth of Christ, the 2nd physical Temple was the one in existence, so if this book had been written by the Pharisees in 100 BC they would have certainly have corrected the last verse about it being the 1st temple.
C.20 Alternatively, if the last verse was added in Christian times, it certainly was done very clumsily, which does not make any sense at all.
C.21 What if the last verse about the 1st temple was originally written by Benjamin? Why did he state the 1st temple and not the 2nd which was rebuilt in 5th century BC? Is it just possible that the 1st temple being the original one, was the origin of the Jewish nation as to holy temples. This temple was destroyed by their enemies around 589 BC and was rebuilt in 520 BC. Perhaps in the eyes of God, Israel was just rebuilding the 1st temple.
C.22 The 1st temple being a physical temple. The 2ND temple must be a spiritual one. ‘For I shall soon put off this physical tabernacle’.
2 Corinthians 5.1 ‘For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.”
1 Corinthians 3:16-18 Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.
BIBLE VERSES ABOUT YOUR BODY IS A TEMPLE (kingjamesbibleonline.org)
C.23 TEMPLE: definition from verses in the KJV of the Bible: “First used of the tabernacle, which is called “the temple of the” “Lord” (1 Sam. 1:9). In the New Testament the word is used” “figuratively of Christ’s human body
(John 2:19, 21). Believers” “are called “the temple of God” (1 Cor. 3:16,17). The Church is” “designated “an holy temple in the Lord” (Eph. 2:21). Heaven is” also called a temple (Rev. 7:5). We read also of the heathen temple of the great goddess Diana (Acts 19:27). “This word is generally used in Scripture of the sacred house erected on the summit of Mount Moriah for the worship of God. It “is called “the temple” (1 Kings 6:17); “the temple [R.V.,”
“’house’] of the Lord” (2 Kings 11:10); “thy holy temple” (Ps.” “79:1); “the house of the Lord” (2 Chr. 23:5, 12); “the house of” “the God of Jacob” (Isa. 2:3); “the house of my glory” (60:7); an” “house of prayer (56:7; Matt. 21:13); “an house of sacrifice” “(2 Chr. 7:12); “the house of their sanctuary” (2 Chr. 36:17);” “the mountain of the Lord’s house (Isa. 2:2); “our holy and our” “beautiful house” (64:11); “the holy mount” (27:13); “the palace” “for the Lord God” (1 Chr. 29:1); “the tabernacle of witness” (2” “Chr. 24:6); “Zion” (Ps. 74:2; 84:7). Christ calls it “my” “Father’s house” (John 2:16).”: TEMPLE (kingjamesbibleonline.org)
C.24 I would also mention that the scriptures clearly state that God simply does not abide in temples built by man! A house of cement sand stones and wood is not a temple of God or a house of the Lord. Jesus even made a point of driving the moneychangers out of the temple in Jerusalem with a whip. Why? Because of the corruption of the rich merchants turning the temple into an unholy place of mammon worship instead of the worship of God.
John 2.13-17 And the Jews’ Passover was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. And found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money sitting: And when he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen; and poured out the changers’ money, and overthrew the tables; And said unto them that sold doves, Take these things hence; make not my Father’s house an house of merchandise. And his disciples remembered that it was written, The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up.
C.25 The ‘zeal of thine house hath eaten me up’ is also mentioned in the Psalms - prophesising about the Messiah. What does this verse about Jesus the Messiah mean? It means that Jesus was very angry when he saw that those who claimed to be religious, were in practice, a bunch of hypocrites who were making money inside God’s Temple, instead of using it for its correct purpose of ‘dedication to God’. So, in his zeal for God and righteousness, he whipped the hypocrites out of the temple.
Ps 69.9 “For the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up; and the reproaches of them that reproached thee are fallen upon me.”
Acts 7:47-49: But Solomon built Him a house. However, the Most High does not dwell in temples made with hands, as the prophet says, Heaven is my throne, and earth is my footstool: what house will build for Me? says the Lord: or what is the place of My rest?
C.26 In the famous book ‘Within the Gates’ which was about Heaven, by Rebecca Springer and written around 1900: she talks about her going on a long spirit trip or Life After Death experience whilst she was very sick in hospital. One of the things that she mentioned was that she was shocked to see that there were no temples in heaven.
Revelation 21.22 And I saw no temple therein for the Lord God almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it.
C.27 Perhaps the Patriarch was only given the information by God about Christ coming during the 1st Temple because the 1st temple represented man and his false religions, which would all soon crumble and fall. The true temple came with Jesus Christ, not as a building or religion, but as a holy and spiritual house.
8 And the veil of the temple shall be rent, and the Spirit of God shall pass on to the Gentiles as fire poured forth.
C.28 ‘Spirit of God shall pass onto the Gentiles as fire poured forth.’ This is clearly talking about what happened in the Book of Acts when the ‘fire’ of the ‘Holy Spirit’ came upon the gentiles and they also became powerful witnesses of the Christ as their Jewish brethren the apostles.
C.29 The ‘veil of the temple’ in Jerusalem was rent by God Himself, to show everyone that the Ark or the Shekinah Glory had departed from the Holy of Holies and been taken up to heaven. Israel murdered their own Messiah Jesus and as a result their whole religion was destroyed in 70 AD and most of the people slaughtered by the Romans just 40 years after they had crucified their own Savior, as predicted by the Patriarchs including Benjamin. [N.B The Shekinah Glory was understood by the Hebrews to be the Holy Spirit Mother.]
C.30 The ‘Shekinah Glory’. It appears that according to Jewish teachings that the Spirit of prophecy left Israel in the time of the last minor prophet Malachi around 390 BC [Note: The life of the prophet Malachi is an important turning point in Jewish history, as it marks the close of the glorious era of Jewish prophecy. The Talmud teaches, “After the last prophets Chaggai, Zechariah, and Malachi died, the Divine Spirit of prophetic revelation departed from the Jewish people.”] [Note by Author: The Shekinah Glory was known by the ancient Hebrews to be the Holy Spirit.] It is interesting how the Holy Spirit of God departed from Israel around 300 + years before Christ, as there were no more official prophets according to the Bible after Malachi as the Spirit of God has departed from Israel.
[Since Israel had gone astray by 300 BC what about the Apocryphal books of the MACCABEE BROTHERS? Now that is a whole new topic in itself, which I have not yet covered as it is indeed a very interesting topic which I will cover on another occasion.]
9 And He shall ascend from Hades and shall pass from earth into heaven.
Matthew 12.40 For as Jonah was 3 days and nights in the heart of the whale so the Son of man shall be three days and nights in the heart of the earth (Hades)
1 Peter 3:18-20 18For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: 19By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison; 20Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.
10 And I know how lowly He shall be upon earth, and how glorious in heaven.
C.31 Fulfilled prophecy in both the Old Testament and then the New Testament.
Zechariah 9.9 Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass.
Matthew 21.5 Say to the Daughter of Zion, ‘See, your King comes to you, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.’” *
C.32 Meaning that Jesus rode on the mother animal and sometimes on the colt or otherwise known as the foal of that donkey, so the mother donkey would not get too tired. The colt was probably almost an adult or grown up.
