Book Of Revelation Discussion | Waco - The Inside Story | FRONTLINE (original) (raw)

Excerpt from conversation between Branch Davidian leader, David Koresh, and an FBI negotiator (John #4) discussing the Book of Revelation.

March 7, 1993
Early evening

DAVID KORESH: Is this death and hell a person? What is Christ revealed as, according to the fourth seal?

FBI NEGOTIATOR (JOHN): Pale -- a rider on a pale horse.

DAVID KORESH: And his name is what?

FBI NEGOTIATOR (JOHN): Death.

DAVID KORESH: Now, do you know what the name Koresh means?

JOHN: Go ahead.

DAVID KORESH: It means death. You see, the name of God is Yahweh, but the way it's actually pronounced since the first punctuation of time from the ancient writers, is when it says in the Tenach, thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain, it means thou shall not take his name. His name is Yahweh. And the way it's pronounced is like this. (Breathing in and out). Every time you breathe you're saying the name of God. That's why in Judaism and stuff they never, they never pronounce it according to the word from Yahweh. You fix it --

JOHN: Um-hum.

DAVID KORESH: Okay. So everyone who breathes is taking God's name and if we live without knowing his testimony or his word, we're living in vanity. And we're taking his name in vain. Some people say, well, when I say goddam, that's taking the Lord's name in vain, Well, now, wait a minute. Let's break this down. Does God condemn -- damn means to condemn. Well, no one has the right to tell God to condemn anybody, do they? Do they?

JOHN: No.

DAVID KORESH: No. But God or Got (phonetic sp.), the German word GOT, you know, is another word from another country, you know. There's no such word in the Hebrew, God. There's the word, the Adonai, which means Lord, but the actual proper names of, of the sovereignty of Heaven is Yahweh, El Shaddai, and then what? That's it. Off the manuscript. Yahweh and El Shaddai. But, according to the prophecies, God proclaims to Deuteronomy that he will publish his name somewhere.

So when it talks about Koresh, it's a surname. A surname for God. Now, you get the concordances and the dictionaries out and you'll find out that they'll tell you it's from an unused root word that they don't know what the meaning is. No scholar, no teacher, no concordance in this whole world can tell you what the name Koresh means. They don't know. It's kind of weird, isn't it?

JOHN: No, but you've told me it means death.

DAVID KORESH: Wait a second.

JOHN: Right?

DAVID KORESH: Revelation says Christ has a name that no one knows but he, himself. And his name is the word of God. Okay. Now, if it's true that the proper name of God is Yahweh, which is (Breathing in and out). When you breathe you go Yahweh, Yahweh, Yahweh, Yahweh. Okay? What do you do when you die? What's the sound your body makes when you die?

JOHN: It doesn't make any sound when you die.

DAVID KORESH: Yes it does.

JOHN: No it doesn't.

DAVID KORESH: Yes it does. You don't know what you're talking about.

JOHN: Your last dying breath? Is that what you want?

DAVID KORESH: Yeah. What does your body do?

JOHN: Rattle.