When Moses is given the Ten Commandments they are written on two tablets:

And he declared to you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, that is, the Ten Commandments, and he wrote them on two tablets of stone. (Deuteronomy 4:13)

Why are the Ten Commandments written on two tablets? Was one tablet not big enough for God’s handwriting? Or did God give Moses two copies of the Law, one tablet being a duplicate of the other?

Two Witnesses

Firstly, we must understand that God always requires the testimony of at least two legal witnesses.

On the evidence of two witnesses or of three witnesses the one who is to die shall be put to death; a person shall not be put to death on the evidence of one witness. (Deuteronomy 17:6)

The book of Deuteronomy itself is a “second testimony” of the Law (deutero-nomos meaning “second law”), repeating what was given to the Israel whose bodies fell in the wilderness.

A legal case will fail if the testimony of the witnesses does not corroborate, as was the case in the trial of Jesus. It seems the Father and the Son were two witnesses against the tower of Babel. The angel of the Lord sent two angels as witnesses into Sodom. And Israel herself saw her unfaithful spies slain, leaving only two faithful witnesses of Canaan, Joshua and Caleb.

The Ten Words are referred to as a “testimony”:

Then Moses turned and went down from the mountain with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand, tablets that were written on both sides; on the front and on the back they were written. (Exodus 32:15)

So the tablets of the Law are “two witnesses” with a corroborated testimony, and we should notice that even these two tablets were given twice due to Israel’s idolatry. The tablets themselves suffered a “death and resurrection”, the second set being a prefigurement of every future “new covenant,” including the one predicted by Jeremiah and fulfilled in Ezra/Nehemiah and Haggai/Zechariah.

Because the tablets of the Law agreed, those who swore to keep the Law could be punished, excommunicated, or executed for breaking it.

A Complementarian Covenant

Ray Sutton attempts to fit the ten words to the five-fold Covenant pattern found everywhere in the Torah, as outlined in his groundbreaking book, That You May Prosper (p. 214).

Although numbers 1 and 5 seem to fit the Covenant pattern very well, Sutton has to go to great lengths to make the others relate to it. Also, his book sees the Covenant process as a linear progression, rather than a “there and back again,” as the Bible Matrix shows. With the matrix in mind, we can see this twofold “head and body” progression in the Ten Words.

Being very familiar with the “above, beside, below” movement of the Bible Matrix (also found in James Jordan’s excellent essay on slavery), when I came across another possibility for the arrangement of the Ten Words, even though it made no reference to the Covenant structure or the Bible Matrix, I could see immediately that it corresponded very well.

The alternate arrangement is by Moshe Kline, a Jewish scholar who follows the “scroll” division of the commandments (as did Augustine). This means that our first two are combined into one, and our last is divided into two. This sounds strange until we realize that not only are the Ten Words a double witness, they are an Adam and an Eve horizontally, and God, Mankind and the Future vertically.

If we read the laws as the warp and weft in fabric, we have “Adamic” laws as 1 3 5 7 9 (odd numbers) and “Evian” laws as 2 4 6 8 10 (even numbers). multiples of two – the Bride always “multiplies”

So, the structure works from above to beside to below (from God, through fellow man, down to offspring, that is, past to present to future), and it follows the fivefold Covenant pattern:

You might notice that this is also a slightly truncated version of the Creation Week, since the “mediating veils” are removed. There is no “removal of sin” at Passover (Day 2) or Atonement (Day 6), which things correspond to Circumcision and Baptism. Adam and Eve are entirely naked before heaven at every point. Not only this, but they have unobstructed access to the Garden (Transcendence) and the World (Succession) from the Land.

Ten Fingers

The Ten Words were written with the FINGER of God. Ten Words is ten fingers, two human hands, instruments of righteousness or unrighteousness. When Jesus broke bread, He would have used all ten fingers to tear it, picturing His imminent death under the curse of the Law. We should remember this whenever we break bread.

“And Moses threw the tablets out of his hands…” (Exodus 32:19)

The theft in the Garden of Eden was carried out with two hands, the hand of Eve and then the hand of Adam, five fingers each. If the Adam/Eve, priest/people idea is strange, it is simply an expression of the totus Christus in Man and Woman at every level, from the Sanctuary to the Household to the Nations.

Also, the High Priest made two approaches to the Most Holy on the Day of Atonement, once for the priesthood and once for the people. This is recapitulated in Daniel 7, which predicts Jesus’ ascension into the glory cloud as “head,” then four decades later returning “in like manner” for the sacrificial “body,” the firstfruits martyrs.

We also see this in Abraham, who entered the land to sacrifice Isaac (firstfruits/priesthood) and then again to bury Sarah (offspring/people).

When the sin of any culture is fullgrown, it is thus “ten fingered” (priesthood and kingdom corrupted) it has become military, a swarm (the fullness of Day 5). God sends prophets (Day 5/Trumpets), and then acts through mediators (Day 6/Atonement/Sanctions) to save a remnant, and secure for them the future, historical continuity (Day 7/Succession).

Filthy Lucre

Finally, if this arrangement of the Ten Words is correct, it should be reflected through correspondence with other events. The first is the correspondence between theft and lying in Prophetic Ministry, which was condemned by Paul in Titus 1, and appears to be rampant today. We can see this combination in the “ministry” of Gehazi (2 Kings 4), who sought to misrepresent the generosity of Israel’s God to the faithful through his sly words to Naaman, the believing Gentile.

Peter Leithart helpfully highlights another two cases, without corresponding this “unusual” combination to either the Ten Words or to Adam’s sin. He writes:

Zechariah 5:3-4 threatens a curse to those who steal and those who swear falsely. It’s a somewhat unusual combination. Perhaps the implied scenario is this: A thief steals, he is questioned about his theft, and he swears falsely that he did not steal. His theft is compounded by an oath declaring his innocence. He steals goods, and then robs the name of God by a lie.

The ultimate source of this threat, though, goes back to a specific incident in Israel’s history. Jericho was under the ban, which meant that all living things were slaughtered and all plunder was given to Yahweh. Achan, the “troubler of Israel,” stole some of the consecrated goods and hid them in his tent. Yahweh accuses him of “stealing” and “deceit” (Joshua 7:11). Because of his sacrilege, Israel is defeated before Ai, changing the psychological dynamics of the conquest against Israel. Before they got beaten at Ai, the Canaanites’ hearts were melting (2:9); after Ai, Israelite hearts became water (7:5).

No wonder Zechariah takes this combination of sins so seriously: Until the troublers are purged, Israel will flee in fright before their enemies.

Ten Tests

The last example I will present is James Jordan’s list of the ten tests which Israel failed before that generation was doomed to die in the wilderness (from the notes for his lectures on the book of Numbers). It seems to fit very well, typologically speaking:

Two Copies?

Meredith Kline argues that the “tables” were actually two copies of the same law (The Structure of Biblical Authority, pp. 117-120.) This is based on the assumption that the Mosaic Covenant is either a divine “answer” to Ancient Near East suzerainty treaties, or their inspiration, and still closely related. Dr. Meshulam Margaliot writes:

To get at the peshat, or simple meaning, we must take account of the historical context in which the Ten Commandments were given. According to Ex. 19, this was done in the course of establishing a covenant–a berit–between the Lord and Israel. Hence, we are dealing with the text of a covenant, a type of contract between two (or more) parties. For obvious reasons, it is customary for every written contract or agreement to be issued in duplicate, each party receiving a complete copy of the agreement, contract, or covenant.

This was also the practice in the ancient Near East. The most famous example of two copies of a diplomatic agreement between two kingdoms is the treaty containing the pact made between the Egyptian Pharaoh Ramses II and the Hittite King Hattusilis III, c. 1270 B.C.E. The Egyptian copy was found in Egypt, and the Hittite one in the capital of the Hittites, in eastern Turkey. The contents of both copies are identical.

It would be reasonable for the pact made at Sinai to be issued in two copies, one for the Lord, and one for the Israelites. This practice explains why one tablet did not suffice, rather two were needed.

I believe, as Kline does, that the Lord’s Covenants were the inspiration for the pagan treaties, not other way around, not least because the same Covenant structure can be traced back to Genesis 1. However, the explanation of the need for two copies does not suffice, since in Israel’s case, both copies were kept in the Ark of the Testimony. Israel’s “copy” was the hearing of the graven words. Based on the “complementarian” structure of the Ten Words outlined above, it would seem that each tablet contained only five commandments each, because the Covenant was not merely an expression of unitarian (vertical) authority between heaven and earth (or between Egypt and the Hittites). God’s Covenants are Trinitarian, with not merely an above and a below but a “beside.” They include the relationship between Church and State, the horizontal “marriage” between priesthood and people.

Moreover, Moshe Kline argues:

that the division in the Masoretic Text (MT), which appears in the Torah scrolls read in synagogues, should be preferred because it leads to a reading that integrates all ten Words in a coherent document.

The document itself consists of five consecutive pairs of Words organized hierarchically, from the first pair, which focuses on God, to the last pair, which is limited to subjective human experience, “Do not covet.” Once this internal structure is recognized, it leads to seeing a new arrangement of the Words on the two stone tablets.

They should be seen as written in pairs across the two tablets, the first Word on one and the second Word on the other, the third on the first, etc. Thus one tablet contains the “odd” Words and the other the “evens.” This arrangement may be the literal meaning of the otherwise difficult verse in Exodus 32:15, “לחת כתבים משני עבריהם, מזה ומזה הם כתבים”, “(the writing was) written across both tablets; (alternately), on one and (then) the other, were they written.”

What is the conclusion here? That the Ten Words work not only from heaven down to earth (vertically) but also horizontally, between priesthood (Adam) and people (Eve), the left hand and the right hand. This means that their architecture aligns with the four “points” of the Tabernacle furnitures, leaving out only the Incense Altar in the centre. The Tablets taken together are a cruciform instrument of death, the curse upon Adam and Eve. The missing element, the Incense Altar, is a fragrant symbol of the resurrection, Word and Response, both vertically and horizontally, united at last in the bosom of Christ.

“They shall take up serpents…”

Thoughts on the Covenantal significance and serpentine nature of biblical “leprosy.”

[This post has been refined and included in Sweet Counsel: Essays to Brighten the Eyes.]

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Strange Fire

We’ve reach the central “cycle” of the book of Numbers, the attempt by Balak to destroy Israel. To the unbeliever, it is a story about a talking donkey. For believers, it is a story about a wicked prophet and a carnal people. For those with a wide angle “Bible Matrix” lens, the entire landscape suddenly comes into focus as something familiar and terrifying.

Firstly, we should get our bearings. Based on what we’ve seen so far, it seems we have seven major cycles in the book of Numbers. The first cycle laid out the basic structure of the rest of the book. What was at the centre—Testing—of cycle one? Numbers 5, the strange chapter where a woman suspected of adultery was to be subjected to the “inspection of jealousy.”

Basically, the woman would drink the Covenant, and God would become an internal witness, seeing her from the inside out. Whatever was behind her legal witness, the truth or the lie, would be reflected in her own flesh and in her offspring. In Numbers 5, the priest recites the process aloud (external law) and then carries it out (internal inspection). Like some kind of liturgical X-ray, this process would take what went on behind closed doors (whether good or evil) and expose it, shout it from the rooftops. [1]

That “personal” inspection is what all Israel will now pass through. All the events so far in Numbers have been leading up to this “liturgically.” Testing in the Garden of Eden involved a false king (the serpent), a false prophet (Adam, who failed to speak the Word) and the Woman. The scene is set for a stadium-sized reenactment of the events of Genesis 3. The individuals of Eden have become “corporate.” As Numbers is at the centre of Israel’s sevenfold story, so the story of Balaam and Phinehas is at the centre of Numbers.

Understanding these events “structurally” answers the questions that remain once the action is over and the blood thickens on the ground. One thing we must keep in mind is the sacrificial structure of these events. Firstfruits put Israel on the Altar. Pentecost puts fire on the Altar. The test here is whether Israel will tolerate strange fire not only in their Tabernacle, but in their own tents and hearts.

Closeup on Numbers 25

What amazing artistry. The first fulfilment of Balaam’s “sceptre” prophecy was Phinehas. And he crushed the “forehead” of Moab by putting a spear through—circumcising—the offspring of the serpent. [5]

One final thought on this closeup. Can you think of another event which involved a “cup of testing,” spiritual harlotry, a spear, and a grant of High Priestly Succession? Yes, the death and resurrection of Christ as Adam. Then the entire process is repeated “corporately” for Israel as Eve, the harlot-bride who must drink the cup and be cut in two by the jealousy of God, into flesh and Spirit.

Okay, back to the major structure.

The beauty of this literature is sublime. And its fractal structure silences every critic. Every mouth will be stopped. Help me to share this material where you can. The lack of interest by Christians stuns me.

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[1] See Behind Closed Doors.
[2] See the notes at the end of What Lies Beneath.
[3] I use the “scroll” division of the commandments because it fits the matrix. See Bible Matrix II for a full explanation.
[4] See Esther and the Ten Words.
[5] See The Circumcision of Satan.

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Lifting up the Best

Numbers didn’t seem to be long enough for there to be seven “matrix” cycles, but it seems now that this may be a possibility. For the Covenant “five” to “bloom” into a seven, the “Ethics” of the Covenant structure is split into three: Firstfruits, Pentecost and Trumpets, or “Head,” “Fire’” and “Body.” Since Cycle 3 is “Firstfruits,” we should expect the story to include motifs such as Ascension, the Altar-Land, Levitical ministry, the firstborn, tithing and “devotion.” Hey, guess what comes next in Numbers?

Giving the Firstfruits back to God was an act of faith. It was an acknowledgement that the blessings of life come from the hand of God. Once the firstfruits were presented, God was “free” to send the rest of the harvest. Interestingly, this is the principle in the practice of “devoting” a city. Cities “under the ban” were like a “firstfruits” to God. The complete offering of Jericho as the “firstfruits” of the Land would free God to trust Israel with the plunder of the remaining cities. We also see this principle in the offering of Isaac by Abraham, whose faith in God to resurrect him if necessary meant that God could send many more sons.

Finally, this principle is what supported the Levitical ministry of the Tabernacle. Israel, arranged in “four corners” around the house of God was a symbolic Altar-Land, with the Levites continually presented “above” the Land as firstfruits. This has an amazing bearing on the next cycle, but I will have to leave that to the next post in this series.

The structure of the book is amazing, and I would also like to remind readers that this same structure exists (fractally) in these passages at two levels (at least) within this level illustrated above.

This brings us to the beginning of the story of Balak and Balaam, which is where the real fun begins.

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[1] See Half Man, Half Beast.
[2] The sacrificial “week” consists of Initiation / Delegation / Presentation / Purification / Transformation / Vindication / Representation. See Bible Matrix II, p. 119.
[3] Notice that touching the holy water made one not clean but unclean. I believe this cycle is a process of death and resurrection, so the first half concerns the uncleanness that comes from touching unclean things (anything to do with rotting flesh) and the second concerns touching “clean” things, holy things that are “white witnesses” to death. Bones with no flesh remaining, like a completely white leper, were not unclean but “holy.” Death had finished its work. The structure supports this. See Bone and Flesh and The Bone of a Man.
[4] For members only, here is a link to some charts from Bible Matrix II which demonstrate the relationship between the five-fold Covenant pattern of the Head and the seven-fold Creation pattern of the Body, and how the timing of the end of the Torah prefigured in microcosm the timing of end of the Bible.

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[5] Commonly, these two are related by the “Atonement” of a smaller cycle becoming the “Passover/Firstfruits” of a larger cycle. Jesus’ Atonement on the cross became the Passover of the entire first century “Head and Body” pattern. Jesus’ bread and wine become the grain and fruit promise to the disciples of greater things if they will suffer as He does.

Art: Offering of first fruits (Illustration from a Bible card published between 1896 and 1913 by the Providence Lithograph Company)

Part 1 here.

We’ve covered the first “Covenant cycle” in Numbers, which in theory should set the pattern (fractally) for the remainder of the book. Here’s my go at the second cycle, which (again, in theory, if my suspicions are correct), should be an “exposition” of the second part of the first cycle, which concerned the “military” arrangement of the tribes around the Tent of Meeting (Delegation). So, even though this cycle works through all seven steps, each step should reflect an “Exodus/Hierarchy” or Delegation theme. Each step thus has two literary “spatial coordinates,” an X and a Y. Each step must thus employ a symbol that pertains to two different Covenant steps, or describes the relationship between them.

This is no mean feat, yet we see it everywhere in the Bible. It’s probably wise to demonstrate this process with a diagram:

When laid out vertically, or “in series,” the text looks like DNA. However, when laid out “in parallel,” this literary architecture is like the “warp and weft” of weaving. It is a tapestry, but not in the warm-fuzzy quilting circle type way that most commentators use the word “tapestry.” It is a precise, mathematically-ordered grid of ideas. [1] (I have also diagrammed this process using the feasts. Click here for a graphic.) So, that’s the theory. Let’s see if it works.

As mentioned previously, it seems that Numbers only consists of five cycles (an “un-opened scroll”) but I think the central cycle might consist of three sections, making the entire book a sort of miscarried seven. We’ll see.

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[1] See also Warp and Weft.
[2] Only the Eastern and Southern tribes are mentioned in the Hebrew. “One alarm was the recognized signal for the eastern division of the camp (the tribes of Judah, Issachar, and Zebulun) to march; two alarms gave the signal for the southern to move; and, though it is not in our present Hebrew text, the Septuagint has, that on three alarms being sounded, those on the west; while on four blasts, those on the north decamped. Thus the greatest order and discipline were established in the Israelitish camp–no military march could be better regulated.” (JFB) The head tribes of east and south were Judah and Reuben, the lion and the man, so perhaps the omission is deliberate. Structurally, the four separate commands concerning the trumpets are already FOUR HORNS for the Altar.
[3] We see the same ironic reversal when Elisha cuts off the children of Jezebel (Bethel’s golden calf) and yet reverses the miscarriages of the believing Gentiles in Jericho using a bowl of salt. Israel’s offense and sterility brought life to the Gentiles (Romans 11).
[4] Israel turned these blessings into curses. See Kids in the Kitchen: Passover in the Motherland.
[5] See Red Cord, Blue Threads 1, 2 and 3.

“Now therefore fear the Lord (T)
and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. (H)
Put away the gods that your fathers served (E)
beyond the River and in Egypt, (O)
and serve the Lord.” (S)
Joshua 24:14

40 Years of Harlotry

Israel famously wandered in the wilderness for forty years. They were tested, offered as a sacrifice and refined with the holy fire of the Law of Moses. This “threshing” process appears at the centre of the Bible Matrix. It is pictured as the time of harvest (Pentecost – the giving of the Law), and as the burning eyes of the Lampstand watching over Israel (sun, moon and five visible planets). In the Covenant pattern it is the “Ethics,” the bit where God lays out the rules for success. Threshing is also a biblical euphemism for sexual relations. At this point, under the Lawful eyes of God, Israel is either shown to be a faithful bride or an adulteress. Is the fire of her desire true or “strange” (foreign). We can see this pattern in James 1:15. It is a sick parody of the Covenant process because it begins with a “false word.”

[This post has been refined and included in Sweet Counsel: Essays to Brighten the Eyes.]

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ART: Burning of the Golden Calf by Moses, by Robert J. Tiess, blenderartists.org

“and their faces were backwards so that they did not see their father’s nakedness” (Gen. 9:23)

James Jordan has some fascinating comments on Ham’s sin in Genesis 19:

The situation is just like that in the Tabernacle. God is enthroned naked in the Holy of Holies, but the priests are never to see Him. When they move the Tabernacle, they unhook the Veil and carry it backwards to cover the Throne. When they set up the Tabernacle, they pull off the Veil carefully and walk forward and hook it up without looking. On the Day of Coverings (Lev. 16), when Aaron does go into the Holy of Holies, God wraps Himself in His cloud. God is not to be seen in His tent, but God does speak from His throne. The same is true of Noah: when he awakes, he speaks.

James Jordan, The Sin of Ham Revisited.

Looking at the illustration above, we get the picture. The Master resting behind the Veil (“Noah” means “rest”), two cherubim witnesses, and the serpent in the garden.

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We know from the history of Noah that the rainbow was not a reminder to man of the Covenant but a reminder to God. [1] A subtle parallel is found in Numbers 16. After the rebellion of Korah, Dathan and Abiram, Moses called for a censer showdown between Aaron and the false priests. The rebels were swallowed by the land, and, as usual, the false priests were consumed by the fire of the Lord. [2]

When the people questioned Moses’ judgment, God sent a plague amongst Israel. Moses sent Aaron, the High Priest wearing the rainbow gems on his chest, with the true censer to stand as mediator between the “living and the dead”, as Adam between the bride and the serpent. [4] The plague was stopped with the acceptable worship of the chosen priest. The true priesthood was confirmed, and the rainbow reminded God of His Covenant once again.

But even the true priesthood would falter.

“I will greatly rejoice in the Lord; my soul shall exult in my God,
for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation;

…..he has covered me with the robe of righteousness,
…..as a bridegroom decks himself like a priest
…..with a beautiful headdress,
…..and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.

…..…..For as the Land brings forth its sprouts,
…..…..and as a Garden causes what is sown in it to sprout up,
……….so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to sprout up
……….before all the nations.” (Isaiah 61:10-11) [5]

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[1] See Remember Me.
[2] See The Falling Away.
[3] For more on the gemstones, see Gold, Onyx and Bdellium.
[4] See Fighting Over the Children and Emancipation of Eve. The head is the High Priest’s golden forehead-plate, and the body is the gem-covered breastplate. See Ish and Isha.
[5] Just noticed that this passage of course follows the matrix, which means the chapter division between 61 and 62 shouldn’t be there. 61 ends with the Land-Altar, and 62 begins with the Lampstand. It’s interesting that the priestly/bridal plunder in this poem is at the Passover step. We see both an allusion to the Firmament and also to the plundering of Egypt, except in this case it would be the Persian empire in the book of Esther.

Okay, so The Earth is Flat after all. The Atlar’s being a symbol of the mediatorial Land, (a priesthood between the heavenly sky and Gentile sea) is the key to a fair amount of weird stuff in the Bible. It also means that a lot of what goes on in the Torah is the key to understanding some later enigmatic events.

The Bronze Altar had a grate inside it to support the sacrifice. The ashes would fall through the holes in the grate and the smoke would rise as a pleasing aroma to God.

In Numbers 16, concerning the rebellion of Korah and his sons, after the “censer” showdown between them and Aaron, the ground opened up and swallowed their tents, all their belongings and their families. However, fire consumed the wannabe priests who were offering the “false” incense. Even the rebellion was divided according to the priestly divisions within Israel. Ashes and smoke. [1]

The rebels’ bronze censers were hammered out to make a covering for the altar, a memorial to their rebellion. Even their priestly possessions were “consumed” by this “Land.” The demise of these false priests was glorifying to God.

We see the same thing in Zechariah 14, except that because the Tabernacle “tower to heaven” is laid out on the ground, it is west-east instead of up-down. The Altar-mountain is split in two, the saints ascend into the Holy Place (to the East) and the rebels are swallowed as ashes.

Why is the Altar/Land/Mountain split in two? To make way for a new one. Jesus dies, the veil (the firmament) is torn and the rocks (the Altar-Land) are split. Jesus’ spirit is given up to God and then He takes our sins into the earth. Tombs open and saints are resurrected as a witness. Of course, this entire event is kind of “liturgical”—a microcosmic precursor—of events that would occur on a greater scale one generation later.

The saints under the Altar cried for vengeance upon a corrupted priesthood that had shed their blood since the death of Abel. Releasing them would require the breaking up of the old Altar-Land. They were told to wait until living saints were sealed—and slain—before they could ascend. Just as the death of Jesus as head split the rocks, the death of martyrs in Jerusalem would split the entire city. [2]

In AD70, the Herodian sons of Korah were swallowed by the Land, falling through the grate as ashes. The Old Testament saints and the New Covenant rulers—the Apostles—ascended as smoke, a pleasing aroma. This was the first resurrection. [3]

And, just as the judgments upon Jerusalem in Revelation 6-19 were a sign to the infant churches of Asia (who already contained the seeds of the same sins), the glory of the false priesthood became a memorial to any of us who would challenge the true High Priest.

The same thing happens in Revelation 20 at the second resurrection—the one we are looking forward to. Fire falls from heaven and makes a division. The World-Altar is split as a final judgment to make way for the physical New Earth.

Are you ashes or smoke? Either way it is death, a memorial to obedience or disobedience. Either way, sin is covered and God is glorified.

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[1] An adulterous would be stoned (split rocks), but an adulterous daughter of a priest would be stoned and then burnt. Notice the harlot in Revelation would be burnt with fire. She was not Rome but Herod’s Jerusalem Inc.
[2] See also Splitting Rocks , The Peskiest Chapter in the Bible, The Falling Away, God Indivisible
[3] See The First Resurrection

or Daniel’s 70th Week Postponed

“The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined.”  Isaiah 9:2

A great deal of time has been spent on the chronology concerning Daniel’s seventy sevens. Quite frankly, chronology is not my strong point [1], but perhaps the solution for this enigmatic problem is not chronological but theological.

Firstly, a quick definition of the “abomination of desolation.” Jordan observes that this is a crime that can only be committed by God’s priests. It is the “desolating sacrilege”, and the subsequent destruction of the Temple by Gentiles is the punishment, not the crime. When considering the deeds of Antiochus Epiphanes, many people think the sun shone out of the Jewish priests, but they need to remember the sons of Aaron and the sons of Eli. Antiochus was the punishment. The crime, as in Genesis 6, was the sin of the sons of God. [2]

Anyhow, some commentators believe that the abomination of desolation that Jesus refers to is His crucifixion. Slaughtering God-as-man outside the Temple should qualify for this like nothing else. Jordan observes that Jesus forgave His murderers, which actually put Daniel’s prophecy on PAUSE. Yep, after all that, there IS a gap. But it doesn’t stretch for  two millennia. It stretches for one generation. Of course, Jesus knew this even before He died.

“But Jesus turning unto them said, Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children.” Luke 23:28

What we do see at the end of this “postponed” week is the glory departing. But is was inside people. It was the fire-filled saints of Pentecost. The centre of worship moved from Jerusalem to Antioch, and the reigning Herod became a human Gehenna. Both these events were “liturgical” symbols of what was to come in AD70.

The postponement is predicted typologically by Israel’s initial failure to enter the Land of Canaan due to unbelief. The first century situation was the same, hence the warnings in the book of Hebrews, only, this time it was a heavenly country. We see the giving of the new “Levitical” Law in Christ and the apostles. Then, in the early 60′s, there is a “Deuteronomic” repeating of the Law to the Jews of the diaspora, just before the destruction of Jerusalem as Jericho.

Revelation also shows this postponement. The four angelic army commanders, four winds of judgment, the four horns of the Altar looking for blood, are told to hold off until the saints are sealed.

So, the Messiah was “cut off” in the middle of the 70th week. Due to His grace, there would be a remnant. Israel would not be totally destroyed like Sodom (Romans 9:29). But when the unbelieving Jews started slaughtering Christians, the end was truly nigh. Guess when this happened? In the midst of the 70th week, the second giving of the Law. This is the subject of Revelation 14, the harvest of the saints as bread and wine. Their blood is symbolically spilled across the Land of Israel (the four-cornered Altar) and the avenging angels are finally let loose with seven bowls – the seven “sprinklings” to atone for this shedding of innocent blood. This time, there was no forgiveness. There was no more sacrifice for sins. [3]

This final week began with Nero’s torching of Rome and Herod’s COMPLETION of the Temple in AD64. Is there any wonder many saints were losing their nerve? Both tyrants would build their new world orders on the blood of Christians. For Nero, the saints were a helpless minority, the perfect patsy for his bloody crime. For Herod, the completion of the Temple proved that Jesus was a false prophet. The irony here is delicious. While the saints “filled up” the sufferings of Jesus, Jesus let the Herods “fill up” their sins.

Wonderfully, Revelation measures the last three and a half years of the apostolic witness in DAYS, but during the same period, the blasphemies of Herodian worship are measured in LUNAR months (Rev. 11:1-3). The Old Covenant festivals took place “during the night”, but the Sun of Righteousness had risen and the true shadows had fled. Those who preferred the shadows had replaced them with their own demonic traditions. In AD70 they were cast into outer darkness. [4]

The following three and a half years of hell on earth for Israel during the Roman siege are also measured in lunar months. The Old Covenant, like Jesus, like the Passover Lamb, like the blood on the Ark at Yom Kippur, was tipped out in the dark.

The whole idea is that the Law is given, the Lord postpones judgment for 40 years, then the Law is received by the next generation before conquest of the Land. Perhaps the “wilderness” between AD30 and AD70 solves the chronology problem.

The postponement allowed for the ascension of the whole sacrifice, head (Jesus) and body (the apostolic church).

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[1] Jordan is brilliant with chronology. Start here. For his comments on chronology concerning Daniel, see The Handwriting on the Wall, currently available as an ebook here. (Second printing is due in Sept-Oct.) This work took seven years and is indispensable.

[2] See Jordan on The Abomination of Desolation.
Part 1 (PDF)
Part 2 (PDF)

[3] See No More Sacrifice for Sins.

[4] Those terrifying scenes in the movie Ghost come to mind.