Herod, when he saw that he was deceived by the wise men, was exceedingly angry; and he sent forth and put to death all the male children who were in Bethlehem and in all its districts, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had determined from the wise men. Then was fulfilled what was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet, saying: “A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation, weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, refusing to be comforted, because they are no more.” Matthew 2:16-18

Continuing from New Covenant Virility – 2

GLORIFICATION: (Tabernacles feast, marriage, children, rest)

Wow. This last bit really rubs in the kind of offspring (fruit) Israel gave God. It is the seventh stanza of this section, yet in itself it has seven stanzas. Each section submits itself to the common themes in Glorification, yet each section reiterates one step the sevenfold pattern. Tabernacles was the big feast, so in this final ascerbic prophecy, the prophet turns the annual Feasts into curses. [1] What sublime poetry is Isaiah.

Tabernacles is the Feasts of Booths. It is God’s people reaching maturity as a great tree and sheltering the nations. The cycle began with dry trees (eunuchs, etc.) being made fruitful. Here, God lays the ax to the root of the old tree.

CREATION (Un-Sabbath) False Ark-Word (Darkness)

But come here, (Into the Light)
…..You sons of the sorceress, (False Firstborn)
……….You offspring of the adulterer and the harlot!
……….(False Marriage Covenant)
……………Whom do you ridicule? (False Word)
……….Against whom do you make a wide mouth
……….and stick out the tongue? (False Word as flesh)
…..Are you not children of transgression,
…..offspring of falsehood, (False Covering)
Inflaming yourselves with gods
under every green tree, (False Tabernacles)

DIVISION (Un-Passover) Child sacrifice

Slaying the children in the valleys, (No Light)
…..Under the clefts of the rocks? (Division)
……….Among the smooth (gem?) stones of the stream
……….is your portion; (False Springs/False Edenic High Places)
……………They, they, are your lot! (Judgment) [2]
……….Even to them you have poured
……….a drink offering, (Witnesses/Holy War Vows)
…..You have offered a grain offering. (False Atonement)
Should I receive comfort in these? (No Rest)

ASCENSION (Un-Firstfruits) False nearbringing
Tabernacle/Levitical/Covenant/marriage references

On a lofty and high mountain
…..You have set your bed;
……….Even there you went up to offer sacrifice.
……………Also behind the doors and their posts
………………..You have set up your remembrance; [3]
……………For you have uncovered yourself
……………to those other than Me,
…..and have gone up to them;
You have enlarged your bed and made
[a covenant?] with them;

TESTING (Un-Pentecost)
Wilderness references/false hope/no fear of God
God refrained from disciplining Israel immediately, unlike His strategy in Numbers. He expected greater maturity but did not see it. Israel herself is both the harlot and the serpent here.

You have loved their bed, where you saw [their] nudity.
…..You went to the king with ointment,
…..and increased your perfumes;
……….You sent your messengers far off,
……….and [even] descended to Sheol.
……………You are wearied in the length of your way;
……………Yet you did not say, ‘There is no hope.’
……….You have found the life of your hand;
……….Therefore you were not grieved. [4]
…..And of whom have you been afraid, or feared,
…..That you have lied and not remembered Me,
…..Nor taken [it] to your heart?
Is it not because I have held My peace
from of old that you do not fear Me?

Step 5, Maturity, is also Deuteronomy, a new generation. It was the next generation which returned to repossess Canaan. Here, there is a turning point, another reference to the restoration, the resurrection of Israel as an army of priests rising from the Testing fire, refined as gold and leaving their idols behind.

MATURITY (Un-Trumpets)
Multitudes, Clouds (of dust), Riches (works, inheritance)

I will declare your righteousness and your works,
For they will not profit you.
…..When you cry out, Let your collection [of idols] deliver you.
……….But the wind will carry them all away,
……………A breath [Spirit] will take [them.]
……….But he who puts his trust in Me
…..shall possess the land,
And shall inherit My holy mountain.”

CONQUEST (Atonement)
Passing through the veil/Sins covered/Spiritual resurrection/A remnant delivered

And one shall say, “Heap it up! Heap it up!
…..Prepare the way, Take the stumbling block
…..out of the way of My people.”
……….For thus says the High and Lofty One
……….Who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy:
……………“I dwell in the high and holy place,
……………With him [who] has a contrite and humble spirit,
……….To revive the spirit of the humble,
……….And to revive the heart of the contrite ones.
…..For I will not contend forever, Nor will I always be angry;
For the spirit would fail before Me, And the souls I have made.

GLORIFICATION (New Booths)
Tabernacles, like our bodies, decay and pass away. They need resurrection.
Here, the Lord builds a New Covenant body for His people. It is the Temple seen by Ezekiel, made of Jew and Gentile flesh together, with all the Jews as a holy priesthood. Tabernacles concerns Jews and Gentiles, those far and those near.

Rest, peace and healing and “resurrection” unity come to the repentant.

They are delivered under the hand of Cyrus, a conqueror greater than David.
They receive peace under the hand of Darius/Ahasuerus, a bridegroom greater than Solomon. This new marriage of heaven and earth brings many children.

The Restoration Covenant was a kind of halfway house to the New Covenant.

But no rest for the wicked. They are the dirt in the Laver, the offscouring of Israel’s new baptism. They are the bodies lost in the Babylonian flood.

For the iniquity of his covetousness
I was angry and struck him; (Ark-Law)
…..I hid and was angry, (Veil)
……….And he went on backsliding in the way of his heart. (Altar)
……………I have seen his ways, and will heal him; (Lampstand)
……………I will also lead him, and restore comforts
……………to him and to his mourners.
……….I create the fruit of the lips: (Incense/Elders/Law repeated)
……….Peace, peace to the far off and to the near,”
……….Says the LORD, “And I will heal him.”
…..But the wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest,
…..Whose waters cast up mire and dirt. (Laver)
“There is no peace,” says my God, “for the wicked.” (Shekinah/Rest)

The first festivals above were process of death and resurrection. Israel was sacrificed and rose from the grave. The old Tabernacle was un-covered and torn down, its carcass falling in the wilderness under the Law of God. Then the sheep and goats, the righteous and the wicked, were separated. Instead of a new year, the final feast, a restored Tabernacles, brought another 500 years of Temple worship and a mind-blowing influence among the Gentiles. Synagogues were built throughout the empire, and seed was sown for the coming of the Messiah—from India to Ethiopia.

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[1] See also Un-Passover and Un-Passover – 2.
[2] As discussed in God’s Gamble, the coming of the Spirit was prefigured in the Urim and Thummim and the lot. The lot as a judgment falls here at Pentecost. But the “governing lights” here are Israel’s false gods. So, what spirit was this? The spirit given to Saul.
[3] Remembrance refers to memorials of Covenant.
[4] Maturity often has a motif of the resurrection body. Israel here seems to have manufactured their own blessed hope. Hands, five fingers, are also a military symbol.

Picture is the entry to the Black Lodge in Twin Peaks. It is the Un-holy of un-holies. I probably wouldn’t recommend watching it. Kinda wished I hadn’t all those years ago. Notice the Un-laver, a pool of burnt engine oil, and a circle of sycamore trees. Our culture has a hard time thinking outside the Biblical square.

Is this verse simply teaching that if we “divide up” the Scriptures correctly, we’ll get an AWANA[1] merit badge from God? Hardly. It is flanked by condemnations of those who fight over the Scriptures to no profit, and those whose vain babblings are gangrenous.

Paul speaks of a soldier and a farmer, and then a productive workman. Paul is concerned about building saints and churches, and they are built by a straight and true cutting of the word. Like most of Paul’s statements, there is a very long, fully-loaded freight train of Old Testament history and typology right behind it, and it’s coming right at you, right now.

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“…though Jews returned to the land after the decree of Cyrus, they did not enjoy the fruits of it (Haggai 1:1-11). They were still alienated from the land. They did not really occupy it until they rebuilt the Temple, which was completed in the sixth year of Darius, 20 years later.”1

Darius listened to those who opposed the Jews and ordered the Temple reconstruction to officially cease, so the Lord raised up two witnesses, Haggai and Zechariah. Haggai would chastise the people for neglecting the house of God, and stir up their hearts to finish it. Zechariah would deal with the spiritual war going on behind the scenes.

Zechariah’s visions perform the same function as Abram’s animal sacrifice. (In Abram’s time, there was a famine in the Land, and later it did not support Abram and Lot’s flocks). In Zechariah, the mediator who is “passed over” is not Abram but Joshua the High Priest. The sins are atoned for again, but not with animal sacrifices. In Zechariah it is the Angel of the Lord who steps in, chases away the accusations of Satan (as the ravens), and provides clean robes as a New Covenant.

Then the Temple could be completed, and the abundant fruits of a recreated Land were enjoyed by a new Israel.

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1 James B. Jordan, Jubilee, 
Biblical Chronology Vol. 5, No. 4, www.biblicalhorizons.com