On Day 3 we have grain and fruit plants. They are the promise of bread and wine at God’s Sabbath table on Day 7.

The third elected judge was Deborah. Her song calls for a warrior like the sun. The seventh elected judge was Samson, “Sunrise.”

One theme of Day 7 is the Great Prophet, a man who has been tried and found faithful and included in the council of God. He has passed under the seven eyes of the Law (Day 4) and is now God’s Law incarnate, a lamb (bread and wine) with seven eyes.

Samson, the fallen bridegroom, lost his eyes. He was put to work grinding grain in a mill. There’s the bread. What was the wine? Samson’s blood. The wine of communion is a dose of death. It is a cup of judgment. Blind Samson, now humbled, became the flaming eyes of God among the Philistine rulers (the heavenly lights). Like Christ, in his death he put to an open shame the principalities and powers that had mocked him for sport. Christ was also perfected through suffering, but Samson’s story is more about the bride.

Samson prefigures not so much the crucifixion of Christ, but the suffering of Christ “filled up” in the firstfruits church. The Jews were blinded that the Gentiles might believe. Those Jews who were provoked to jealousy and did believe were humbled in the wilderness, excluded from the heritage they had boasted in, the things Paul called dung.

From the Revelation it seems that a remnant of converted Jews were slain in the besieged city before it fell. They were the true Nazirites, the warrior bride. [1] They brought down the pillars of Herod’s Temple and in death became founding pillars in a New Jerusalem.

For the saints, Jesus’ death as bread and wine was the promise of a greater rest they would enter into. Like Samson’s glorious hair, growing out of a bloodied Covenant head, their strength was made complete in weakness.

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[1] See Power on Her Head.

Amalek is the archenemy of the saints. This first Amalek most likely descended from Japheth. Numbers 24:20 paints him as the original great “Sea beast”, and a counterfeit Alpha and Omega.

“Amalek was the first of the nations, but his end shall be destruction.”

Esau moved to Mount Seir and merged with the Horites to become ahybrid part-Canaanite people known as Edomites. One of Esau’s grandsons was named Amalek (Genesis 36:16), which shows a conscious or subconscious alliance between Gentile hatred and false brother hatred of God’s chosen son—a “Land beast”. This has an enormous impact on interpreting the later history of the Bible.1

False Solomon

As the exodus was bracketed by the destruction of Egypt at the beginning, and the destruction of Jericho at the end, so Joshua’s Conquest was bracketed by Jericho at the beginning and Hazor at the end.2 Both Jericho and Hazor, first and last, were devoted, or placed “under the ban”. No plunder was to be taken from them. They refused God’s sacrifice, so they themselves became altars in holy war. They were burned as a whole burnt sacrifice with fire from God’s Altar, and never to be rebuilt (Deuteronomy 13:12-18).3

The next conspiracy of nations was under Jabin in Joshua 11. He was conquered, but another Jabin arose after Israel’s disobedience (Judges 4). Jericho, the first devoted city, had been retaken by an old enemy, so now Hazor, the last devoted city, had been rebuilt and a new Jabin was on the throne. Jabin is a title, and it means “insight” or “he understands” – a false Solomon. The first Jabin was the head of the conspiracy of nations allied against Israel. As a wise ruler, he was the counterfeit “Transfigured King” who gathered Israel’s enemies together “like the sand on the seashore”. The Lord commanded Joshua to burn their chariots, hamstring their horses and plunder all their cities except Hazor. But Israel’s disobedience led to Jabin’s “resurrection”. A wise serpent had ascended from the pit to usurp Israel’s throne.

The narrative in Judges 4 focuses on Jabin’s right hand man, Sisera. Symbolically, Sisera was the seed of the serpent. The account of Deborah, Barak and Jael highlights Eve as the Covenant warrior-mother, tricking the serpent and crushing his skull with a tent peg. As was later said of Mary, mother of Jesus, Jael was “most blessed among women” (5:24). The “offspring” (Barak) of the woman (Deborah) crushed the “offspring” (Sisera) of the serpent (Jabin).4

“I will put enmity between you and the woman…” (Genesis 3:15)

(Interestingly, it appears that Solomon’s building projects included new gates at Hazor. See here.)

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1 See James B. Jordan, Esther: Historical & Chronological Comments (I), Biblical Chronology Vol. 8, No. 3, www.biblicalhorizons.com
2 We will see this same three-city bracketing in the New Testament.
3 See James B. Jordan, The Law of the Covenant, p. 154. Download from www.biblicalhorizons.com
4 See James B. Jordan, Judges: God’s War Against Humanism. Download from www.biblicalhorizons.com