Lot offering his daughters to the men of Sodom is an affront to our moral sensibilities, yet the New Testament calls him a righteous man. Could our problem be simply that the Bible is smarter than we are?

George Athas (from Moore College, Australia) has a theory that not only harmonises the story with the New Testament estimation of Lot, it also accords with James Jordan’s rejection of other supposed moral failures by the primeval saints as misinterpretations. Athas considers various theories put forth by commentators, and they make some valid points, but each is lacking in some way. He then writes:

This leads us now to reconsider the nature of Lot’s shocking offer in Gen 19:8. If the narrative sets us up to expect Lot to be a righteous man, what are we to make of his apparently scandalous proposal to give his two daughters for pack rape? We can see how this dilemma leads commentators either to attempt to exonerate Lot, or else to reinterpret Lot’s character completely. The way forward lies in identifying detail omission. We have already mentioned this narrative device, but here we need to define it and notice its particular use in Gen 19.

Detail omission occurs when a narrator deliberately hides information from the reader at one point in a narrative, only to reveal the information at a later point. It is a rhetorical device whereby the presentation of information within a narrative is delayed, in order to control the reading process, shape the reader’s expectations (either consciously or subconsciously) and, thereby, affect the reader’s experience of the narrative. Depending on whether the reader is aware of the hidden information, this creates either an element of curiosity or surprise…

Gen 19 contains a masterful use of Unknown Detail Omission creating surprise. The narrator exploits ambiguities in the narrative to fool the reader into ordering the narrative a particular way, and then surprises the reader at a later point by revealing that the reader has ordered the situation wrongly. This begins with Lot’s offer of hospitality to the two messengers in Gen 19:2. Lot says to them:

“Here you are, my lords! Come by your servant’s house, stay, wash your feet, then rise early, and go on your way.”

Bailey rightly picks up the ambiguity in the phrase “wash your feet,” which can be a euphemism for sex. The ambiguity creates curiosity through a known detail omission: the reader knows that Lot is offering hospitality to the two messengers, but does not know what kind of hospitality he is offering. Is Lot offering the messengers an opportunity for sexual gratifica-tion? Or is Lot simply offering them the opportunity literally to wash their feet. We may compare the scene with Gen 18:4, in which Abraham also offers his guests the chance to wash their feet. However, Abraham’s offer is unambiguously literal: he offers to bring some water, thereby ruling out the possibility that he is offering sexual gratification to his guests. But such is not the case with Lot. The known detail omission leads the reader to wonder whether Lot is a righteous man like his uncle, Abraham, or a licentious host.

What’s more, Lot is in Sodom—a city characterized by its wicked inhabitants. And in the previous chapter, Abraham’s bargaining with God has set the reader up to see whether ten righteous people can be found in Sodom (18:32). The reader hopes that Lot is a righteous man and, along with Abraham, that ten righteous people can be found within its gates to spare the city, including Lot and his family. There is, therefore, a lot riding on this encounter (pun intended), but at this stage the reader does not know whether Lot’s hospitality is a good thing or a bad thing. Furthermore, in Gen 18:5, Abraham’s three guests accept his unambiguous offer of righteous hospitality immediately. But such is not the case with the two messengers in Gen 19. On the contrary, they initially turn down Lot’s offer.

This heightens the mystery and tension. Do they perhaps sense that Lot is offering them inappropriate hospitality? Has Lot himself become just like the wicked sinners of Sodom? Lot needs to urge the messengers to stay with him before they finally accept. And as they go to his house, the reader prepares to see just what kind of hospitality Lot does offer. The narrative produces crucial curiosity at this point. The fate of Sodom hangs critically in the balance.

The situation is compounded by a further ambiguity in the temporal clause at the start of Gen 19:4. The clause reads “Before they bedded down”. The reader is led to ask whether this is simply lying down to sleep for the night, or whether it also has a sexual connotation. The action does not actually occur, as is indicated by the adverb “before”. However, the narrator employs the power of suggestion by framing the next incident in the episode with reference to this aborted action. This not only implies that the arrival of the men of Sodom at Lot’s door is an interruption, but that the act of “bedding down” (however it is viewed) was certainly about to occur. Again, the reader hopes the potential action was innocent, but the narrator does not give sufficient clarity for the reader to be sure. The ambiguities here produce considerable curiosity and different potential interpretations of the narrative.

At this point, the men of Sodom surround the house and demand Lot bring the messengers out in order to “know” them. This too is another ambiguity because of the semantic range and possible connotations of the verb “to know”, which include both knowing factually and knowing sexually. Are they simply carrying out a defensive investigation in order to “know” facts, as Bailey suggests, or are they demanding a sexual encounter? The ambiguity instilled in the narrative to this point heightens the stakes here. In either case, the reader is likely to interpret the scene through the lens of the narrator’s  earlier note that the men of Sodom were very wicked (13:13). If the reader believes Lot has offered sexual gratification to his guests, then the reader will conclude that Lot has become like the residents of Sodom: a wicked sinner. As such, the reader will interpret the demand of the Sodomites as asking for their own sexual encounter with the guests.

But even if the reader sees the scene as a defensive operation, the characterization of the Sodomites will lead the reader to expect that they will brutalize the two messengers. Rape of civilians was common enough in ancient societies (cf. Judg 5:30; Lam 5:11; Zech 14:2). As Janzen highlights, ancient warfare sought to break down city walls and gates in order to penetrate and desecrate a city. The symbolic connection between sex and politics was often embodied (in the fullest sense of the word) through the “diabolical sacrament” of the rape of defeated inhabitants.

When we recall that the two messengers had arrived at Sodom’s gate (Gen 19:1) and, through Lot’s hospitality, had entered the city, we may begin to see how the inhabitants of Sodom might have thought their city had been covertly infiltrated by potential conquerors. Their demand to “know” the two messengers could, therefore, be understood as seeking to respond in kind—giving conquerors a taste of their own bitter medicine. And since the reader knows that the men of Sodom were very wicked (13:13), the reader expects them to be capable of such atrocities towards perceived militants…

In Gen 19:6–8, Lot makes his shocking offer. He has two daughters “who have never known a man” to offer to the mob to assuage their penchant for sex and violence. This offer is a pivotal moment in the narrative, for up until this point all of Lot’s words and actions have been ambiguous. Now the reader perceives Lot’s true colors, as he unambiguously shows that he is every bit as abusive as the men of Sodom, dashing any hope that he might have been a righteous man. While the Sodomites had wanted to “know” and brutalize the two messengers, Lot now offers the “knowledge” and brutalization of his daughters. The range of Pentateuchal norms mentioned view the brutalizing of women as heinous and potentially deserving of the death penalty. This causes the reader to evaluate Lot’s previously ambiguous offer of hospitality as inappropriate: he did indeed offer sexual gratification to the two messengers, and this must be why they had initially refused. Their final acquiescence to stay in his house, therefore, is not evidence of the messengers’ depravity, but evidence of Lot’s persistent wickedness. It turns the messengers’ reconnaissance into a mission to prove Lot’s depravity. To underline this, the narrator uses the same verb to describe the pressure Lot exerts on the messengers to accept his hospitality as the pressure the men of Sodom now put on Lot to bring the messengers out to them. Since migrating to the Jordan Basin in Gen 13:12, it seems the bad company of Sodom has corrupted Lot’s character. There is not a single righteous person in the city. Sodom’s (and Lot’s) fate is sealed!…

The narrative uses the reader’s revulsion at rape to turn hopes and sympathies against Lot. His own appeal to the rules of hospitality is thereby not designed to make the reader sympathetic towards him, but rather to show that Lot has “lost the plot.” He is using what is essentially a good code as justification for a crime against his own daughters.

Nonetheless, the narrative does take a surprising turn. The messengers pull Lot back inside the house and stun the mob outside, thus preventing them from finding their way to the door to cause harm (Gen 19:10–11). But then, rather than condemn Lot for his depravity, the messengers ask (19:12–13):

“Do you have anyone else here: a son-in-law, or your sons or daughters—anyone else in the town who belongs to you? Get them out of this place, because we are about to destroy this place. Since the outcry against them is so great before Yahweh, he has sent us to destroy it.”

Why would the messengers seek to save Lot when he has just unambiguously demonstrated that morally he is every bit as corrupt as the men of Sodom? Has not Lot sealed his own fate along with the rest of the city? Evidently not! But why not? Gen 19:14 is the moment the narrator reveals a key detail that has been withheld from the reader up until this point. The verse states:

So Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law who were married to his daughters. He said, “Get up! Get out of this place, because Yahweh is about to destroy the town.” But his sons-in-law thought he was joking.

Surprisingly, Lot’s daughters are not virgins! On the contrary, they are already married. Until this moment, the narrator has exploited the story’s ambiguities to make the reader think Lot’s daughters are virgins and just inside the door of his house. The reader has even come to believe that Lot might have offered his two daughters to the two messengers for sex, before the mob of Sodom interrupted, leading Lot to offer them to the mob instead. But this is clearly not the case. Lot apparently has sons-in-law, and just to underscore this fact, the narrator employs a tautology: “his sons-in-law who were married to his daughters”. Lot also has to go out to them, because they are not in the house with him. This can only mean that Lot’s daughters are also not in the house with him. This, then, explains why the messengers have to ask Lot whether he has any sons-in-law, sons, or daughters in the city (19:12), for they simply cannot tell from the confines of Lot’s house. And eventually, when Lot returns to the house, the messengers tell him to take his wife and his two daughters “who have been found” (19:15) out of the city before it is destroyed. The word ‘who have been found’ is used only of Lot’s two daughters, and does not include Lot’s wife.

Furthermore, its use makes no sense if Lot’s daughters were already in the house, as presumably Lot’s wife was. However, it makes good sense if Lot has indeed gone out, found them, and brought them back to his house, albeit without their husbands, who do not believe destruction is imminent. This also precludes the possibility that Lot had more than two daughters—that is, two unmarried daughters in the house whom he tries to substitute for the divine messengers, and other married daughters living elsewhere in the city whose husbands do not believe Lot’s warning. At the end of the episode, there are indeed only two daughters with Lot (19:30), and these are the two daughters who had been found in 19:15.

All this means that by withholding the key detail that Lot’s daughters are already married and living elsewhere in the city, the narrator has fooled the reader into believing that Lot’s daughters have been in the house all along, and that Lot is a degenerate father. So masterfully does the narrator fool the reader, that most subsequent translators are thoroughly fooled too. Instead of rightly translating the phrase as “his sons-in-law who had married his daughters,” translators usually depict them as “sons-in-law who were to marry his daughters” (NRSV, ESV; cf. RSV, NIV, HSCB, NET). They cannot conceive of Lot’s daughters as anything but virgins immediately inside Lot’s house. Even Robert Alter, who rightly recognizes that the narrative is here revealing previously concealed information in a surprising way, still sees the daughters as betrothed, rather than already married…

Once this key detail about Lot’s daughters is revealed, the narrative suddenly turns on its head. The reader is forced to reassess the entire episode in light of this new information. Lot did not have two virgin daughters to offer to the mob outside his door. So why would he say that he did? Two factors help explain it. The first is the hospitality code of the ancient Near East. Gen 18 depicts Abraham as a paragon of hospitality, and the juxtaposition of that chapter before the Sodom episode affords easy comparison between Abraham and Lot. Furthermore, we have already mentioned the Ugaritic Epic of Aqhat, which describes the model son as one “who drives out those who would abuse his houseguest” (Aqhat I:30). Protection of guests was indeed a virtue. Lot feels compelled, therefore, to protect the two messengers to whom he has offered the shelter of his roof.

The second factor is that Lot perceives the wicked intent of the Sodomite mob to brutalize the two messengers. His offer of two virgin daughters is a ruse designed to appeal to the sexual appetite of the mob. It seems Lot hopes they might accept the offer, and while they wait for him to go and bring out his daughters, he might be able to smuggle his guests safely out of town. In other words, Lot’s shocking offer is a decoy to buy time. Even our translators fall for this decoy completely, which shows how skillfully the narrative depicts Lot as a quick thinker. Lot actually has no intention of bringing out two virgin daughters for pack rape, because he does not have two virgin daughters. Rather he is intent on ensuring the safety of his guests. The problem, however, is that Lot’s house is surrounded. As well intentioned as we now discover him to be, his ruse probably doesn’t stand a chance of working. This then explains the need for divine intervention, as the two messengers stun the mob and achieve for Lot what he had hoped his decoy might have done: buy time.

This also enables Lot’s free movement. But despite it, Lot eventually hesitates to leave the city (Gen 19:16). This hesitation is critical in light of Abraham’s negotiation over Sodom in the previous chapter. Despite Abraham’s best bargaining efforts (18:32), not even ten righteous men can be found in Sodom to avert the city’s destruction. Not even Lot’s sons-in-law qualify, though even their inclusion would not be enough to avert destruction as per Abraham’s terms to which Yahweh has agreed. Lot, the only righteous man in Sodom, must therefore flee the city before its cataclysmic downfall, but he hesitates. His righteousness is probably what sparks Yahweh’s compassion for him (19:16). And so, the two messengers physically escort Lot, his wife, and his two daughters “who have been found” out of the town. Lot, despite his quick thinking, was unable to safeguard his guests and smuggle them out of town. Yet, because of his own righteousness, he is not destroyed with the city, but is ironically safeguarded and smuggled out of town by those very same guests. Once again, the narrative takes an ironic turn.¹George Athas, “Has Lot Lost the Plot? Detail Omission and a Reconsideration of Genesis 19” in Journal of Hebrew Scriptures, Volume 16, Article 5 DOI:10.5508/jhs.2016.v16.a5. Full article available here.

After considering the further twist of the sin of Lot’s daughters “knowing” their father, who does not “know” that he has “known” his own daughters, Athas concludes that “Lot has not ‘lost the plot.’ The reader has!”

This possible solution accords with James Jordan’s view concerning Abram’s lie about Sarai being his sister, since Abram was vindicated by God’s judgment. Jordan also defends Jacob and Rebekah in their “righteous deception” of blind Isaac and the degenerate Esau.²James B. Jordan, Primeval Saints, Studies in the Patriarchs of Genesis. The midwives in Egypt who lied to Pharaoh were also blessed by God. The point is that deception of evil doers is a righteous act, and one which turns the craftiness of the serpent back on himself. The cross, of course, was the ultimate deception, an Adam willing to die for His bride because of His faith in the promises of God.

All of this supports the idea that the Scriptures are often obfuscatory to sort the faithful from the unfaithful. The righteous will meditate on the apparent wickedness of Lot while the wicked will simply condemn the Bible as an unrighteous book, and thus condemn themselves.

With the merciful you show yourself merciful;
with the blameless man you show yourself blameless;
with the purified you show yourself pure;
and with the crooked you make yourself seem tortuous.
Psalm 18:26

Part 1   |   Part 2   |   Part 3

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.

“His eyes [were] like a flame of fire …
[and] out of His mouth went a sharp two-edged sword”
(Revelation 1:14-16)

“I will set My face against you,
and you shall be defeated by your enemies.”
(Leviticus 26:17)

The Tabernacle layout to the Bible narratives is like the Globe Theatre to Shakespeare. [1] If we understand the correspondences we can get the “architectural” relationships worked out. The same blueprint appears again and again, and it explains the motivation of “righteous Lot” in the offering of his daughters to the men of Sodom.

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[1] See Jesus in the Theatre of God.
[2] See The Significance of Adah and Zillah.
[3] See Better Angels.
[4] The difference between those leave their old life behind and those who don’t is the ability to see, to judge, sin rightly in themselves. The Spirit of God is the perseverance of the saints.

The Stoning of Israel

I think it’s worth looking at the literary structure of this passage. Here’s a revised version of the sheet I handed out after the sermon.

As I’ve written before, modern readers (and commentators) only look at the content of the text, but the authors of Scripture also communicate to us through where they place that content within that text, i.e. how it is arranged.

Without any punctuation or text layout, all we have to go on is previous literary structures, all of which can be traced back to Genesis 1. Each phrase is “self effacing,” that is, it is symbolic, a type, pointing away from itself to something else as part of a process of redemption. By its “symbolic” or typological content, we can identify the structure of the text. (When brilliant theologians look at this theory and reject it, I must admit I feel like picking up rocks.)

Because of the complexity of the diagramming, I’ve uploaded the text as a PDF, which you can download here. But the commentary will remain here, so (if you have a wide enough screen) you can have both open at once and not have to scroll up and down.

1. We have seven stanzas, following the Bible matrix, which means that as a body of text, these stanzas will work through (a) a process of Creation or renewal, from forming to filling; (b) the “festal” process of agriculture, from planting to harvest; and (c) a process of Conquest (Dominion), from Egypt to Canaan.
2. Within these, each stanza works on the same pattern (“fractally”) which is where it gets interesting, because the authors of the Scriptures, and the authors of any good literature, often play with well-established structures (and our expectations) to make a point. They slay them (open the Word) and resurrect them (expound the Word) as something new, taking us from where we are to where they are, like all good preachers.
3. The first stanza is five-fold, following the Biblical Covenant structure. We can tell where this ends because the second stanza begins with “you also,” the Hierarchy.
   The first stanza begins with the source of their life, the Son of God. Notice where His rejection is placed in the text. Jesus was judged under the Law of Moses—at least according to the PR campaign of the Jewish leaders. As I mention in The Covenant Key, men cannot live without rules, so the best way to avoid obedience to the Laws of God is to replace them, and to then work on classifying actual obedience to God as an offensive hate crime.
   The words chosen and rejected occur many times in this passage. This is the Urim and Thummim process of the judgment of God, light and dark, night and day, the two goats of Atonement, the execution of the Covenant sanctions. This line stands in this stanza where the High Priest stood on the Day of Atonement, the true Adam able to stand face to face with God. This puts the word “precious” at Glorification, the finished product, a New Covenant for Israel. If we group the centre three stanzas together under “Ethics,” we see the five-fold Covenant structure of the first stanza played out in first century Israel as a new seven-fold Creation. The Law is split into three, recreating the structure of the Trinity administered by the Spirit in the people of God: Father – Spirit – Son here becomes Head (Son) – Spirit – Body.
4. Stanza 2 is seven-fold because the Law is opened in the people of God. Notice “built up” at Ascension and “offer up” at Maturity. Built up is the bloody bronze altar and “offer up” is the fragrant golden altar. The passage forms the house, then fills the house. We see the same thing in Peter’s ministry. At the house of the High Priest, he condemns himself by denying Jesus, who then “looks” at Him from above (the fiery eyes of the Lampstand-Law). This is the altar of death, a sentence carried out on the Land. But later, Peter sees Jesus by another fire, a fire by the Sea (Gentiles). This is the altar of resurrection, and Peter’s threefold Covenantal “no” is resurrected as a threefold Covenantal “yes” or Amen.
5. Notice that all the mentions of stone are in the first four stanzas. The passage itself calls the nation of Israel into the courtroom of God. She is presented with a new Law written on flesh, Jesus as the tablets of God. Like Moses, the Law of Moses in this passage doesn’t make it past Deuteronomy. In fact, it is “cut off” in the “midst of the week.” The house of unbelieving Israel became demonic after Pentecost. Perhaps the phrase “rock of offence” means a rock of transgression. In this stanza, Adam’s feet trip on Day 6, and there is judgment, not rest, on Day 7.
6. The sixth stanza matches the second. Stanza 2 is delegation, the oracles given to Israel. Stanza 6 is vindication, their fulfilment. The hearts of stone in 2 are now hearts of flesh, and the particular thread of the matrix that shines here is the festal one.
   We think that the difference between stone and flesh is only their hardness, but there is also the comparison between Lot’s wife and Abraham’s. She who had children became barren and she who was barren became fruitful. The New Israel is not a barren Land, and the Old Israel became the incestuous cave of Lot and his daughters, who manipulated nature to obtain a future, but only bred enemies of the Covenant. (They can most certainly be redeemed, as Ruth was.) The old Israel was not only stoned. She was a Land “sown with salt,” a mineralized miscarriage of justice (2 Kings 2:21).
   The Ten Commandments were good, but they could not have true children (paedobaptists, take note). In a sense, the Old Covenant itself, the Succession of Moses, stones without the Spirit of God, was a eunuch, and could not enter into the heavenly Tabernacle. But a eunuch with the Spirit of God could enter. Not only would he not enter to serve, but he would be enthroned at the feast. [1]
   It is fitting that the word “possession” is placed at Pentecost. It is followed by the fulfilment of the feasts in the apostolic ministry and the first resurrection. The firstfruits martyrs saw God face to face and now reign with Him.
7. The final stanza concerns the finished house. It is a shelter for the nations, the shelter that Israel was called to be, but could not truly be until the True Israel arrived.

Can you imagine the length of a Bible commentary that took literary structure into account?

[1] See New Covenant Virility.

Then Jerusalem, all Judea, and all the region around the Jordan went out to him and were baptized by him in the Jordan, confessing their sins. But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? “Therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance, ”and do not think to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as father.’ For I say to you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones.” —Matthew 3:5-9

Then, as He was now drawing near the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works they had seen, saying: ” ‘Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the LORD!’ Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” And some of the Pharisees called to Him from the crowd, “Teacher, rebuke Your disciples.” But He answered and said to them, “I tell you that if these should keep silent, the stones would immediately cry out.” —Luke 19:37-40

The Bible is consistent with its symbols, so what is it with stones crying out? Uri Brito commented about the stones referring possibly to the stones of the Temple.

For the stone will cry out from the wall, And the beam from the timbers will answer it. “Woe to him who builds a town with bloodshed, Who establishes a city by iniquity! —Habakkuk 2:11-12

A pile of stones is always a witness. Stones are hard earth, and the ground first cried out as a witness against Cain‘s murder of Abel. Moses had an altar and twelve stone pillars built at the bottom of Sinai to symbolise the twelve tribes (Exodus 24:4). Elijah built an altar of twelve stones and it was destroyed as a substitute for Israel’s harlotries, burned to dust as an unfaithful daughter of a priest.

The key ideas here are substitution and witness, or death and resurrection. The Habukkuk reference has to do with a witness against the shedding of innocent blood — the wrong kind of substitutionary death. It is like the murder of the unborn and exploitation and murder of foreign civilians in our own day to prop up a civilisation that has failed to witness of Christ to the nations and thus lost the blessing of God.[1] In Luke, Jesus then weeps over Jerusalem, so I believe that is His context. The Land itself would vomit out the Jewish leaders, crying from beneath the spilled blood of one better than Abel (Hebrews 12:24). The unfaithful pile of stones would be torn down and burned with fire RIGHT AFTER the firstfruits church ascended at the last trumpet. Jesus speaks of both death and resurrection in terms of stones.

The words of John the Baptist, however, speak only of resurrection. Toby Sumpter hits the nail on the head:

John the Forerunner famously says that his listeners cannot claim their Abrahamic lineage as protection against judgment. John says, “… and do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I say to you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones.” (Lk. 3:8)

What are “these stones” that Jesus is referring to? 

Frequently I believe it is assumed that “these stones” is just a generic reference to the power of God. He can make sons of Abraham out of trees, rocks, geese, whatever. Don’t be so arrogant, O Israel. 

But remember where John is. John is at the Jordan. And all the indicators are that John is inviting his listeners to join him in a new conquest, to cross the Jordan in baptism and join the new Joshua (Jesus) in His conquest of the land. 

That being so, is it possible that “these stones” are the very stones that Joshua had the people set up on the shore of the Jordan River centuries before? Or even if John isn’t pointing at a literal pile of stones, could he be referring to “those stones”? 

If that is the case, John’s point could still be partially concerned with the arrogance of Israel and God’s power, but it makes it more pointed referring to the previous Jordan crossing and conquest. 

First, it’s a reference to the fact that God has performed this sort of thing before. Refusal to follow the example of that second generation of Israel across the Jordan means that they are really more like the first generation in the wilderness, whose bodies were scattered in the desert. 

Second, “those stones” clearly represented Israel. There were twelve of them for the twelve tribes, and therefore, perhaps the “power of God” is not so much that God can turn anything into sons but rather specifically resurrection power. God is able to raise the dead; He is able to even raise that ancient and faithful generation of Israel from the dead. If God needs an Israel with enough faith to take this Canaan, He can raise “these stones” from dead.

The memorial pillars that Joshua set up were not covered in blood, but washed with white. In the Egypt to Canaan pattern, they are the two goats of Atonement. In this first century context, one pillar is the saints in white robes ascending to God (just like the angel in white sitting on the stone at Jesus’ open tomb). The other, like Lot’s wife, is a memorial to permanent barrenness,[2] a Land that can only ever produce thorns like Cain. This was Herod’s house of shiny white stone, the one Jesus wept over, a whitewashed sepulchre.[3]

So Jesus speaks of “false witness” Herod’s stones being torn down, and John speaks of the new Temple, a resurrected Israel with Jews and Gentiles in one body, being raised up. The Herods slaughtered the saints — shedding innocent blood — and unwittingly gave them resurrection. This crime filled up the sins of Herodian worship and brought about the end of the old altar.[4]

These pillars are two witnesses, hence the references to Moses and Elijah in Revelation 11. They are witnesses to both the goodness and severity of God. The stones as martyroi cry out as a witness of the goodness of God, and then as a witness against their murderers.

Will your church be an everlasting witness to God’s goodness or to His severity?

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[1] See Building Cages Out of Freedom.
[2] See Don’t Look Back.
[3] See A White Stone – 6.
[4] This might be why Paul calls the Circumcision “the mutilation.” They were the prophets of Baal.

“And she saw two angels in white sitting,
one at the head and the other at the feet,
where the body of Jesus had lain.”
- John 20:12

Two Witnesses

The father of the English backpacker who was lost in the Blue Mountains wrote in the visitors book at the hotel where he stayed. He wrote that he was going briefly back into the bush to carve a memorial to his son into one of the rockfaces. Thankfully, as he waited for his flight home to the UK, his son walked out of the wilderness yesterday suffering from hunger and exposure, but alive. As I have discussed in this series [1], the Bible is full of memorials to important events.

Getting God’s people out of the wilderness is a legal procedure. A minimum of two witnesses is required. First, there are two preachers who spy out the enemy and warn them of impending judgment. The feast pattern consistently puts this at “Trumpets”, which helps us identify some of its more subtle appearances:

- Abel’s blood and the Land against Cain

- Noah’s two faithful sons against Ham

- The Lord as the plural elohim against Babel

- The two angels sent to Sodom

- The witness who guides Joseph to his brothers and then Joseph himself as a martyr

- Moses and Aaron sent to Egypt

- Joshua and Caleb’s courageous testimony

- the two spies sent to Jericho

- The Lord and His ‘son’, Ezekiel, whom He continually asks to “see” as a witness against Jerusalem

- the apostolic (firstfruits) church as two witnesses against Herod’s Temple. The literary structure implies they were like the two cherubim at the garden gate with the flaming sword of the gospel. [2]

These are the speaking witnesses. Unlike those who accused Christ, their testimonies do not conflict.

Ten days after Trumpets comes the Day of Atonement. After the ‘ten plagues’, the Lord separates the two goats. His people ascend and the wicked are sent to oblivion. Again there are two witnesses, two memorials.

A Silent Witness

The Bible never teaches that all will eventually be saved (universalism). We see this in Lot’s rescue from Sodom. In this case, the ‘first goat’ was Lot and his daughters. The second was Lot’s wife who looked back. She became a pillar of salt, a ‘whited sepulchre’. Lot became (incestuously) fruitful, but his wife became a silent testimony to the barrenness of the judged cities of the plain.[3] The New Testament repeatedly warned Jewish Christians not to look back like Lot’s wife, like those whose bodies fell in the wilderness. The pattern was happening again.

“…there were two lime-washed pillars that Joshua set up as a memorial to his church’s river crossing. At the church’s crossing of the crystal sea into the promised heavenly country, Herod’s Temple was the second pillar. What was the first?”

The High Priest had ‘holy to the Lord’ written on his forehead. The harlot of Herodian worship also had words written on her forehead. Saints and sinners were marked like the urim and thummim, Ebal and Gerazim, yes and no. The saints were sealed with the mark of the High Priest with the inkhorn. The sinners were sealed with the mark of the beast. Both saints and sinners were written on as memorials to the goodness and severity of God.

Paul speaks of bearing in his body the marks of Christ. The literary structure puts these stigmata at the same position in the structure that gospel witness appears many times before. He was a living epistle [4], a tree cut down, engraved as tablets of flesh with the Torah of Christ by the finger of God, and erected as a pillar in a new Temple.

Of the two stones that witness the church’s exit from the carcass of Judaism, the first was the martyrdom, witness, of saints described in Revelation 14. The old city could not be destroyed until this ‘first goat’ ascended to the Lord as an offering. Like the head, the body became bread and wine, the bread of obedient priesthood glorified with the robe of kingdom.

“I was watching; and the same horn was making war against the saints, and prevailing against them, until the Ancient of Days came, and a judgment was made in favour of the saints of the Most High, and the time came for the saints to possess the kingdom.” (Daniel 7:21-22)

Paul refers to this judgment as the “revelation of the sons of God”, ie. who were the true sons of God, the Jews or the Christians. Which goat was which? Like the earthly High Priest, Christ came down and judged Herod’s Babel in AD70. He took the urim and thummim and decided between the ‘identical’ goats, fulfilling the Day of Atonement.

A Singing Witness

Herod’s white house was made a silent witness forever. The apostolic church now rules from heaven, robed in white in a bridal city. She still gloats over the death of her enemies and sings the songs of Moses and David, the Lamb. Her testimony, carved in the apostles’ flesh, speaks across the globe in every language. To us, the firstfruits church is a permanent token of faithful wilderness priesthood, a manna memorial. We feed on her New Covenant words and are marked by the Spirit for the final Day.

Then one of the elders answered, saying to me, “Who are these arrayed in white robes, and where did they come from?” And I said to him, “Sir, you know.” So he said to me, “These are the ones who come out of the great tribulation, and washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” Revelation 7:13-14

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[1] A White Stone – all articles.

[2] See Slavery to Sabbath in Revelation 5-11

[3] See Don’t Look Back

[4] See Paul the Epistle

“And all Israel stoned [Achan and his family] with stones, and burned them with fire, after they had stoned them with stones.”

Questions from blogger Blue Ollie:

Many still claim to get their morals from the Bible. Well, what does the Bible actually say?

The following is a very incomplete list but is nevertheless a valid list.

1. How do you determine if someone is guilty? Answer: gamble.

We read from the Book of Joshua, Chapter 7 [Achan's family is eventually singled out by lot.]

“…Finally he had that family come forward one by one, and Achan, son of Carmi, son of Zabdi, son of Zerah of the tribe of Judah, was designated.”

“Designated”? This sounds a bit like The Lottery to me. Read from Exodus 28:

“In this breastpiece of decision you shall put the Urim and Thummim, that they may be over Aaron’s heart whenever he enters the presence of the LORD. Thus he shall always bear the decisions for the Israelites over his heart in the LORD’S presence.”

Wow! CSI would have been a boring show. But just think: we could do away with all of that DNA evidence and just throw “sacred dice”! So what happened?

2. You kill the whole family for the transgression of one.

“…Then Joshua and all Israel took Achan, son of Zerah, with the silver, the mantle, and the bar of gold, and with his sons and daughters, his ox, his ass and his sheep, his tent, and all his possessions, and led them off to the Valley of Achor. Joshua said, “The LORD bring upon you today the misery with which you have afflicted us!” And all Israel stoned him to death.”

“Him”? The KJV says “them”. A Jewish version has it:

And Joshua, and all Israel with him, took Achan the son of Zerah, and the silver, and the mantle, and the wedge of gold, and his sons, and his daughters, and his oxen, and his asses, and his sheep, and his tent, and all that he had; and they brought them up unto the valley of Achor. And Joshua said: ‘Why hast thou troubled us? The LORD shall trouble thee this day.’ And all Israel stoned him with stones; and they burned them with fire, and stoned them with stones.

In short, the whole family was killed. We have better justice now-a-days. What happened next?

3. Murder a whole town if they are on land that you want.

Read on [Joshua, Chapter 8]

“…Joshua kept the javelin in his hand stretched out until he had fulfilled the doom on all the inhabitants of Ai.”

You can read about the routine ethnic cleansings in later chapters [such as] Chapter 11…

“They struck them all down, leaving no survivors. Joshua did to them as the LORD had commanded: he hamstrung their horses and burned their chariots. At that time Joshua, turning back, captured Hazor and slew its king with the sword; for Hazor formerly was the chief of all those kingdoms. ;He also fulfilled the doom by putting every person there to the sword, till none was left alive. Hazor itself he burned. Joshua thus captured all those kings with their cities and put them to the sword, fulfilling the doom on them, as Moses, the servant of the LORD, had commanded. However, Israel did not destroy by fire any of the cities built on raised sites, except Hazor, which Joshua burned. The Israelites took all the spoil and livestock of these cities as their booty; but the people they put to the sword, until they had exterminated the last of them, leaving none alive.”

So there you have it: guilt by dice throwing, execution of an entire family, and mass murder. But wait, there is more.

4. It is acceptable to offer your daughters up to be gang raped.

What happens when men come to your door and want to rape your male house guest? See Genesis 19:

“Before they went to bed, all the townsmen of Sodom, both young and old–all the people to the last man–closed in on the house. They called to Lot and said to him, “Where are the men who came to your house tonight? Bring them out to us that we may have intimacies with them.” Lot went out to meet them at the entrance. When he had shut the door behind him, he said, “I beg you, my brothers, not to do this wicked thing. I have two daughters who have never had intercourse with men. Let me bring them out to you, and you may do to them as you please. But don’t do anything to these men, for you know they have come under the shelter of my roof.”

Offer to let the men rape your daughters! But wait, there is more: What happens when you make a bet that you can’t cover? Let’s see what the Biblical hero Samson does (chapter 14).

5. Murder and stealing are an acceptable way to settle up gambling debts.

I agree; those who were stumped threatened the wife. But what happened when Samson had to pay up? How did he do it?

“On the seventh day, before the sun set, the men of the city said to him, “What is sweeter than honey, and what is stronger than a lion?” He replied to them, “If you had not plowed with my heifer, ;you would not have solved my riddle.” The spirit of the LORD came upon him, and he went down to Ashkelon, where he killed thirty of their men and despoiled them; he gave their garments to those who had answered the riddle. Then he went off to his own family in anger…”

So murder some people, steal their stuff, and pay off your debts!

Finally, what do you do with people who have “wrong” conceptions of God?

6. Kill people who worship other gods.

Let’s let Elijah answer… [Kings 18]

“… Then Elijah said to them, “Seize the prophets of Baal. Let none of them escape!” They were seized, and Elijah had them brought down to the brook Kishon and there he slit their throats.”

Note: in this account, “God” was causing a drought because Israel was worshiping this other God.

Now what do you do with indolent kids who make fun of older people? You send bears to tear them limb from limb!

7. Death is appropriate for someone who makes fun of a religious figure.

See 2 Kings, Chapter 2:

“And he went up from thence unto Bethel: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head. And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the LORD. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them.”

Update: So, is it a surprise when this happens:

I’ve been hiding from the horrible news in the Middle East, but this story induced me to poke my head out of my tortoise shell…so I can puke. A rabbi consulted his holy books to see what God had to say about the vicious violence going on right now, and you can guess what God’s word might be:

Eliyahu ruled that there was absolutely no moral prohibition against the indiscriminate killing of civilians during a potential massive military offensive on Gaza aimed at stopping the rocket launchings.

My comment:

These are good questions, and most Christians can’t give you good answers. Very briefly, we need to do more study. A little look further would show that these killings were judicial, ie. a judgment that would stop a spreading evil in its tracks.

If we’re going to criticise a religion, the least we can do is understand it. According to the Bible, we are made in God’s image, and we are all mediators for those under our authority, particularly as parents. The consequences for judgments upon our families – our children – can be laid squarely at our own feet.

But God is merciful. These people were given, in most cases, hundreds of years of warnings. Read the account of God’s promise of the land of Canaan to Abraham. The Canaanites were given more time.

We also overlook the Covenant context of these passages. See my comments on 2 Kings 2 for instance, here.

I do understand where you are coming from, having had many of these questions myself. But it stems from the victim mentality that misunderstands the gravity of sin.

Interestingly, many of these judgments were typological prequels of the destruction of Judaism in AD70. Revelation presents the destruction of Jerusalem as a victory over Jericho (and Babylon) for the fledgling Christian church. Like Ezekiel, it alludes to previous scriptures as symbols for near events. Jesus came in judgment as He said He would, and was vindicated. God has a long fuse, but it is a fuse nonetheless.

The slaughter of the innocent is always dealt with eventually. And God’s law is perfectly just: eye-for-eye. The Canaanites who sacrificed their children forconvenience (good crops, etc.) were cut off as a nation. When Israel began committing the same sins, God brought in the Babylonians to bring her death and resurrection – a new Israel. When first century Judah slaughtered Christians, God brought in the Romans – and again there was a new Israel, the Christian church.

We are prone to thinking of justice as individuals, but the Bible also deals with nations, corporately.

I find this fascinating and would be pleased to answer any sincere questions (to the best of my ability). But this short-sighted questioning above is not only ignorant of the Bible, but usually based on a worldview that has no objective basis for moral standards whatsoever. If you believe in natural selection, these events are merely a religious interpretation of the survival of the fittest. Historically, athiests who are consistent with their view on origins and get to ‘operate’ on their assumptions are often mass murderers – a law unto themselves. So any charge against the Bible and Christianity cuts both ways. You are obviously a thinker and should not find this challenge offensive.

Finally, two points: Regarding ‘gambling’, the idea was that God acted through the lot (or the Urim and Thummim), which were a ‘miniature Ark’ worn by the High Priest). The best example would be the goat chosen by lot on the Day of Covering. The last supper follows the same pattern, only it is Jesus who “chooses” Judas (Judah) and send him to destruction. Judas’s replacement was also chosen by lot. The practice was ‘internalised’ after Pentecost with the arrival of the Spirit. The law was written on “tablets of flesh” with all God’s people as priests.

Lot’s failure to protect his daughters is not commended in the Bible. He also failed to protect them from the ‘thinking’ of Sodom, which was demonstrated in their later actions. The structure of the passage (and we are also ignorant of Hebrew literary structure – including most Christians) aligns them with the ‘daughters of men’ in Genesis 6.

I have found that nothing is in the Bible for no reason, whether or not we agree with it. It is the most highly integrated literature ever written, and every passage must be read in the context of what has gone before. Sadly, this also results in some misinterpretation of the New Testament by Christians.

Kind regards, Mike Bull

Moses spent 40 years in the wilderness, then Israel did. God’s prophet lives through the pattern, then God’s people follow him in a larger pattern. The head of the sacrifice, then the body. The Adam, then the Greater Eve. Jesus, then the church.

James Jordan observes that the Promised Land failed to support Abram both during the famine and also later concerning the flocks of Abram and Lot. Only after the Lord “purified” the Land with a sacrifice was it again a garden for the people of God. Like Adam, a deep sleep fell upon Abram, but it was animal substitutes that were divided.

The Lord passed over Abram, but in the darkness, a smoking firepot and blazing torch passed through the divided animals. God structured this event to follow Israel’s feasts, with Passover and Atonement at each end, and the Lord’s prediction of the Hebrews’ slavery in Egypt at the “wilderness” centre.

The blazing torch and smoking firepot are the Lord’s chariot throne. The blazing torch (the head) is His throne, the Ark. The smoking firepot is the Incense Altar, the cloud of angel elders in His train (the body), the Holy Place positioned ‘underneath’ the Most Holy (see Ezekiel 1).1

Revelation 8

After the ascension of Christ, Satan was expelled from his “ministry” before God as the Accuser of man. Like the evil twin of the blazing torch that measured Abram’s sacrifices, he was then used by God to bring an end to the Old Covenant upon the Land.

And the fifth angel blew his trumpet, and I saw a star fallen from heaven to earth, and he was given the key to the shaft of the [Abyss]. He opened the shaft of the [Abyss], and from the shaft rose smoke like the smoke of a great furnace, and the sun and the air were darkened with the smoke from the shaft.

The seven trumpets are a chiasm, with the third and fifth corresponding symmetrically. The “de-Ascension” of Satan mirrors his fall in the third trumpet. Like Christ, he was given a key. His throne-coming was also accompanied by clouds of smoke, but as false High Priest, instead of a sweet-smelling aroma it was the sulphur of Sodom. As Pentecost’s fire came from the Altar of Incense in heaven, its evil twin bore an army of unholy mighty men—the “smoking firepot” body of Satan’s blazing torch head. It was the children of Satan (John 8:44), an army of Judaisers, locusts who would devour the Land. As in Daniel 7, the winds of the Spirit raised up beasts.

“as with Tyre of old, the Abyss is being dredged up to cover the Land with its unclean spirits. Apostate Israel is to be cast out of God’s presence, excommunicated from the Temple, and filled with demons. One of the central messages of Revelation is that the Church tabernacles in heaven; the corollary of this is that the false church tabernacles in hell.”2

As the preaching of the seven-sealed Gospel to the Land began with a white horse, so at the destruction of Judaism, the preaching of the Gospel to the World began with the white horse passing through the divided pieces of the Land (Zechariah 14:4). However, this time, Christ did not ride alone but with His bride. He was a blazing torch, and She was now the smoking firepot—a permanent part of His Ark-chariot. A government of ascended men had replaced the government of angels. Together they passed through the midst of a divided Land to carry the seven seals to the World.

“Then passing through the midst of them, He went His way.” Luke 4:30

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1 Note also that in Exodus 25-31, the Ark is the Light of Day 1, and the Incense Altar is the “swarms” of Day 5 – birds from above and fish from below. The Tabernacle was both a portable Sinai and an image of the chariot of God.
2 David Chilton, The Days of Vengeance, p. 244.

Jesus said to him, “No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.” (Luke 9:62)

In Hebrews 10, the writer (most likely Paul) tells the Jewish Christians that if they turn back from following Christ they will be destroyed. Instead of offering a lame explanation to prove this passage doesn’t contradict the New Testament teaching that believers can’t lose their salvation, we should understand where the original audience was in history. If we do that, we find no explanation is necessary.

The writer was not warning individuals about going to hell, but Jewish Christians of missing the conquest as a corporate identity. If they, like their ancestors in the wilderness, let fear conquer their faith and refuse to enter the new heavenly Land, they will die. Hebrews corresponds to Deuteronomy (second law), the law repeated before conquest.

The apostles knew that a corporate resurrection was just around the corner in AD64 to 70, the consummation of forty years of testing the church. These Hebrews had followed Christ as Moses into the wilderness. Did they have enough faith to follow Him now as Joshua? This was the great apostasy predicted in 2 Thessalonians 2:3.

Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near. (Hebrews 10:23-25)

Revelation also uses the wilderness analogy. It refers to Moses’ preaching in Deuteronomy – very subtly. Blink and you’ll miss it.

Then the angel took the censer and filled it with fire from the altar and threw it on the earth, and there were peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning, and an earthquake. Now the seven angels who had the seven trumpets prepared to blow them. The first angel blew his trumpet, and there followed hail and fire, mixed with blood, and these were thrown upon the Land. And a third of the Land was burned up, and a third of the trees were burned up, and all green grass was burned up. (Revelation 8:5-7)

Revelation shoots Old Testament allusions at us like machine gun fire, so hold on to your hats.

As in Ezekiel, the judgments were “witnessed” in abstract and would now be carried out. The son of man scattered burning coals from the Altar over the city (Ezekiel 10:2). In the greater feast pattern of the Revelation, Sabbath, the day of the Lord, introduced the ascended Christ. At Passover, the people of God were sanctified (separated) as seven churches. Christ ascended as Firstfruits and opened the scroll. This scattering of coals from the altar beneath the throne wasPentecost. The tongues of fire were the presence of God.

With the coming of Pentecost, the Covenant curses again began to fall upon Israel. Jerusalem would be judged in thirds, and the remaining third, safe in the robe of the Son of Man, would also pass through the fire (Ezekiel 5:2, 12).

Falling hail and fire (lightning) signified an idolatrous city being judged: Jerusalem had become Egypt (Exodus 9:22-24), and Persia under the Amalekite Haman (Ezekiel 38:22); it had also apostatised from the Jerusalem of believing Melchizedek to the idolatrous Jerusalem of Adoni-zedek (Joshua 10:11). Through disobedience, she had turned the “firmament” blessings from above (rain) into curses (hail).

The fire and hail was mixed with blood—the blood of Stephen, the first New Covenant martyr. It was tipped across the Land to bring up the partial judgments of the Trumpets. In the same way, the blood of the final massacre of the saints would later be poured onto the Land from Atonement bowls to bring total destruction.

The trees and grass allude to the garden of Eden. The trees here were the cedar “pillars” (rulers) of the Temple. As Zechariah predicted, the doors would be opened to let in the fire (Zechariah 11:1-2). The total destruction of the grass indicates that Jerusalem was being judged as Sodom and Gomorrah, whose arable “garden of Eden” plains were covered with salt and sulphur. She was Lot’s wife, and would be a perpetual testimony to the new Jerusalem:

“And the next generation, your children who rise up after you, and the foreigner who comes from a far land, will say, when they see the afflictions of that land and the sicknesses with which the Lord has made it sick—the whole land burned out with brimstone and salt, nothing sown and nothing growing, where no plant can sprout, an overthrow like that of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, which the Lord overthrew in his anger and wrath—all the nations will say, ‘Why has the Lord done thus to this land? What caused the heat of this great anger?’ Then people will say, ‘It is because they abandoned the covenant of the Lord, the God of their fathers…” (Deuteronomy 29:22-25)

Judaism, like Lot’s wife, was made forever barren – sterile as salt. Her surviving offspring became uncircumcised extensions of Canaanite idolatry (Ammon and Moab). The New Israel, like Sarah, was made forever fruitful according to the promise.

Hebrews warned the Jewish Christians who were tempted to look back. This puts Jesus’ warning about losing your life in its primary context:1

“Even so will it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed [AD70]. In that day, he who is on the housetop, and his goods are in the house, let him not come down to take them away. And likewise the one who is in the field, let him not turn back. “Remember Lot’s wife. “Whoever seeks to save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it. “I tell you, in that night there will be two in one bed: the one will be taken and the other will be left.” (Luke 17:30-34)

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1  Thus AD70 is the interpretation. Its truth for us is application.

“…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