.
“…swarmers-creepers are described as creatures that break the boundaries of human life and invade the human house, defiling the house.”

The first two of the four curses upon the serpent are found in Genesis 3:14. Only the serpent is directly cursed, and the word You is emphatic in Hebrew. The man and the woman are not cursed directly, but mediately through the soil, an important distinction that we shall address in due course.

English Bibles render the first phrase, “Cursed are you more than, or above, all the other animals.” Yet in fact the other animals are not cursed at all, so there is a problem, and the problem is in the translation. There are several words for curse in Hebrew, and unfortunately our English Bibles wind up translating all of them with the one word “curse.” The word here, ‘arur, means, “banish, separate,” in the sense of being isolated from what is good. To curse a person in this sense is to wish that he be cut off from God and from the covenant and from all the good things of the covenant. The meaning here is that the serpent is isolated from or banished from being part of the cattle and the beasts of the field. Originally, the serpent was one of the beasts of the field (3:1). Now he is cut out from that category. He is not repositioned among the cattle, but among the creeping things. Genesis 1:24-26 identified these three categories. Cattle are the domestic animals that live with human beings. Beasts of the field are wild, free, undomesticated animals. Creeping things crawl along the ground, and now the serpent is put with them: He will crawl on his belly. (The statement, “On your belly you shall go,” does not go with the next phrase about eating dust, but with the preceding phrases about being banished from being among the beasts of the field.)

In Leviticus 11 the character of swarmers-creepers is fleshed out. The chapter begins by distinguishing clean and unclean cattle and beasts of the field, fishes, birds, and hopping insects. In verse 29, attention is called to the larger swarming-crawling creatures. These are described as creatures that break the boundaries of human life and invade the human house, defiling the house. This is precisely what the serpent did in Genesis 3, for as a beast of the field he did not belong in the garden uninvited, as we saw when we dealt with Genesis 2:19-20 (to wit: the cattle are not brought into the garden because they were already there). The serpent crossed the boundary and brought uncleanness (which is symbolic death). The list of eight big swarmers in Leviticus 11:29 mentions mole and mouse and then six serpents.

These animals move on their belly. The word for “belly” here occurs only one other place, Leviticus 11:42. It is not the word for stomach, also translated “belly” in some English Bibles, but a word that means the bottom part of the animal’s abdomen.

Another aspect of this curse is that the serpent loses his name. Adam had named the birds, the domestic animals, and the wild animals, but not the fishes and not the crawlers. By putting the serpent in with the crawlers, the serpent moves into the lower category of animals that are not named. They don’t rate high enough to be given names. (Of course, as time has gone along, men have named fishes and insects and lizards also, but nobody thinks these animals have the kind of personality that mammals have.)

Behind the serpent is, of course, Lucifer. The word for serpent, nahash, is related to the word for bronze, nehosheth. Moses made a bronze serpent in Numbers 21:9, a nahash nehosheth. Bronze is a symbol for a lesser but real kind of glory. The altar and laver were made of bronze, while the items associated with the more glorious tent and temple were made of silver or gold. Goliath, girded in bronze, was not just a political but also a religious figure, which is why David calls him “uncircumcised,” and why David rightly saw the conflict as primarily religious (1 Samuel 17:5-6). The Angel of Yahweh, who replaces Lucifer, appears as bronze in Daniel 10:6 and Revelation 2:18. We may perhaps surmise that the serpent’s original name was Bronze One, and that he forfeited that name to the Angel of Yahweh, the Son of Man. 

Included with Wordmp3 complete audio library, available from www.wordmp3.com

A further thought on confession related to Your Own Private Sheol:

At the seduction of Eve, Adam was faced with a creature he had previously named. This naming was the first expression of his dominion.

Adam failed to name the light of the law of God “day”, and the darkness of the lawlessness of the serpent “night.”

Which then leads to the Lord’s request that both Adam and Eve name, or confess, their sin. As discussed, they failed again, and the world was plunged into shadows.

The first step in dominion over sin is in naming it as darkness.

We could apply this to the current financial bailouts. We sinfully dug ourselves a hole and now want to dig our way out of it.

______________________
Pic: www.joelchua.com

And I looked, and behold, in the midst of the throne and of the four living creatures, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as though it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent out into all the Land. (Revelation 5:6)

The Bible is the story of the historic battle between the serpent-king and the servant king. Both sit on bloody thrones. Herod slaughters the innocents, and is then slaughtered by God. The innocent Christ is slaughtered, then sends His followers into the world as seven Spirits (Lampstand/Pentecost), but also as lambs among wolves.

What I love about the verse quoted above is that the Lamb is not only in the midst of the throne, but in the midst of His angelic government, surrounded by ministers in the wilderness.1 Later in the book we see Him surrounded again, but by a human government — the apostles as gates and walls, with the Lamb at the centre as Light. This could only occur if these saints themselves were slain as the Lamb was, which we see in Revelation 14.

Every week, the Spirit calls us in, and we gather around the slain Lamb. Then, as a glorified, Metal Man, He sends us out again into the world to expand the borders of the City, the frontiers of His Canaan conquest. Like the cherubim, we are both gates to the blood-covered repentants, and walls to the condemned sheeptraders.

There is blood at the centre, and blood at the border, the gospel miracle of 30AD and the miracles at the frontier. Between these there is the peace of New Jerusalem, which can only be maintained if the servant-kings go to war when they should (2 Sam. 11).

_____________________

1. The slain Lamb with seven eyes in the midst of the elders is a unification of the Table of Showbread, the Incense Altar and the Lampstand. Which means Christ’s defeat of Satan also destroys Satan’s Tabernacle.

The Nazirite Vow

(Article requested by Drew J.)

This vow in Numbers 6 follows the “inspection of jealousy” in Numbers 5. Mark Horne observed that, just as the woman in Numbers 5 was to be inspected for harlotry with her hair untamed, so the Nazirite (whether male or female) was not to cut his or her hair. A Nazirite is a human picture of the church as a warrior bride. Hair is glory. Hair is the cloud of angels (and now, saints) surrounding the throne of God.

“Therefore the woman ought to have a symbol of authority on her head, because of the angels.” (1 Cor. 11:10)

A woman is the glory of her man. A woman’s hair is a symbol of submission, but also a symbol of her own “cloud of angels” – her godly offspring (See Ezekiel 5 for the children of Israel symbolised as the prophet’s hair, Micah 1:16, Matthew 10:30 and also my comments on Nehemiah and his hair-pulling). In battle, a Nazirite was like a blazing torch (the Ark-chariot/Adam) and smoking firepot (the smoke clouds of the incense altar/Eve army), parting his enemies like the pillar of God.

The hair is her “crop”, the twelve stars around her head (Rev. 12), and the question constantly posed to Israel concerns her role as God’s mediatorial Land. Is her crop one of thorns and thistles, or is it godly grain? This is also the question in Numbers 5, and the Lord put Israel to this exact test after the idolatry with the golden calf. The “harlots” were slain with the Levitical sword.

You must be logged in to see the rest of this post.

Join now for a year for $15!