Bully's Blog

or Wandering Stars – 2

“Egypt, Judah, Edom, the people of Ammon, Moab, and all who are in the farthest corners, who dwell in the wilderness. For all these nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in the heart.” -  Jeremiah 9:26

Reading through the Old Testament as a young Christian, I always felt the Bible got bogged down when the Lord started pronouncing judgments upon nations other than Israel. For starters, I hadn’t paid enough attention earlier to remember who these sovereign states were. And more to the point, wasn’t God losing the plot a bit? I mean, there were plenty of other peoples during these times which aren’t even mentioned in the Bible at all.

Unfortunately, few commentators take the Bible seriously enough to understand what is actually going on. Older books will fill you in on the background, which is certainly helpful. But the big question is Why is God doing this now?, both now in history and now in the prophet I am reading?

As usual, when the structure and context of things is understood, seemingly boring “classic” texts suddenly come to life. In the case of the prophets it is a consuming fire. Continue reading

“…he will remove her veil, then hand her the barley offering, and say, ‘If you have been faithful to your husband, this water won’t harm you. But if you have been unfaithful, it will bring down the LORD’s curse — you will never be able to give birth to a child, and everyone will curse your name.’”

The content of this post has been revised and included in Bible Matrix II: The Covenant Key.

See Jesus With Long Hair and Trinitarian Complexity in Samson.

or The Self-Maledictory Oath

For thus says the LORD God of Israel to me: “Take this wine cup of fury from My hand, and cause all the nations, to whom I send you, to drink it. “And they will drink and stagger and go mad because of the sword that I will send among them.” Then I took the cup from the LORD’s hand, and made all the nations drink, to whom the LORD had sent me…” (Jeremiah 25:15-17)

The content of this post has been revised and included in Bible Matrix II: The Covenant Key.

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[1] See Sacramental Doses of Death.
[2] This is the execution of a Covenant curse, so those who fought against Jerusalem were people under the Covenant.
[3]Contrary to popular opinion, I believe that the divided animals substitute for the Canaanites rather than for Abraham, but the birds do substitute for Abraham. The birds are the head of the Covenant, and He is never crushed. Only the serpent’s head is crushed. This also relates to the linen left in Christ’s tomb. The Jew-Gentile body was divided in Abraham and reunited in Christ. See Pass-over and Pass-Through.
[4] See Three Babylons.
[5] This also relates to the disappearance of the pure Covenant-head, the Ark of the Covenant. See The Lost Ark.

or The Crash of AD70

Now a river went out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it parted and became four riverheads. The name of the first is Pishon; it is the one which skirts the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. And the gold of that land is good. Bdellium and the onyx stone are there. The name of the second river is Gihon; it is the one which goes around the whole land of Cush. The name of the third river is Hiddekel; it is the one which goes toward the east of Assyria. The fourth river is the Euphrates.  (Genesis 2:10-14)

After the Herod and Shylock post, I had one complaint that the Worship as Commerce tag didn’t really do what it said on the tin, so I hope to capture it (briefly?) here. Now, where to start? As James Jordan explains, the idea begins in Eden.
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“…all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ.”  1 Cor 10:4

There is a well-known Australian children’s novel called The Nargun and the Stars based on an aboriginal legend. The Nargun is a living creature but it looks like a big rock. It doesn’t move much, but it when it does it is ferocious.

What is Paul going on about here? Discounting the various Jewish fables and Christian legends surrounding both the original wilderness texts and Paul’s words here, what is his meaning? Could the structure of the passage give us a clue?

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or Lord of the Flies

Isaiah 66 pictures hypocritical worship as the Altar of the Abyss (See that series here).

This is just a quick overview. Most of it does seem to fit, but I’m sure there’s plenty more work to do here…

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My Hebrew teacher was reading a Kabbalistic text and noted that it was the only place where he had seen an interpretation of Isaiah 6:3 that agreed with his own translation. We usually get something like this (NASB):

“Holy, Holy, Holy, is the LORD of hosts, The whole earth is full of His glory.”

The Hebrew is actually like this, (from Young’s translation):

“Holy, Holy, Holy, [is] Jehovah of Hosts, The fulness of all the earth [is] His glory.”

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The serpent poured water like a river out of his mouth after the woman, to sweep her away with a flood. But the [Land] came to the help of the woman, and the [Land] opened its mouth and swallowed the river that the dragon had poured from his mouth. (Revelation 12:15-17)

Satan mimicked the expanding gospel dominion with counterfeits at every step. Here, not only did he forge the water chariots of the true Temple (a false baptism), he would bring Noahic “rest” to the Land by destroying God’s mighty men. He would bring about his own twisted “new earth” by deluging the church with bogus teaching.

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“And in that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which faces Jerusalem on the east. And the Mount of Olives shall be split in two, from east to west, making a very large valley; Half of the mountain shall move toward the north and half of it toward the south.”  Zechariah 14:4

Surprising as His ways are, the Lord always follows procedure. Like Ahasuerus in the book of Esther, anything that is done is done by decree. Although, in the case of Ahasuerus, he needed to consult his elders, whereas God only consults his maturing elders (like Abraham and David–and now the church) to bring us to greater maturity.

A decree is written in the Most Holy, the king’s garden court (head). The elders in the Holy Place respond with liturgy (body). And then they ride out into the world on the swiftest horses to incite a Holy War that divides the world to bring about a New Creation.

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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.

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