Iran in Prophecy

Bear Down: The Flaming Triumph of the Virtuous Woman

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There is a Heaven Shaking the Bear playlist to make it easier to find the videos. Click if you missed past livestreams: Heaven is Shaking the Bear Playlist

In this week's podcast of Heaven Shaking the Persian Bear, we'll take a look at another Bear king of the East who was drawn into the river as a pattern for the future triumph of the virtuous woman and Messiah Yeshua in Revelation.

Hint: the Bear gets torched.

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Please join us for the next installment of Heaven Shaking the Persian Bear, as we discuss "Bear Bones."

I've created a dedicated Heaven Shaking the Bear playlist to make it easier to find the videos. Click if you missed past livestreams: Heaven is Shaking the Bear Playlist

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In this next installment of Heaven Shaking the Persian Bear, we'll take a closer look at the Bear kings of the East who were drawn into the Euphrates in the past as a pattern for the future.

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I've created a dedicated Heaven Shaking the Bear playlist to make it easier to find the videos. Click if you missed past livestreams: Heaven is Shaking the Bear Playlist

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Iran in Prophecy

Bear Bones in the Euphrates

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Here is the handout from The Crypto-Bear livestream.

In this next installment of Heaven Shaking the Persian Bear, we'll take a closer look at the dawn demise of the bear in the River Euphrates per John's account in Revelation and the first Exodus as well as take a look at a pattern in the feasts that call the righteous out of Babylon before the opening/closing of the Euphrates River event.

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Here is the handout from The Crypto-Bear livestream.

In this installment of Heaven Shaking the Persian Bear, we'll take a closer look at the bear's feet in real time and whether Iran's current blockade situation is as powerful as we think in confining the bear.

And the beast which I saw was like a leopard, and his feet were like those of a bear, and his mouth like the mouth of a lion. And the dragon gave him his power and his throne and great authority.” (Re 13:2)

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Here is the handout from The Crypto-Bear livestream.

In this next podcast will be the next installment of Heaven Shaking the Persian Bear. We'll explain why the abomination is mute and why it desolates.

I've created a dedicated Heaven Shaking the Bear playlist to make it easier to find the videos. Click here if you missed past livestreams: Heaven is Shaking the Bear Playlist

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In this next installment of Heaven Shaking the Persian Bear, we'll revisit the 21 days of Daniel, the 42 months, and a mirror, or chiasm, of prophecy.

I've created a dedicated Heaven Shaking the Bear playlist to make it easier to find the videos. Click here if you missed past livestreams: Heaven is Shaking the Bear Playlist.

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Iran in Prophecy

This Week: The Crypto Bear

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In this next installment of Heaven Shaking the Persian Bear we have a special guest, Kyle Bevel, on to discuss the rise of cryptocurrency in the clay feet of the Beast.

I've created a dedicated Heaven Shaking the Bear playlist to make it easier to find the videos. Click here if you missed past livestreams: Heaven is Shaking the Bear Playlist

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Iran in Prophecy

This Week: The Bear Fight

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In this next installment of Heaven Shaking the Persian Bear we will take a close look at why Gabriel had to return to fight against the Prince of Persia even after his visit with Daniel.

I've created a dedicated Heaven Shaking the Bear playlist to make it easier to find the videos. Click here if you missed past livestreams: Heaven is Shaking the Bear Playlist

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Iran in Prophecy

This Week: We're Bear Foot

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In today's installment of Heaven Shaking the Persian Bear I plan to further explain the role of money hardwired into the nature of the sinking bear beast. This end-time coinage was predicted from traditional rabbinic scholarship on the image of the beast as seen by Daniel, especially in the iron and clay feet. This is an additional right-here-right-now fulfillment of prophecy even beyond the significance of the silver market we saw last Shabbat. The possibility of this economic fulfillment of the image of the beast being a coincidence is likely incalculable.

I've created a dedicated Heaven Shaking the Bear playlist to make it easier to find the videos. Click here if you missed past livestreams: Heaven is Shaking the Bear Playlist

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This week's installment of Heaven Shaking the Persian Bear, I explain the role of money hardwired into the nature of the sinking bear beast and why it is crucial to the "fall, fall" of Babylon the great and the rolling up of the heavenly scroll of principalities and powers.

Click here if you missed the livestreams Principalities and Powers , Heaven Shaking the Bear, Heaven is Shaking the Bear Part Four, Heaven is Shaking the Bear Part Five, Heaven Shaking the Bear Part Six, Heaven Shaking the Bear Part Seven, Heaven is Shaking the Bear Part Eight, and Heaven Shaking the Bear Part Nine.

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Iran in Prophecy

This Week: Silver Bears, Silver Bears

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This podcast will be the next installment of Heaven Shaking the Persian Bear in which I plan to explain the Strait of Hormuz and Persian Gulf in the present conflict as it pertains to the decree of the scroll.

Click here if you missed the livestreams Principalities and Powers , Heaven Shaking the Bear, Heaven is Shaking the Bear Part Four, Heaven is Shaking the Bear Part Five, Heaven Shaking the Bear Part Six, Heaven Shaking the Bear Part Seven, Heaven is Shaking the Bear Part Eight

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Iran in Prophecy

This Week: The Worldwide Bear Scroll Tax

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In this next installment of Heaven Shaking the Persian Bear I explain the aggadah of the specific power awarded to Dobiel over the Persian bear kings in the symbolic scroll and how it influenced through the kingdoms of the beast around the earth. We'll briefly discuss the significance of the Strait of Hormuz and Persian Gulf in the present conflict as it pertains to the decree of the scroll.

Click here if you missed the livestreams Principalities and Powers , Heaven Shaking the Bear, Heaven is Shaking the Bear Part Four, Heaven is Shaking the Bear Part Five, Heaven Shaking the Bear Part Six, or Heaven Shaking the Bear Part Seven

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Iran in Prophecy

This Week: The Scroll, the Blood Moon, and the Persian Bear Kings

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The Shabbat livestream will be the next installment of Heaven Shaking the Persian Bear in which I plan to explain the sky-scroll, the blackened sun and blood moon, along with a specific power awarded to Dobiel over the Persian bear kings in the symbolic scroll...that could now be broken depending upon the outcome of the current conflict.

Click here if you missed the livestreams Principalities and Powers , Heaven Shaking the Bear, Heaven is Shaking the Bear Part Four, Heaven is Shaking the Bear Part Five or Heaven Shaking the Bear Part Six

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Iran in Prophecy

This Week: The Bear Prince Dobiel and the Scroll

Hello, everyone.

Once again, as I'm gathering information and assembling Scripture for such a time as this, there is just enough time to prepare notes for the Shabbat lesson, but not enough time to edit a full newsletter teaching. Perhaps when it is complete, we can put together a transcript for those of you who prefer to read rather than listen.

This Shabbat podcast will be the next installment of Heaven Shaking the Persian Bear in which I plan to explain the pattern of the sky-scroll in Isaiah and Revelation along with a specific power awarded to Dobiel in the symbolic scroll...that could now be broken depending upon the outcome of the current conflict.

Click here if you missed the livestream review of Principalities and Powers , Heaven Shaking the Bear, Heaven is Shaking the Bear Part Four or Heaven is Shaking the Bear Part Five

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Iran in Prophecy

This Week: The Bear Prince of Persia

Hello, everyone.

Once again, as I'm gathering information and assembling Scripture for such a time as this, there is just enough time to prepare notes for you this week, but not enough time to edit a full newsletter teaching. Scriptural numbers and dates are lining up with significance to the current situation in Iran faster than I can record and sort them.

In this next installment of Heaven Shaking the Persian Bear I plan to explain the pattern of the the Prince of Persia within Daniel and John's visions of the Beast Kingdom.

Click here if you missed the livestream review of Principalities and Powers , Heaven Shaking the Bear, or last week's Heaven is Shaking the Bear Part Four

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Iran in Prophecy

This Week: Provoking the Bear

This Shabbat we'll examine the provocation of the bear as found in the Scriptures concerning Elisha, the restoration of life springs in Jericho, the mocking boys, and the death of forty-two by the tearing she-bears. We'll see how it might pertain to the present situation in Iran, and time permitting, how the Persian bear and Roman board are related.

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Iran in Prophecy

Hello, everyone.

Last week in the livestream, we did a brief review of Principalities and Powers for those newer to the CG teaching, and tomorrow we'll look more into the "bear" aspect of the Beast kingdom, the abomination that causes desolation, and the significance of the number 42 to the Beast and how it might pertain to the present situation in Iran. Please join us.

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It's a principle of Scripture.

Prophecy is not fulfilled only once. It is fulfilled repeatedly at appointed times.

It’s a cycle, not a one-off.

This is why we observe the appointed times of Scripture. What has happened before will happen again, sometimes in a reversal of events. The prophecy is not fulfilled exactly as it was before, but the template doesn't change.

At this very moment I write, the Persian people have revolted yet again against the Islamist regime by the millions, taking over streets in city after city in Iran. The coming days will test whether this latest revolt will uproot the Islamists that took power in 1979. The current uprising is estimated to have begun "around December 28."

The Biblical Fast of the 10th of Tevet began the morning of December 30, but the 10th of Tevet began the evening of December 29th. Coincidence?

That's why we fast the four fasts mentioned in Zechariah. The Fast of the 10th of Tevet remembers the tragedy of the Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, beginning the siege against Jerusalem and the beginning of the end of the First Temple. Babylon was the first beast kingdom, the head of the image. Persia succeeded it, swallowing and enlarging territory.

Over the last several days, the Iranian people have been targeting Islamist seminaries, mosques, and institutions.

In an interesting reversal, the Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, the son of the exiled Shah (King) of Iran, is the one calling on the Persian people to rise up and overthrow the Islamic clerics’ religious governmental hold in favor of a democracy. Many Iranians are calling for the return of the monarchy, tearing down the flags of the Islamic Republic, and putting up the old Iranian flag that flew before the Shah was deposed.

Crown Prince Pahlavi's daughter Princess Iman Pahlavi recently married Jewish-American Bradley Sherman. The Persian Queen Esther, was actually Hadassah, a Jewish exile who married the Persian King Ahasuerus. It was a marriage that brought salvation to the Jews nation, designated to die by wicked Haman, may his name be blotted out. Some of the protestors are posting messages, “The Lion and Eagle will rise again together and once again live in peace,” meaning Iran and Israel. “The Lion of Judah and the Lion of Persia will rise again.”

I offer no judgment on these things, just to offer a few illustrations of what is being done and said in this revolution.

So what we’re seeing is a shaking according to the pattern. What happened to Judah in ancient times, the Babylonian siege against Jerusalem and the seat of Israelite religious life, is occurring in Iran, a territory encompassing both the golden lion of Babylon and the silver bear of Medo-Persia. The Persian people are laying siege to the religious centers and strongholds, demanding regime change, tearing down statues of Islamic terrorist “heroes” such as Soleimani.

They are repenting of their grandparents’ choice of an Islamic beast cleric to lead their nation. They are chanting against the Islamist clerics’ funding of weapons, including the rockets, against Israel. They are chanting against the billions paid out to terrorist organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah while Iranians go without basic services, such as clean water. The old “sun and lion” flag of pre-Revolutionary Iran is appearing everywhere, even replacing the Islamic Republic’s flag on X.

Let’s backtrack. What precipitated this Tenth of Tevet Iranian Uprising? During Chanukkah, I posted this Scripture from Haggai, which is the prophecy of Chanukkah. Chanukkah is tied prophetically to Daniel’s prophecies of “the abomination that causes desolation.” Haggai prophesies that the first day of the event we know as Chanukkah, or the Feast of Dedication, will commemorate a power change, a deliverance from the oppression of a beast government:

• “…from the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month; from the day when the temple of the LORD was founded, consider: Is the seed still in the barn? Even including the vine, the fig tree, the pomegranate and the olive tree, it has not borne fruit. Yet from this day on I will bless you.’”

Haggai continues, highlighting that the appointed time of the prophecy will mark a shaking of the heavens and the earth, which is movement within the principalities and powers that govern the nations:

• “Then the word of the LORD came a second time to Haggai on the twenty-fourth day of the month, saying, “Speak to Zerubbabel governor of Judah, saying, ‘I am going to shake the heavens and the earth. I will overthrow the thrones of kingdoms and destroy the power of the kingdoms of the nations; and I will overthrow the chariots and their riders, and the horses and their riders will go down, everyone by the sword of another.’ ‘On that day,’ declares the LORD of hosts, ‘I will take you, Zerubbabel, son of Shealtiel, My servant,’ declares the LORD, ‘and I will make you like a signet ring, for I have chosen you,’” declares the LORD of hosts.” (Hag 2:18-23)

Although the prophecy is specifically for Israel in a time of return and rebuilding after exile, it pinpoints a timetable that runs in the heavenlies, which in turn will affect the earth. The Prophet Haggai’s Hebrew name is Chaggai, “my feast.” A chag is an appointed time, usually marked by a feast.

While Chaggai prophesies of the time when Chanukkah will occur in the epoch of the Greek leopard beast, it is accepted that Chanukkah was instituted to remember a missed chag of Sukkot (Feast of Tabernacles) because the Temple was not yet cleansed of the abomination that causes desolation, a detail prophesied by Daniel. Sukkot, by the way, was when the Temple was founded, precisely pinpointing Chanukkah, an event that had not yet occurred. That abomination of desolation is not a one-time thing. Each beast kingdom finds a way to do it. There is yet an abomination situated on the Temple Mount.

The appointed principalities and powers that rule from the heavenlies were adjusted, shaken out of the way to accommodate the returned status of the Jews from Babylonian captivity and the cooperation of Medo-Persia in the transition. This shaking of principalities and powers is also described in the Book of Revelation, a sign that the twelve tribes have repented, returned, and are ready to take up their appointed control of the twelve gates of Jerusalem, another way of saying they will judge the earth with the reigning Messiah Yeshua.

The timetable is of particular interest to us this year because the first day of Chanukkah (24th/25th of Kislev), as Chaggai prophesied, is a day when the principalities and powers were adjusted. Nothing changed in the visible world immediately, but powers of nations shake in the spiritual domain. The next appointed time after Chanukkah is the 10th of Tevet, the Tenth Month, a fast day instituted to mourn the beginning of King Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylonian siege of Jerusalem. It was the beginning of the end for Jerusalem and the First Holy Temple.

The 10th of Tevet is considered a “minor” fast day because it is not in the Torah, but in the Prophet Zechariah 8:19:

• “Thus says the LORD of hosts, ‘The fast of the fourth, the fast of the fifth, the fast of the seventh and the fast of the tenth months will become joy, gladness, and cheerful feasts for the house of Judah; so love truth and peace.'”

It is hard to define modern Iran as either Babylon or Persia, especially when it was infused with the Western influence of the third beast Greece during the reign of Alexander. Daniel described the fourth beast Rome as a conglomerate of the kingdoms that had gone before. So are the modern systems of the beast.

The bear swallowed the lion. The leopard swallowed the bear. The Roman beast emerged from between the Western Greece bronze beast and the Eastern golden lion and silver bear; Rome swallowed them all, morphing and developing the most effective power tools of each kingdom: military, religion, politics, government, medicine, athletics, arts, philosophy, education...whatever worked.

The beast systems work in three stages:

·     Invitation, baiting with things people want

·     Coercion, application of pressure through punishment for non-compliance

·     Death

In Iran, the Islamic regime used this exact progression to gain control of a flowering country in the Middle East in 1979. Recognizing that the shah was introducing modern Western technology and changes too quickly for a traditionally conservative nation (think of Marty McFly going from “Earth Angel” to a heavy metal version of “Johnny B. Goode” in under two minutes in Back to the Future), along with too many other historical and political factors to explain short of recommending a reading list, the Islamists baited the youth of the nation, but when the ayatollah took power, it turned into bait-n-switch.

When the Iranian people realized it wasn’t what they signed up for, it was too late.

The compliance squads round up and torture or kill those who object. They repress every rebellion. They persecute the growing underground church. They threaten and imprison the tiny Jewish community still left in the country if they don’t speak support for the regime. They imprison, torture, and kill women who don't wear the hijab.

That’s how the beast works.

But today, the beast shakes.

If you are unfamiliar with the Biblical calendar, the beast kingdoms of Daniel’s prophecy, or how principalities and powers exert influence over the earth, we have the following available on YouTube, and our Creation Gospel workbook classes will help establish a good foundation for understanding the Biblical feasts and calendar. To enroll, scroll down.

The Fast of Tevet

A Concise History of the Beast

Principalities and Powers Part One

Principalities and Powers Part Two

Perhaps next week, we can speak more to the abomination that causes desolation and Dobiel, the Prince of Persia who is thought to have fought Gabriel.

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Last week's newsletter was written to be very simple. This week...not simple. We're tying together our lessons on the Salt Covenant, The Scarlet Harlot, and the basic menorah pattern of Workbook One. So no, it's not simple, but it's not too difficult, either! Try printing it off and studying it over two Shabbats, referencing the suggested videos or workbooks as you go.

***

So what do noisy doors, leaky roofs, and the mark of the beast have in common? 

Excellent question! I’m glad you asked.

In order to see the connection, we have to know a little something about each of them. If you want a refresher on the Beast, consider signing up for the Creation Gospel Workbook Four class coming up with Kisha Gallagher (scroll down for info) or watching the Scarlet Harlot series on YouTube. You can also refresh your memory on the meaning of the mezuzah with our "More Than" YouTube videos. We’ll cover a few basics here to tie it together.

“Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me…”

Yeshua standing at the door knocking is a huge hint, especially on the heels of John’s sobering prophecies of the mark of the beast in Revelation. If we can’t see the link to the world commercial system as “Babylon” in Revelation, we’re not trying very hard. Revelation begins with memos to the seven assemblies emphasizing their need to “overcome” the tribulations John is about to describe,

• “Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me. He who overcomes, I will grant to him to sit down with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” (Re 3:14-21)

We can conclude that how to overcome is described in Revelation, but we can also conclude that an ignorance of the Torah will make our understanding only partial. Revelation is written as an incredibly intricate re-telling of the Torah portions. Without an understanding of those Torah portions, it will be difficult to be identified as one of those who overcome when they “keep the testimony of Yeshua and the commandments of God.”

If Yeshua knocks on the door of one of these potential overcomers, he knocks on a door that is marked by a mezuzah, which contains summaries of the commandments. To pull in the themes of our Salt Covenant study over the last several weeks, a mezuzah is a sign that those inside the house know to be salty within, tenderly and joyfully salting their commandment-keeping. Because they are pliable to the work of the Ruach HaKodesh within the house, they are ready to meet the challenges of the Beast outside the house.

The mezuzah is their reminder that they’ve committed their coming and going, especially their work and business dealings, to preserving their covenant with the Father with salt, for savory salt is our faith, the tenderness we have toward His Word. It is our desire to draw close to Him through our sacrifices, not begrudgingly or to be admired by others, but to give glory to the Father. Yeshua reminds us that he also wants to draw near to our salty selves, so he stands at the door and knocks.

Just imagine that the mezuzah on your door was Yeshua standing there each day inquiring if he may accompany you in your coming and going.

Because he is.

The custom is to touch one’s fingers to the mezuzah and kiss the fingers. It demonstrates affection and tenderness toward the Shma and other scriptures in the mezuzah, which remind us in our coming and going Who the only Source of wealth is. The name Shaddai is inscribed on mezuzot, which is the name describing His attribute of nourishment and supply.

By touching the mezuzah, we also are reminded like the Israelites in Deuteronomy Eight: “Otherwise, you may say in your heart, ‘My power and the strength of my hand made me this wealth.’ But you shall remember the LORD your God, for it is He who is giving you power to make wealth, that He may confirm His covenant which He swore to your fathers...”

The mezuzah on the door marks the boundary between what happens when we go into the world and how we are inside our homes. If we are at war inside our homes, then how will we war against the principalities and powers outside our homes? The shin on the tefillin reminds the person Who opens the Heavenly windows to drip down zuzim, or coins, transactions, in our lives. Zuz is found in the word mezuzah, but the letter shin is found on both the mezuzah and the prayer tefillin.

Because they are worn in prayer, it helps one to adjust those trade prayers according to Yeshua’s model…daily bread…forgiveness…holiness…His will and glory on earth…protection from temptation to sin.

Ever notice how many famous actors, musicians, and sports stars end up unhappy, addicted, disconnected from the real world, and just plain weird? We are not spiritually wired to receive the glory of Heaven, only to reflect the glory of Heaven outward with salt. Of course they get weird and depressed!

Our labor and business dealings outside the home must be salted and lit from within first. We must extend ourselves from within, or it will eventually be evident to the world that we did not exert ourselves according to our wealth of salvation and light.nIt is thought that the marks of tzaraat (leprosy) that appeared in a home were a result of greed and stinginess. When the priests removed everything inside to the outside to quarantine and scrape the stones, everyone would see the wealth concealed inside, especially if they'd pretended not to have enough to help the needy brother.

The “best third” is where the mezuzah is placed on a door, the upper third, like an upper room. The mezuzah marks the right hand frame of the door about 2/3 of the way up: “Mezuzah guards the Covenant, and so observing the mitzvah of mezuzah leads a person to truth and faith, the faith which is absolutely necessary when conducting business.” 

“And I will bring the third part through the fire,

Refine them as silver is refined,

And test them as gold is tested.

They will call on My name,

And I will answer them;

I will say, ‘They are My people,'

And they will say, ‘The LORD is my God.’” (Zec 13:9)

Yeshua invokes this prophecy in Zechariah when he warns the Laodiceans in Revelation Three that he is standing at the door knocking: “Because you say, “I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing,” and you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked, I advise you to buy from Me gold refined by fire so that you may become rich…”

This is where we see another connection to the mezuzah. Zechariah prophesies of the “third part.” This is thought to be the remnant that will come through the tribulation refined by fire instead of destroyed by it. They have not succumbed to the Beast’s commercial activity, buying and selling excessively or on Shabbat (see CG Workbook Four or Workbook Two). Traditionally, the mezuzah is affixed at a pointing on the right side of the door 2/3 of the way up the door. To relate the thirds, the mezuzah is like the principle of the “upper room” we’ve studied over the last several weeks. 

Ancient Israelite houses typically had two levels, a ground level where beasts were stabled and practical household work such as cooking and weaving took place, but the family quarters were on the second floor. An extra upper room had to be built either on the second floor or atop the family quarters, making it an upper third. More simply, an upper room was where the family made space for visitors, a space that wasn’t there, yet they created the space through hospitality.

Those upper rooms in Scripture were places associated with hospitality toward the righteous visitor as well as resurrection from the dead, like the stories of Elijah, Elisha, Dorcas, and Eutychus. A mezuzah reminds us not to neglect making those spaces of hospitality for the righteous visitor, who represents hospitality toward Yeshua and the Living Word. Yeshua’s noisy knocking on the door is a daily reminder that when we make an “upper room” of hospitality, then we are actually tapping into the Garden of Eden. The resurrections in the upper rooms of Scripture show us this. 

On the mezuzah is either the Name Shaddai, or it is in the shorthand of the first Hebrew letter shin. Not so coincidentally, the tefillin that are placed on an Israelite male’s forehead and arm are also marked with a shin (see above). The mezuzah and tefillin remind each day:

• Hear, O Israel! The LORD our God, the LORD is one! And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart; and you shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up. And you shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. And you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. (Dt 6:4-9) 

Deuteronomy 8:11-19 reminds Israel not to be deceived when they become comfortable and prosperous in the Land, for their wealth will deceive them into thinking they earned it with their own hand. Remember the gumballs?

The tefillin on the hand and arm are a reminder that it is YHVH alone who gives the power to acquire wealth. Likewise, the mezuzah is marked with a shin for Shaddai, the One who provides sustenance, nourishment to Israel. Strangely, the shin is made of three Hebrew letters vav joined at the bottom. The gematria value of vav is six. 666. 

Whaaaaat? Yes, it’s the mark of the beast. But that’s not the whole story. The mezuzah and tefillin are NOT the mark of the beast. The mark of the beast is when you get very close to being a salt covenant household or person, yet you have something lacking. Salt. Your daily work is not to acquire the wealth of the Kingdom to the glory of the Father, which can only be done through the power of the Ruach HaKodesh moving through the Word in you. The mark of the beast is when our daily work is to acquire the object of desire for our own sake. We can hear the disingenuous, unsalty believer when he says, “If God will just let me win the lottery, I’ll build orphanages and feed the poor all over the world.”

And he probably will. But he will do it only in order to feed his own desires first. He's not really seeking first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. He's pursuing his own kingdom, offering God a deal that the Kingdom of Heaven will benefit from the scraps. Such a person will not give commensurately with his newfound wealth, for he is stingy at heart. Unsavory salt. Tepid. Lukewarm. Blechhhh!

The secret of the 666 is that it is only the letter of the Torah without the Ruach. The shin is like a menorah when the backlight of the Ruach shines through it (again, see Workbooks 2 & 4). Remember last week’s lesson on the gumball machine? It was what you couldn’t see that had to occur before what you could see. The Ruach precedes the letter of the Torah. Together, with the spiritual backlight through the literal three vavs, it yields seven, the seven- branched menorah. One tefillin has three vavs, but its mate has four! 3 + 4 = 7.

Compare to the above:

To be unsalty is 666. To be salty is to shine the seven spirits of Adonai described in Isaiah and Revelation:

  •  wisdom

  •  understanding

  •  counsel

  •  Spirit of Adonai

  •  power

  •  knowledge

  •  reverence 

Yeshua, the Living Word, is the doorkeeper of the overcoming household. We never want to reduce him to someone there to reward us with wealth. The word mezuzah comes from a Hebrew word meaning movement, going back and forth. The historical zuz was a coin, about a day’s sustenance for one adult:

• Weight: About 4.26 grams (0.137 troy ounces) of silver.
• Value: Historically equivalent to a day's wage or a portion of food/clothing, (e.g., 200 zuz was a year's support). 
• Modern value would be about $20.

"Give us today our daily bread." Not the lottery.

Not so coincidentally, a mezuzah means more than movement. It is rooted as well in the movement of a beast:

What starts out as a beautiful creation of spirit (upper room), soul and body (lower rooms), can degenerate into the mark of the beast. Instead of letting the Ruach drip into our lower rooms of work and family, the upper room is sealed off because of our stinginess and greed. Esau and Jacob had very different motives in asking for blessings. We can become unsavory, relentless hunters like Esau, the Red One, nicknamed Edom because he was red and hairy all over like a beast, a man of the field who loved hunting. We don’t want to become marked by the Red One, never satisfied, even on Shabbat.

“…and he provides that no one will be able to buy or to sell except the one who has the mark, either the name of the beast or the number of his name.” (Re 13:17)

Nehemiah’s struggles with those returning to rebuild Jerusalem and the Temple, especially in their continued buying and selling on Shabbat, are the reference point. He eventually had to order the gates of Jerusalem shut and locked to prevent the vendors from coming in with their goods. How glorious will it be when the gates no longer need to be shut, for no one will even entertain the idea of disobeying the King of King’s command to rest and be with Him in Jerusalem on Shabbat.

Knock, knock.

In short, the mark of the beast is on one who buys and sells on Shabbat. Because there is no trust in Adonai to provide the many things we crave, we continue to work on His holy day. Someone who believes in God may have salt, but it is not savory. One who believes in God enough to do what He says is savory salt. Salt allows us to draw near the upper room of the Garden. I'm sure Yeshua is having wonderful conversations with the righteous souls of those who just didn't understand Shabbat, but they were faithful in what they knew. They are learning while they wait, not rebelling.

Ezekiel describes what went wrong in the “upper room” of the Garden of Eden, a hospitable place for those who want to draw near to the voice of Elohim, but a place from which rebels are purged. The “trader” was cast out of the heavenly fiery stones and tossed into the lower realms of strange, profane fire, that is, fire used by those estranged from the upper room fires of the Ruach above:

You were in Eden, the garden of God;

​​Every precious stone was your covering:

​​The sardius, topaz, and diamond, beryl, onyx, and jasper,

​​Sapphire, turquoise, and emerald with gold.

​​The workmanship of your timbrels and pipes

​​Was prepared for you on the day you were created.

​

You were the anointed cherub who covers; I established you;

​​You were on the holy mountain of God;

​​You walked back and forth in the midst of fiery stones.

You were perfect in your ways from the day you were created,

​​Till iniquity was found in you.

​

By the abundance of your trading

​​You became filled with violence within, and you sinned;

​​Therefore I cast you as a profane thing out of the mountain of God;

​​And I destroyed you, O covering cherub, from the midst of the fiery stones. (Eze 28:13-16; 18)

Ezekiel 28 drops a hint to where we should be vigilant: “By the abundance of your trading [H7404 rekula] you became filled with violence within, and you sinned...”

רָכַל rawkal’ [H7402] to travel for trading

Our trade is part of work for our living, yet, the abundance is the danger zone. If our inner fire craves more wealth than we are willing to give back to Heaven commensurately, our going back and forth, zuzing about, to trade our time and effort for goods, power, and esteem becomes idolatry. In Hebrew, moving back and forth is zuz [zuz is also a coin], the root of mezuzah. The mezuzah marks the door where we travel back and forth each day to obtain our portion of wealth.

When our pursuit of wages and wealth pushes the testimony of Yeshua and the commandments of God beneath our feet instead of allowing them to drip daily from the upper room of the resurrection Ruach that raised Messiah from the dead, we sin. Our house's upper room should be designed to drip to lower floors of daily living, or we become unsavory salt.

We trade our precious lives, our time, our effort, to accumulate an abundance of things, not necessarily money, but what money will purchase: entertainment, security, comfort, esteem, power, knowledge, appeasement, etc. These things deceive us into believing they will bring joy and peace, but we know it’s a lie because they never do. They are simply offered to the strange, consuming fire of the soul, but are not refinement of the spirit, which is everlasting peace and joy. It brings savory salt, light, and contentment from within. 

The ancient investment advice is:

• Invest 1/3 of your income in tangible property such as real estate, durable goods, secure long-term investments 
• Invest 1/3 in your daily labor, your paycheck, investments that provide a faster return, a little riskier, easily liquidated
• Invest 1/3 above the mezuzah in the Kingdom of Heaven by lending to the poor, giving to needy, investing time in spiritual causes along with Torah study, prayer, service, discussing Scripture with others, etc. Even kindness is an investment!

We should not become “stingy” with Heavenly principles in the world of work, which would reflect a home’s lower rooms sealed off from the upper room. The upper room should drip the testimony of Yeshua and the noisy commandments of God through the power of the resurrection Ruach. It leaks into the lower rooms of family and work!

The leaky roof is what we need to carry into the world of work and business as well as our relationships. An outwardly successful business producing wealth that can only be spent before the resurrection of the dead is not successful at all. 

Preparation in the home under the disciplines of the Ruach HaKodesh will be evident in the place of business, not as a pile of 666 cash, but as peace in drawing near the Father, salt. The physical work is simply a means of building the Kingdom instead of demanding that the Father bless our work to build our own kingdoms of security, esteem, attention, comfort, intellectual stimulation, etc. Whether we have little or many zuzim, all we need to remember is that we must give commensurately with the wealth the Father drips down upon us. 

If we can be responsible even with earthly money, which has no righteousness within itself, then we can be responsible with Heavenly riches.

If we can’t be trusted to give commensurately with our wealth when there is no Temple service, and much freedom is granted in when and how much we give, then how can the Father trust us with His riches when the Temple on “the mountain of God” descends? The Temple services and the Land of Israel are places of extreme exactness in managing work and wealth.

Manage earthly zuzim faithfully, and we will inherit the Heavenly riches to manage. 

One of my favorite movies is about a Quaker family, from the book Friendly Persuasion. One of the funniest lines is, “Friend, thee’s got a squeaky door upstairs.” 

Friend, thee’s got a squeaky door downstairs, too. Yeshua is knocking, reminding, inquiring, requesting if we will open to his voice. It is the same voice of Elohim that walked and talked in the Garden, an upper room.

When we open our doors to him, we release the water of the Word from our upper rooms and let it fill our homes, workplaces, and relationships. If we move about, may we zuz for the glory of the Father. 

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for the young and young at heart.

Sit down, young folks, and I'll tell you a story of long ago. 

There was a time when I, too, was young, and we used money you could hold, put in your pocket, and drop into vending machines. Ladies carried coin purses especially for coins. Coins were collected carefully, sorted, and counted because we would save them up to buy something, maybe a comic book or a pint of ice cream. In emergencies, we'd use those coins for lunch money, a little embarrassed if we didn't have two quarters to hand the cashier. Everyone knew if you paid with dimes, nickels, and pennies, your parents had come up short.

Coins could also be used as toys. You could play something like a cross between table hockey and marbles (look up how to play marbles) with coins, and I liked setting up basketball and football plays with them the way coaches use whiteboards now. Boys sometimes played quarters, but I couldn't afford to lose mine, so I didn't play that game.

One of the great things about coins was that back then, people paid for things with money, and they received change in coins. Dad would empty his pockets of change coins into an old ashtray at the end of the day along with bits of red, blue, and white electrical wire, leftover screws, plastic wire nuts, and guitar picks. What I aimed for, though, was making sure those pockets were emptied before we made it back home.

While Dad paid the cashier at a restaurant, I'd inspect the area around the cashier for gumball machines. There was usually at least one. I always checked the dispenser because sometimes a good Samaritan would leave a piece of gum, or if you turned the lever, a stuck piece might drop out. The timing was important, though. Just as the cashier would hand Dad his change, hopefully with lots of coins, I'd dash in and beam my most angelic smile.

I could usually score at least enough coins for one gumball, and on a good day, two. If he was short on dollar bills, then my gumballs would be forfeited for the tip. Dad always tipped. Everyone should. Even if you can't buy a gumball. Here's why.

There's a passage in Scripture that teaches about gumballs. Don't believe me? Listen closely:

• "Be careful that you do not forget the LORD your God, failing to observe his commands, his laws and his decrees that I am giving you this day. Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down, and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied, then your heart will become proud and you will forget the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. He led you through the vast and dreadful wilderness, that thirsty and waterless land, with its venomous snakes and scorpions. He brought you water out of hard rock. He gave you manna to eat in the wilderness, something your ancestors had never known, to humble and test you so that in the end it might go well with you. You may say to yourself, “My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.” But remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your ancestors, as it is today." (Dt 8:11-18)

God is explaining to the Israelites that the gumball machine doesn't work like they think it does. At first, they were in the wilderness. The Father gave them manna every morning; all they had to do was pick it up. It was like the gumballs just started rolling out of the machine all by themselves.

When they enter the Land of Israel, though, they will have to do something their parents' generation never had to do: sow, cultivate, reap, and thresh to make the produce they'd eat. The extent of the wilderness food effort was their gathering manna that miraculously appeared each morning except Shabbat. God let them be a only little hungry in the wilderness to test them. He didn't starve them, just let them get a little hungry.

Being a little hungry is not a horrible thing, but it was their test to see if their hunger would make them angry with God for not making everything completely comfortable. When we don't get what we want when we want, often we become angry with other people, which is a sign we're angry with God. We think we deserve better. We think if God made us, He should treat us better. That's a test probably everyone but Yeshua has failed at one time or another.

When the Israelites entered the Promised Land, they would be blessed to work and accumulate their own wealth. The danger was that they might be deceived into thinking their wealth was a result of their own efforts. They might think they put the coins in the machine, exerted the effort, and therefore, gumballs would fall freely because they turned the lever. They could become pretty proud of themselves for making so much money by planting and harvesting crops. 

But the Heavenly Father is not a gumball machine, and the Land of Israel doesn't just produce crops because Israelites plant, cultivate, and harvest.

When I was really young, I never thought about how the gumballs got into the machine or who put the machine there. I only knew that if a coin went in, and I turned the lever, gum would roll out. The coin and I were all that really mattered. When I grew a little older, I realized that someone put the machine there to make money, usually for some charity listed on a sticker, and someone came and refilled the machine even though I never saw it happening. 

If what I didn't see didn't happen first, then what I saw and did couldn't happen later. 

The gumball machine owner supplied gum for me to buy, but it also provided the profit to the needy. If I’d known that earlier, I’d have pressed a lot harder for extra coins to buy more gumballs to “help the needy.” 

And there’s the problem in our fallen human nature. We’re greedy. Would as many people just drop coins in a charity box as they did the gumball machine? 

I think many would. And Israelites should.

On Erev Shabbat, we have a chance to do that, to drop coins in a charity box without receiving anything, gumballs included, in return. It’s called a tzedekah box. Before lighting the Shabbat candles, we drop some money in a tzedekah box, and when the container is full, the money is given to a worthy cause.

Israelites should be willing to give because the Heavenly Father gave to them first, and they want to share with others. They know they didn’t earn the money alone. The Heavenly Father released that money with His own hand in an unseen action. If that unseen action didn’t take place, then we wouldn’t have the ability to earn it. 

To understand it takes something called faith. “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, and the evidence of things not seen.” (He 11:1) Do we literally see the Father release our income? No, we can’t. It happens in a spiritual realm, which is something very difficult for our eyes to see and our mind to believe. And yet, it’s the truth!

Not one seed would grow if the Word was not releasing it to do so. The Father watches His special creations, human beings, and must shake His head when they believe they earned their money without Him. Just because a gumball fell out of the machine after we worked to get the coin, put it in the machine, and turned the lever, that doesn’t mean we alone made the gumball appear. An Israelite must be different from other people who don't know or believe that.

The Heavenly Father opens a window in Heaven, which gives us the power to earn money and profit from our labors. It’s a mistake to think that we alone are responsible for how much or how little we have. Something happens first that we don’t see, and that allows us to do our work and earn. 

We, in turn, have the power to give some of that wealth to others. If we believe that something happened first: the Heavenly Father created everything, including us, and He supplies seeds, sun, and rain to make things grow, and then He opens an unseen door to release the increase when we work, then we understand the truth of the gumball machine. We have no reason to be stingy with others because the Father has not been stingy with us. He said we should remember this because it is part of our Covenant with Him. An agreement.

In this case, our agreement is that no matter how much it seems only our efforts produced our coins, we’ll believe the Father first made us able to do so. That truth of our faith will trigger us to in turn do what is in our ability to bless others. Instead of saying, “The work of my hand got me this, so it’s mine to keep,” we’ll share a generous portion with the needy because the Father's hand was in it. We're in a real partnership with Him, not just standing there waiting with our empty baskets in the wilderness every morning.

This is how we lend that money to the Father until He decides to open up Heaven a little more for the needy person:

• "One who is gracious to a poor man lends to the LORD, and He will repay him for his good deed." (Pr 19:17)

But just like the faith that sees the unseen, releasing the power to work and make money, that same faith sees that the repayment, or at least most of it, the Father holds in our heavenly bank accounts for us to have in eternity. Imagine that...a loan that will be repaid to us forever. Gumballs rolling through infinity.

“Faith was never meant to replace action. It was meant to guide it.” - Juda Honickman

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I've been thinking a lot lately about greed. That's because in our short break from Song of Songs, we've studied salt covenant in our weekly Zoom classes. Although it's only about eight weeks of material, it's been packed with very practical ideas to improve our spiritual life today.

In particular, what's been weighing in my thoughts is the premise that unsavory salt, the kind that has lost its savor, is at its root, greed. In short, our study has dug into Yeshua's question about salt losing its flavor. How do you make it salty again? The salt had savor at some point, but then lost it.

If you review the last newsletters, Scripture specified that salt is something that comes from within a person. It is a softness and tenderness toward the Word and one's neighbor. It's the best part of our sacrifices for the Kingdom and Covenant that fulfills it, and without the salt, commandment-keeping is lacking:

• Every grain offering of yours, moreover, you shall season with salt, so that the salt of the covenant of your God shall not be lacking from your grain offering; with all your offerings you shall offer salt. (Le 2:13)

We can't put unsalty salt on a sacrifice or work of the Word:

• “Salt is good; but if the salt becomes unsalty, with what will you make it salty again? Have salt in yourselves and be at peace with one another.” (Mk 9:50)

“Have salt in yourselves → be at peace with one another.”

So if we lose saltiness, we aren't tender any longer.

We can actually keep the letter of the commandments, but when it doesn't come from a tenderness within us, it doesn't create peace. That's salt without savor, and those commandments are not acceptable sacrifices for the Covenant, which must not be lacking salt. Defective salt is like a defective animal. No go. Unaccepted. 

• Therefore, if you are presenting your offering at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your offering there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and present your offering. (Mt 5:23-24)

Leave the gift at the altar, go get salty again, make things right with your neighbor, then return, and the gift will be accepted because it came from tenderness toward the Father, which in turn made you tender toward His creation, your brother:

• “If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it.” (Ge 4:7)

Kain was told to put his happy face on with Abel, and then his gift would be accepted. Kain had short-changed the sacrifice by not bringing his best. He didn't bring first fruits; instead, he brought "of the fruit of the ground." Produce, just not his best. Begrudging, for sure. Instead of repenting of his greed, putting on his happy face, and bringing his best, he simply took out his anger and frustration with Elohim by killing his brother.

Put another way, we can be about the Father's business diligently, keeping His commandments, and because of worry and distraction about our income, we find ourselves self-employed, like Martha, who resented Mary's relationship to Yeshua in receiving the Word. Daily we have to remind ourselves to make an "upper room" in our twenty-four hours to simply sit before the Father's Word and soak up His Presence in study and prayer.

Doing things is important; it is the sacrifice we make for our families and the Body of Messiah. Without the salt from within, however, those works of the Covenant are lacking. The very meaning of sacrifice is "draw near," korban. 

Does doing a commandment draw us closer to the Father?

If not, it may have become our business instead of His. That's unsavory salt and greed. 

When we salt the mitzvot of the Covenant, we exert ourselves, just as savory salt comes from “within yourselves” to make peace with others. We must exert ourselves commensurate with our “wealth.” While money is the example, the object of our desires is obtained with currency, which can be money, yet we might traffic for influence, power, manipulation, etc. to obtain our desires. Money is simply the currency most commonly used for the transaction to satisfy our greed. Greed is undisciplined and un-discipled desire. Sin. Idolatry of self-serving.

It is easy to construe greed as a desire for money, or mammon, yet the less tangibles are nonetheless greedy: knowledge, esteem, security, attention, pleasure, etc. I have seen believers so drunk on the power of Scriptural knowledge that they habitually beat up their fellow servants with the Word. It is no longer the Father's business; instead, they have become self-employed. 

They use His Word not to draw people near the Father, but to enrich themselves. Maybe with donations, maybe with product sales, maybe with just a shot of self-esteem in soliciting invitations to speak or posting controversial statements designed to create a public dust-up for attention.

How can we know when someone is unsavory and self-employed, but they've hung out the shingle of "Kingdom Business"? 

It's more important to know when WE'VE done it. 

Remember, unsaltiness is an inside problem. You won't always see it on the outside. The sacrifice may look just perfect on the altar. 

And Yeshua took donations...a group of women followed him throughout his ministry all the way to the upper room, "ministering to him." They loved him all the way to death (Mt 27:55; Mk 15:41; Lk 23:49,55) Yeshua said controversial things, was a highly-sought-after speaker, and he was definitely in the middle of public dust-ups.

The difference is that Yeshua always did what he did and said what he said on actual Kingdom business. He was drawing people closer to the Father or exposing their self-employment in the commandments. His Spirit will help us to search our own hearts so that we don't become "moneychangers," encroaching on the holy places for our personal enrichment and deceiving people who think we're there to serve and help them draw close to the Presence. Instead, we're self-employed, working on our self-esteem needs or securing donations to fuel the fire of our pleasures.

This is something ministries need to soul-search daily, and it's something a royal priesthood should soul-search daily. That's all of us. 

As in my example of the "Nuts" in last week's newsletter, sometimes we have to decide whether we're occupied in interests and ministry we've chosen according to our desire, yet the actual fruit ready to harvest is in a different area. It will be a true sacrifice to do business there, but it's where the Father needs us, not where we want to work. At first.

The phenomenon is that if we will adjust our desire to His, sell out completely to draw near to the Father, our desire will actually change. Really! It will!

This is what Yeshua tried to tell the rich young ruler when he told him he still lacked one thing even though the young man had kept all the commandments since he was a boy. He lacked the savor of salt with his commandment-keeping. The young man did not have enough faith in The Word, Yeshua, that the desire in his heart for his wealth would be changed by selling it:

• "But he was sad at this word, and went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions." (Mk 10:22)

Salt is faith in the Word. It is what prevents us from becoming self-employed in unsavory commandment-keeping. The rich young man would never know the wonder and joy of finding a coin inside a fish's mouth or sharing a simple breakfast on the beach with the resurrected Messiah. A righteous king.

A truly rich man is one who is satisfied with what the Father puts in his hand from above, whether little or much; a truly poor man is one who is never satisfied with what he possesses below, whether little or much. 

A truly rich man rejoices in exerting himself and his resources in his Father's business; a truly poor man goes away sad.

Yeshua asks what we are anxious, worried, sad, and distracted about, even in doing the commandments, for they are how we withhold ourselves from him. These things dilute our salt. They may be our desire, but they are not the "best part" that brings peace, the part that we spend at his feet learning, talking to him, lingering in his Presence. This requires us to exert ourselves to bring the lacking salt. Maybe it means selling off some wrong ideas about things that mean a lot to us.

Mary sat at Yeshua's feet. She had to look up to him before she went to work. Martha did it backward. She worked, but because she was self-employed that day, she took out her frustration by blaming Mary and looking down on Yeshua's willingness to "discipline" her sister. She couldn't see he was discipling them both that day. She needed to look up first with joy in his presence.

Start with salt, the best part within. What we do each day is His business.

When we go into the world to give charity, be kind to others, speak peaceably, reconcile the world to their Creator, and shine the light of obeying the commandments, it will not be a labor of convenience. If we have prepared with salt, though, the exertion will be rewarding and change our taste.

Do I mean how we taste to others?

Or how we savor our labor for the King?

Yes.

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• The requirement of salt on all gifts and sacrifices
• Why salt must also accompany the commandments
• How the salt covenant relates to other types of covenant
• The essential element of human salt as seasoning
• The relationship between salt and light
• The salted Bread of Faces

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I wish I had a dollar for every time I've heard someone say, "It's just man's tradition. It's just a custom." At its worst misunderstanding, the tradition or custom is seen adversarial to Torah obedience and as evil. As a simply uninformed understanding, it's a lack of research or direction into how Yeshua taught and lived customs and traditions...of men.

For instance, the letter of the Torah does not say to go to a synagogue every Shabbat. But how should one "hear" the Word, which is a commandment? Synagogues were an answer to that question. The Torah was read every Shabbat, so Scripture tells us that Yeshua went to synagogue every Shabbat:

• And He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up; and as was His custom, He entered the synagogue on the Sabbath, and stood up to read. (Lk 4:16)

Yeshua wouldn't do something evil, so this was a good custom even if the Torah does not say, "Thou shalt enter the synagogue every Sabbath." How to differentiate among the direct mitzvah (commandment), the custom or tradition that helps one to do the mitzvah, and an outright tare? The answer comes from knowing that the Word is the seed from which we grow fruit and that the heart's intent is a vital indicator of the fruit grown from it. My offer to help with a Biblically sound way to look at customs and traditions for believers was to write the booklet: Truth, Tradition, or Tare: Growing in the Word.

This brings us back to our topic of hospitality over the last several weeks. Hospitality is how we invite the very Presence of Adonai into our homes, towns, and gatherings. In the following account of hospitality, the hostess is a woman named Martha, and she had a sister named Mary (Miriam). Custom dictated that a host or hostess like Abraham and Sarah provide a safe refuge, water for washing, and food and drink for their guests. It was customary. Traditional. Martha busied herself providing these customary things for Yeshua and his disciples, but Mary was more, well, I'm going to say it...not Custom Mary:

• Now as they were traveling along, He entered a village; and a woman named Martha welcomed Him into her home. She had a sister called Mary, who was seated at the Lord’s feet, listening to His word. But Martha was distracted with all her preparations; and she came up to Him and said, “Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to do all the serving alone? Then tell her to help me.” But the Lord answered and said to her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about so many things; but only one thing is necessary, for Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her.” (Lk 10:38-42)

Martha was missing something in her hospitality, just as we can miss it in any custom or tradition we practice: why do we do it? To strengthen our relationship to the Holy One and His Word? Or to earn righteousness or the esteem of others through our own efforts?

Yeshua gently pointed out to Martha the important aspect of customary hospitality: it is to strengthen the relationship between the ministry of the Word and the recipients of the Word. To make it come alive. In this case, the Word was literally alive in Martha's home!

In fact, Yeshua would have greeted the home with peace when he entered, just as he instructed his disciples to do. Instead of receiving the peace, Martha remained in a state of worry and bother. She did not receive the blessing. Mary, however, was eating and drinking it in, getting to know what the Living Word should be in her life. The custom of hospitality is to enable Kingdom ministry, to provide a temporary little Temple sanctuary for the minister.

Martha was not wrong if she wanted to continue preparing food to serve the disciples, but she was wrong if it became contentious and destroyed the very relationships she should be strengthening with other believers. Yeshua was well able to perform a miracle of bread, oil, wine, fish, or any other meal she was serving. He'd certainly done it for others who offered what little they had, and so had Elijah. And I'm sure he was prepared to wait if her meal took longer. After all, he was there to grace her with his Presence, not to grade or promote her on culinary skills. He wanted her to drink him in!

To Martha, however, the customary, traditional way a woman of the First Century was viewed as valuable was in her domestic skills. To Yeshua, his custom was to invite all to sit and learn at his feet. Male, female, Jew, non-Jew, slave, free...all could learn and grow in the ministry of the Word. It was the better part of hospitality. It didn't negate the need to feed and house the visiting ministers, the other part, but it was the better part of the whole equation. Perhaps, Yeshua is saying, the point of the serving is forging peace with people and Heaven. Hospitality is the designated vehicle for it.

Yeshua didn't pick Martha's home so she could become righteous through serving; he picked her because she believed in him; she already was righteous. She just needed some extra training like he had to correct his other disciples on things like fighting over higher positions, water-walking, and poor demon management.

A righteous guest seeks a righteous home for hospitality, and he/she has the authority to bless that sanctuary home with peace:

• “Do not acquire gold, or silver, or copper for your money belts, or a bag for your journey, or even two coats, or sandals, or a staff; for the worker is worthy of his support. And whatever city or village you enter, inquire who is worthy in it, and stay at his house until you leave that city. As you enter the house, give it your greeting. If the house* is worthy, give it your blessing of peace. But if it is not worthy, take back your blessing of peace. Whoever does not receive you, nor heed your words, as you go out of that house or that city, shake the dust off your feet.” (Mt 10:9-15)   

*”The House” is a euphemism for The Temple 

Yeshua clarified hospitality: it is receiving by 1) providing refuge, food and drink, and water for washing as well as 2) receiving his Word. Yeshua had to remind Martha to receive the Word, too. The heart of the Temple was in the hidden place of the ark, the Word of the Torah emplaced between the two cheruvim where the Voice would speak. Out loud.

Hospitality is how the average person enters the holy Sanctuary to experience the Voice and Presence of Adonai through His designated ministers of the Word.

• “You shall keep My sabbaths and revere My sanctuary; I am the LORD.” (Le 19:30)

What did First Century Jews understand about this commandment? And why did Yeshua instruct his disciples so specifically about hospitality as they ministered in his name and authority?

Rashi explains it in his comments to Vayikra (Leviticus) 19:30:

• “’And revere my Sanctuary.’ He should not enter the grounds of the Temple neither with his staff, nor with shoes on his feet, nor with his moneybelt, nor with the dust that is on his feet, i.e., he should not enter with dirty feet. And although I enjoin you to have reverence with regard to the Beit HaMikdash [Temple], nonetheless, ‘you shall observe my Sabbaths; the construction of the Beit HaMikdash does not override the Sabbath.” 

Contextually, Rashi’s point is that Sabbath will occur in every place for all time, and so commandments specific to the Temple services will be overridden by commands specific to Shabbat. As Yeshua understood about the magificent Temple, it would not long endure. Instead, the righteous of the earth would have to function as little sanctuaries in the nations where they lived and were sent. He would continue to build the Temple through them and to send the Presence, the Ruach HaKodesh.

In practice, Yeshua sent his disciples to continue his work; in order to do that work, they would need holy homes to provide Temple hospitality. For this, the home would need to be a “worthy” one. The family would need to conduct its daily life toward the preservation of holiness of Shabbat. 

Such a family was fit for Kingdom ministers, and those minister-guests were obligated to treat it with the same courtesies as they would enter the Temple itself. Yeshua’s requirements were identical to the customary Temple protocols for entry. A home that provided water to wash the feet was a prepared holy temple. As the repentant sinful woman washed Yeshua's feet with her tears, receiving his forgiveness, so a righteous home signaled receiving the guest with physical water as well as receiving the Word of shalom he or she brought to the house...and House.

The reverence of Shabbat is linked to entering the Temple itself, placing that home in a very high spiritual status, worthy of blessing for its hospitality.

The disciples would bless the homes of Custom Marys the same as they would proclaim blessings in the Temple, for the host was standing in to bless them as the priests would bless the tribes coming up to worship, and all, even those "night watcher" servants of exile from among the nations, offered blessings to YHVH.

And YHVH blessed them all:

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This week I'd like to visit the architecture of resurrection. Yes, such a thing is possible! Scripture gives us several examples from literal buildings. Last week's newsletter gave a hint with the resurrection patterns in the homes of the women who extended hospitality to Elijah and Elisha. There are even more examples than that.

Just to review, the last several newsletters have investigated the Torah's ancient call to hospitality, not just a a nice thing to do, but as a vital preparation to inherit the Kingdom. Our hospitality study trail through the Torah, Prophets, Writings, and New Covenant started with Song of Songs 5:1, a restoration of the Bride and Bridegroom to the Garden of Eden:

• "I have come into my garden, my sister, my bride; I have gathered my myrrh along with my balsam.I have eaten my honeycomb and my honey; I have drunk my wine and my milk. Eat, friends; drink and imbibe deeply, O lovers.”

Elijah in 1 Kings 17:9 protected the widow and her son during the famine. Because she used the last of her flour and oil to feed the prophet of YHVH, she never lacked during the tribulation. She also hospitably gave him an upper room in which to dwell during the famine. In return, her son was resurrected from the dead in that upper room. Because she ministered to the man of God during an apocalyptic famine, she received multiplied miracles of nourishment and resurrection. 

And in Elisha’s “double portion” fashion, he performs two resurrections for the hospitality of the upper room. First, the barren Shunnemite woman is rewarded with a son, and then later the son is resurrected from the dead:

• "Now there came a day when Elisha passed over to Shunem, where there was a prominent woman, and she persuaded him to eat food. And so it was, as often as he passed by, he turned in there to eat food. She said to her husband, “Behold now, I perceive that this is a holy man of God passing by us continually. Please, let us make a little walled upper chamber and let us set a bed for him there, and a table and a chair and a lampstand; and it shall be, when he comes to us, that he can turn in there.” (2 Ki 4:8-10)

The Shunemmite furnished her upper room with the furniture of the Mishkan. She made a little House for the Presence to dwell over the daily activities of her lower rooms. Elisha, a righteous visitor, was the stand-in for the very resurrecting Presence of Adonai.

The upper room is the highest room of our home, a set apart place, yet attached to the rest of the home. What we furnish in the upper room blesses the rest of the home...or not. It can be where heaven meets earth...or not. When the Shunnemite woman constructed an upper room, imagine it as a third story built atop their own living quarters in the second story. Not a brand-new building, but one atop the existing one.

Although now more symbolic because its examples are drawn from building construction in ancient times, today we still have upper rooms, those spaces we make to host the righteous believers who will accept our invitations. The visitor becomes the presence of Yeshua in our homes, especially during Shabbat.

During the Iron Age (1000–586 BCE; the First Temple Period), the "four-room house" dominated Israelite architecture. The four-room house with pillars was widespread already, but it often had more or less than four rooms. The majority of houses only had three rooms, but could also five or more. The house had long rooms and a transverse broad room in the back, which could be partitioned by walls or columns.

The ground level housed valuable livestock and had a working area for storage, weaving, food preparation, or other working tasks. The second level had the living quarters. A rooftop had an area for drying certain products, such as flax or fruits, and it was used as sleeping quarters in the intense heat of the summer for the cool breeze.

Below are photos of the four-room house located at the Tamar Fortress. Its size suggests it belonged to a prominent administrator, and it is incredible that its stones were not repurposed for construction under the rule of other empires such as Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome, or even the Byzantine. It is a very clean view into the early Israelite construction, characterized by undressed stones. Undressed stones are fitted into the wall or building in their natural shape, while later dressed stones are hewn into uniform blocks.

And below is an artist's reconstruction of a plastered finished house by Nick Laarakkers at nl.wikipedia:

The Upper Room pattern continues into the Newer Covenant. Yeshua affirms this by directing his disciples to follow a man with a water pitcher to an upper room where the host will have prepared a place for them to eat the Passover together. The experience is profound for the disciples, especially the foot-washing. He re-establishes the heavenly "Upper Room" hospitality pattern for their future Kingdom work:

• “When they had entered the city, they went up to the upper room where they were staying; that is, Peter and John and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon the Zealot, and Judas the son of James. These all with one mind were continually devoting themselves to prayer, along with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with His brothers.” (Ac 1:13-14)

And it leads to the selection of another disciple (Ps 109:8) to take Judas’ place, for he had been one to receive his “portion,” or blessing from Yeshua’s ministry, like an inheritance for his position:

• “For he was counted among us and received his share in this ministry...” (v 17) ...Therefore, it is necessary that of the men who have accompanied us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us— beginning with the baptism of John until the day that He was taken up from us—one of these must become a witness with us of His resurrection.” (Ac 1:21-22)

The Land of Israel is something inherited at the resurrection. It is more than just a physical piece of property! It is set apart from the inheritance of the nations.

Each of the twelve disciples received his share of the hospitable donations of food, drink, or money while they ministered with Yeshua, and in the Kingdom, they would also receive an eternal inheritance for their work. It was vital that Judas' replacement was an eyewitness to Yeshua's resurrection, for resurrection is what anchors our second story to the third story. What happened in the physical ministry on earth was anchored to the Third Heaven, also called Paradise or the Garden of Eden.

Another upper room resurrection:

• “So Peter arose and went with them. When he arrived, they brought him into the upper room; and all the widows stood beside him, weeping and showing all the tunics and garments that Dorcas used to make while she was with them...and he gave her his hand and raised her up; and calling the saints and widows, he presented her alive.” (Ac 9:39;41)

Had Dorcas made these garments to clothe the righteous and widows of her congregation? Surely she didn’t just have a room stuffed full of garments! She was doing acts of hospitality to the needy in the holy community by making garments to give away. Don't you love the association of women, especially widows, with the resurrection of the Upper Room? Elijah's widow, the Shunnemite woman, the women disciples and Miriam the mother of Yeshua gathered in Acts 1:14, the disciple Dorcas and widows gathered to mourn her? This "New" Testament has some pretty Old roots, doesn't it?

"A wise woman builds her house

But the foolish tears it down with her own hands." (Pr 14:1)

These wise women were building a third story, an upper room in their homes, as a testimony to the resurrection of the dead through Yeshua. They served their household faithfully, and they served the household of faith in their second stories from the resources of the ground floor: feeding, clothing, praying, preparing, lighting, sanctifying, learning, washing, listening...and those second stories became the third stories. They invited the saints to the Upper Room, a sanctuary to remind us of the return to the Garden of Eden, the dwelling and inheritance of the righteous ones.

When Yeshua returns, the righteous who have inherited the Third Heaven will administrate from a purified Jerusalem with him, and they will guide many upward from their First Story, the animal kingdom over which mankind was to rule. The millennial reign will be so awesome that even the earthy First Story will be restored to its creation glory.

So what's your story? Are we carving time for prayer, study, and hospitality, building the Upper Room, or just spending all day on the ground floor feeding the donkeys and cows? Although it seems strange to build a house on top of a barn, it makes a lot sense, too. The flies would be drawn down instead of up.

Another Upper Room example was in the ministry of Paul, this one associated with Motzei Shabbat (the going out of Shabbat on Saturday night):

• On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul began talking to them, intending to leave the next day, and he prolonged his message until midnight. There were many lamps in the upper room where we were gathered together. And there was a young man named Eutychus sitting on the window sill, sinking into a deep sleep; and as Paul kept on talking, he was overcome by sleep and fell down from the third floor and was picked up dead. But Paul went down and fell upon him, and after embracing him, he said, “Do not be troubled, for his life is in him.” When he had gone back up and had broken the bread and eaten, he talked with them a long while until daybreak, and then left. They took away the boy alive and were greatly comforted. (Ac 20:7-12)

Would you like to know more about Paul's "first day of the week" resurrection experience in the upper room? It is densely packed with prophetic words and phrases you can put in your study toolkit, so look for the newsletter next week!

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The last several newsletters have investigated the Torah's ancient call to hospitality, not just a a nice thing to do, but as a vital preparation to inherit the Kingdom. Our hospitality study trail through the Torah, Prophets, Writings, and New Covenant started with Song of Songs 5:1, a restoration of the Bride and Bridegroom to the Garden of Eden:

• "I have come into my garden, my sister, my bride; I have gathered my myrrh along with my balsam.I have eaten my honeycomb and my honey; I have drunk my wine and my milk. Eat, friends; drink and imbibe deeply, O lovers.”

This hospitality verse is thought to be one source for the traditional belief that the four rivers of Eden flow with milk, honey, wine, and balsam.

In past newsletters, we made the connection between hospitality to the needy and the righteous stranger and one's preparation for to inherit, or even just enter the Kingdom of Heaven (Mt 25:34-46). Entering the Father's House, which was prepared for the righteous from the foundation of the world, is contingent upon preparing one's own house. Yeshua will definitely knock on the door! The very light of the earth was sown for the righteous at the beginning (Ps 97:11), the light of the Word of good works for them to walk in eternally (Eph 2:10).

A better garden will be filled with the multiplication of human beings, the precious crown of creation created to fellowship with the Holy One Himself. Yeshua taught his disciples that the "rooms" of the Garden, their eternal home of inheritance, are being prepared for them, yet they also must prepare to inherit by preparing their own homes on earth. This would cause the Presence of the Creator to dwell comfortably in them. Better home, better Garden.

• "Depart from evil and do good, so you will abide forever. For the LORD loves justice and does not forsake His godly ones; they are preserved forever, but the descendants of the wicked will be cut off. The righteous will inherit the land and dwell in it forever." (Ps 37:27-29)

צַדִּיקִים יִירְשׁוּ־אָרֶץ וְיִשְׁכְּנוּ לָעַד עָלֶיהָ׃

The commentators to the verse in Song of Songs 5:1 connect it to Psalm 37:27-29 above in the Midrash Rabbah and write, ”The word yishkenu should not be translated as ‘they will dwell,’ but as a causative verb in the present tense, ‘They cause to dwell.’” “If only the righteous dwell upon the earth, what will the wicked do? Shall they fly in the air? Rather, the verse means that the wicked did not cause the Divine Presence to dwell on earth, but the righteous did cause the Divine Presence to dwell on earth.” (5§1) 

In yishkenu, you see the root of shachan, "to dwell," and the "Shechinah," or indwelling Presence. The Presence of the Creator Elohim has always longed to have an intimate relationship with human beings. He did not appoint them to rule of the earth in order to be a distant, cold judge of their actions, but so they would administer on His behalf according to His will because His Word was alive in them through fellowship. They would be able rulers because of their daily walking and talking in the special abode, the Garden of Eden.

The Garden is thought to hover just above the Land of Israel, its centerpoint over Jerusalem. From there the Kingdom will be administered by Yeshua. The righteous are those whose lives are a home of hospitality to the Presence of Elohim. They CAUSE Him to descend for the fellowship He longs for with His creation. 

Inheriting the Land of Israel, the administrative center of the entire earth, is a matter of preparation. Even in Revelation 21:2, the Bride is described as the inhabitants of New Jerusalem “prepared for her husband.” Prepared. Prepared. Who is the Bride? Those who prepared the better Garden, working the will of the Word in their lives, which affects what Yeshua prepares for them in the Third Heaven, or the Garden of Eden. Is there something in our hospitality study to connect us to this Third Heaven?

Yes.

The Upper Room. 

An Upper Room is a characteristic of a Better Home preparing for a Better Garden. 

This yishkenu is an important nuance of grammar. The righteous are those who cause the Presence of Adonai to dwell on earth. They understand that hospitality is not just a place to spend the night and move on. Hospitality is extending a home that is prepared for the righteous to dwell, even the Holy One Himself. Yeshua’s instructions to inquire about a worthy home to stay in as the disciples ministered wasn’t a random comment. It is a vital insight. They were looking for a sanctuary of reverence for Adonai.

Yeshua instructed his disciples to find a home prepared with righteous hospitality. The morally upright home will be part of the cause the disciples minister freely: teaching, immersing, healing, because they know they have a place to abide that is hospitable, compatible to their goals in that community. That house shares in the inheritance of that Kingdom being built!

Yeshua said, “If you have done it unto the least of these my brothers, you have done it unto me.” In the context, he refers to the Jewish sages’ interpretation of inheriting the Kingdom by causing the Presence to dwell. They are royal priests, performing the Mishkan/Mikdash service by ministering to the world as the kohanim ministered in the Holy House.

Hospitality is a vital practice for the believer, an upper room. Jewish scholars made the connection, and Yeshua tied a double-knot on it in Matthew 25.

• “Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. 35 For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; 36 naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.’ 37 Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink? 38 And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? 39 When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ 40 The King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’”

Inhospitality and ill-will to the disciple of Yeshua is the same as inhospitality to Yeshua himself:

• Now Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord,...as he was traveling, it happened that he was approaching Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him; and he fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” And he said, “Who are You, Lord?” And He said, “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting... (Ac 9:1; 3-5)

The guest is not there to re-arrange the furniture any more than pilgrims re-arranged the Temple. The guest accepts however much or little is offered and blesses the home. Elijah in 1 Kings 17 protected the widow and her son during the famine. Because she used the last of her flour and oil to feed the prophet of YHVH, she never lacked during the tribulation. She also hospitably gave him an upper room in which to dwell during the famine. In return, her son was resurrected from the dead. Because she ministered to the man of God during an apocalyptic famine, she received miracles of nourishment and resurrection. 

It is not likely this woman was chosen randomly. Elijah chose her because the Holy One chose her. There was already something of hospitality in her life for him to be sent so far to her home.

Lesson? Prepare hospitality before the tribulation. A generous host who offers in a time of plenty is more likely to be generous in a time of scarcity. It is a resurrection preparation. A better homes-to-Garden habit.

And in Elisha’s “double portion” fashion, he performs two resurrections for the hospitality of the upper room. First, the barren Shunnemite woman is rewarded with a son, and then later the son is resurrected from the dead:

• "Now there came a day when Elisha passed over to Shunem, where there was a prominent woman, and she persuaded him to eat food. And so it was, as often as he passed by, he turned in there to eat food. She said to her husband, “Behold now, I perceive that this is a holy man of God passing by us continually. Please, let us make a little walled upper chamber and let us set a bed for him there, and a table and a chair and a lampstand; and it shall be, when he comes to us, that he can turn in there.” (2 Ki 4:8-10)

Did you catch that? The Shunemmite furnished her upper room with the furniture of the Mishkan. She made a little House for the Presence to dwell over the daily activities of her lower rooms. Elisha, a righteous visitor, was the stand-in for the very Presence of Adonai.

What have we prepared in the Upper Room of our homes? It is the highest room of our home, a set apart place, yet attached to the rest of the home. What we furnish in the upper room blesses the rest of the home...or not. It can be where heaven meets earth...or not.

If we prepare an Upper Room in our homes of hospitality and service toward the needy and righteous ministers of the Kingdom, then the entire home will be blessed, for that is the deal. Literally the deal, according to Yeshua. A family who receives a minister of Yeshua is entitled to blessings of peace. 

Is there more chaos, unrest, need, and warfare in your home than could ever allow you to think of it as a Better Home prepared for the Garden above? 

Although it does not address all the home repairs necessary, there is one thing you can do today. Right now. This very instant. And it will begin to reverse the inhospitality to the spirit of shalom on your home. It will begin a sincere song of invitation, a "Shalom Aleikhem", to the Presence of the Most High.

Begin preparing for a righteous guest next Shabbat. They have the spiritual authority to leave a blessing of peace upon your home. If it’s Shabbat today, just start planning. If it’s a weekday, start cleaning. Buy some groceries. Organize. Air out. Set boundaries. 

A steady stream of righteous guests will make your home inhospitable to the chaos. They’ll bring some of the Kingdom with them each visit, a word from the Word, a song, a correction, an exhortation, a word of good counsel. The chaos will either shape up or ship out. Resurrect or retreat. 

Try Him and see if His Word is not true. 

Furnish your upper room, and see if the lower rooms don't improve.

Yeshua will be knocking...the person just may not look like what you thought Yeshua looked like.

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Then the LORD sent Nathan to David. And he came to him and said,

“There were two men in one city, the one rich and the other poor.

The rich man had a great many flocks and herds.

But the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb which he bought and nourished; and it grew up together with him and his children. It would eat of his bread and drink of his cup and lie in his bosom, and was like a daughter to him.

Now a traveler came to the rich man, and he was unwilling to take from his own flock or his own herd to prepare for the wayfarer who had come to him; rather he took the poor man’s ewe lamb and prepared it for the man who had come to him.”

Then David’s anger burned greatly against the man, and he said to Nathan, “As the LORD lives, surely the man who has done this deserves to die. He must make restitution for the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing and had no compassion.”

Nathan then said to David, “You are the man! 

The rich man was quite a host! The hospitality he offered his guest was not real hospitality at all. He faked his compassion for the weary traveler. He was so stingy that he killed another man's beloved pet and passed it off as his own sacrificial gift for the guest's benefit.

This would be a prime place for a political commentary on the current state of affairs in the United States' political situation, but the reader is intelligent enough to understand that facet of the parable. Fake hospitality deceives people into thinking the host really cares and has compassion. What the wicked host offers is nothing more than someone else's hard work and property.

To review from last week's text in this heavenly hospitality series, a righteous guest seeks a righteous home for hospitality, and he/she has the authority to bless that home with peace:

• “Do not acquire gold, or silver, or copper for your money belts, or a bag for your journey, or even two coats, or sandals, or a staff; for the worker is worthy of his support. And whatever city or village you enter, inquire who is worthy in it, and stay at his house until you leave that city. As you enter the house, give it your greeting. If the house is worthy, give it your blessing of peace. But if it is not worthy, take back your blessing of peace. Whoever does not receive you, nor heed your words, as you go out of that house or that city, shake the dust off your feet. Truly I say to you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for that city.” (Mt 10:9-15)  

Yeshua sent out his disciples as his messengers. They were to practice what they'd seen Yeshua do: teach, preach, immerse, comfort, exhort, rebuke, heal, and so on.

• "Let love of the brethren continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by this some have entertained angels without knowing it." (He 13:1-2)

These are not random strangers who visit, but "brothers" in the faith. No doubt the rich man had some level of acquaintance with the poor man he robbed. He knew where and when to steal the poor man's lamb, perhaps while the poor man was working or gone to the market. A lamb who was raised like his own daughter would not have been left unguarded very often. The rich man's act was premeditated, cunning, a masquerade of righteousness over a filthy act of cruel robbery.

Strangely, Scripture links two concepts in the same neighborhood, called smikhut (placement). Those two concepts are lack of hospitality and fornication/adultery.

In David’s case, he was the adulterer “rich man” who slaughtered the poor man’s lamb to prepare for the guest. This was also in the neighborhood of hospitality to strangers and "angels" in Hebrews Thirteen. Just skip one verse down:

• “Marriage is to be held in honor among all, and the marriage bed is to be undefiled; for fornicators and adulterers God will judge.” (He 13:4)

A wicked person may seem to offer hospitality, but the real motive is self-serving. They are not really serving the traveler or needy person; they are enhancing their own appearance of kindness. The hospitality is not for the benefit of the guest, but for himself. In the following account, the Messiah calls out fake hospitality.

While the host had the means to extend genuine hospitality toward Yeshua, he'd only invited him out of curiosity to hear a new word, listen for something with which to entrap his guest, or to look hospitable to the rest of the townspeople. Instead, an unwelcome visitor extends hospitality that Simon did not:

• “Turning toward the woman, He said to Simon, ‘Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave Me no water for My feet, but she has wet My feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair...’ “You did not anoint My head with oil, but she anointed My feet with perfume. For this reason I say to you, her sins, which are many, have been forgiven, for she loved much; but he who is forgiven little, loves little.” (Lk 7:44-47)

The sinful woman understood the principle of hospitality better than the man who simply was curious to hear an insightful word from the teacher. Like many interactions in the Body of Messiah today, it would feed the host’s pride or critical skepticism, both of which fuel false feelings of self-worth. The repentant woman's hospitality was of the kind that welcomed the Bridegroom to the Garden with incense of sacrifice.

Simon was thinking Yeshua didn't know what kind of woman anointed his feet. What Simon didn't acknowledge was it was the woman she used to be. She was repenting, bringing a sacrifice of her own, perhaps all she could afford, not someone else's hard work of repentance. If she had been a loose woman, this was not the generous, hospitable woman who washed Yeshua's feet intimately with her hair. She wanted a new relationship with Heaven through the Sent One, not a fake one. She wasn't faking her interest in Yeshua. She wanted to change. She had more than a little love.

One way we signal this desire to truly repent is with generosity, especially to the needy and poor righteous. This is one of the "Big Three": prayer, repentance, charity leading up to Yom HaKippurim.

Real charity.

Love much, be forgiven much. Real charity doesn't care about who is in the room judging what kindnesses we give to a brother or sister. It wants a genuine relationship with Heaven. It doesn't offer someone else's work as their own. It does not seek its own reward for that gift. Any human being on earth can do an act of kindness that connects himself only to the recipient. One who desires to restores hospitality with the Presence of Elohim will see the face of the recipient as the face of Yeshua even if it is one of the "least of these."

One who does not attribute his or her act of kindness to Heaven is usurping the very source of kindness inside every human being. This compassion is the stamp of the Creator! Even wolves will raise orphan pups and feed the wounded in their pack; how much more should human beings acknowledge that our Creator Elohim created us with a desire to help one another?

If that's not plain enough, then consider this: A person who takes credit for being compassionate and charitable is offering someone else's gift as his own. Compassion was something planted in us by our Creator. Gifted. We are all re-gifting generosity to bring Heaven down among us.

Sodom and her four satellite cities were known for lewd behavior. In rebuking Israel, Ezekiel points out another symptom of their wickedness:

• “Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had arrogance, abundant food and careless ease, but she did not help the poor and needy.” (Ezek 16:49)

Likewise, the Tribe of Benjamin was nearly wiped out for rapacious inhospitality.

Likening Israel to Sodom recalls Sodom’s lack of hospitality to visitors. They were beyond inhospitable and stingy, they were lewd and murderous. They moved the Presence of Adonai farther away from the cities, not closer to it. Ever wonder why one of the "angels" didn't continue on to Sodom with the other two (Ge 19:1)? Perhaps the one Avraham called YHVH wouldn't set foot in it.

And like Yeshua told Simon, gratefulness to Heaven for our own undeserved gifts should affect how we receive and love guests.

Avraham had already rescued the Sodomite cities in order to recover his nephew Lot when they were carried away as spoils of war. Were they grateful and generous to others in need after their rescue? No, they did not become grateful hosts to righteous guests. They became worse. And dared anyone to judge them for it.

Yet, the Day of Judgment arrived for Sodom and for King David's adultery and manslaughter of another for his own sin. Later, David repents and writes,

• "Against You, You only, I have sinned and done what is evil in Your sight, so that You are justified when You speak and blameless when You judge." (Ps 51:4)

May we repent before Yom HaKippurim if we have mistreated brothers who are the face of Yeshua at our table. (Mt 25:45)

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Scripture commands us not to make images of things in the earth or in the heavens to worship them. This means different things to different people, even within the Jewish community. It is one of those commandments that drives the reader to its multiple other mentions in Scripture to make full sense of it: “You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth." (Ex 20:4)

Some may not possess any figured images, applying the mitzvah very strictly. Others may give their children dolls or have animal sculpture for decoration, applying additional context for the mitzvah, which is having an image for the purpose of worshiping it or acknowledging its power:

• You shall not make for yourselves idols, nor shall you set up for yourselves an image or a sacred pillar, nor shall you place a figured stone in your land to bow down to it; for I am the LORD your God. (Le 26:1)

In this application, a person avoids images of known gods, demons, or symbols denoting such, but does not avoid having photographs, artwork, or objects in the shape of animals or heavenly bodies, etc. The Tabernacle and Temple were decorated with images of both heavenly and earthly objects according to a Divinely-prescribed pattern.

The range of interpretations is not unusual, and it lends itself to investigation so that one can learn more about the mitzvah by tracking down every mention of images as idols. This week, we'll take a look at a song traditionally sung on Erev Shabbat to usher in the Divine Presence on Shabbat, for Shabbat is a moed, an appointed time when the Creator of the Universe promises to visit those who tend His Garden. Shir HaShirim (Song of Songs) 5:1 has been our working text for understanding the repopulation of the Garden when the Bride and Bridegroom join the Divine Presence at the wedding feast of resurrection:

I have come into my garden, my sister, my bride;

I have gathered my myrrh along with my balsam.

I have eaten my honeycomb and my honey;

I have drunk my wine and my milk.

Eat, friends; drink and imbibe deeply, O lovers.

This sumptuous wedding meal inaugurates the reign of Messiah Yeshua, for he will return to earth with his holy ones to rule and restore the earth to the purpose for which the Father created it. What we have learned the last few weeks is that earthly hospitality to the righteous brother or sister is the Torah's pattern of preparation for the restoration of all things. Following our lesson on Avraham and the angels last week, let's pick up this week with Yeshua's reiteration of hospitality. A righteous guest seeks a righteous home for hospitality, and he/she has the authority to bless that home with peace:

• “Do not acquire gold, or silver, or copper for your money belts, or a bag for your journey, or even two coats, or sandals, or a staff; for the worker is worthy of his support. And whatever city or village you enter, inquire who is worthy in it, and stay at his house until you leave that city. As you enter the house, give it your greeting. If the house is worthy, give it your blessing of peace. But if it is not worthy, take back your blessing of peace. Whoever does not receive you, nor heed your words, as you go out of that house or that city, shake the dust off your feet. Truly I say to you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for that city.” (Mt 10:9-15)  

Yeshua sent out his disciples as his messengers. They were to practice what they'd seen Yeshua do: teach, preach, immerse, comfort, exhort, rebuke, heal, and so on. The disciples were messengers, sometimes called shliachim in Hebrew for "sent ones." Another word for messenger in Hebrew is malak:

מֲלְאָךְ mălʼâk; to despatch as a deputy; a messenger; specifically, of God, i.e. an angel (also a prophet, priest or teacher):—ambassador, angel, king, messenger

Last week's lesson on Sodom was important to Yeshua's instructions to his disciples, who were being commissioned to function like the three "men" (anashim) in Genesis 18:2 who visited Avraham. One was called LORD (YHVH) in 18:13, and then when they approached Sodom, the two angels were called malakim (Ge 19:1).

Although the LORD said He was on a mission to investigate the cries of the righteous, poor, and needy in Sodom, Scripture specifies "two angels" continued on to Sodom. Even if YHVH did not continue on after His bargaining session with Avraham to spare Sodom, those He sent functioned on His behalf.

Some scholars say each of the three performed a specific task. The LORD blessed Avraham and Sarah and revealed the plans to them; one angel destroyed the cities; and one angel oversaw the deliverance of the Lot's family. Although they worked together, each focused on one aspect of the mission. This is a good example of an "angel" representing the Most High. They acted on His behalf, and anything done to them for good or bad was as if it were done to the Holy One Himself.

So why did Scripture call the angels "men"? It demonstrates the importance of hospitality as a preparation for the reign of King Messiah and the return of the Presence of Adonai to His holy city Jerusalem. It is the Garden precept, an opportunity for human beings to show their Creator that they are ready for the return to the Garden. They will do and be the things for which the Creation was prepared for them.

The Holy One enjoys visiting and walking with His unique creation, mankind. As a result, He visits them on this earth while they prepare, both through heavenly malakim and earthly malakim. Because we aren't always sure which is which, we treat what we think are earthly malakim with the same hospitality we would heavenly ones, for they represent Yeshua himself:

• "Let love of the brethren continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by this some have entertained angels without knowing it." (He 13:1-2)

These are not random strangers who visit, but "brothers" in the faith. What does this have to do with worshiping idols? 

It brings us back to that beautiful Erev Shabbat song, "Shalom Aleichem." Some believers might object to singing the song, saying that it is the worship of angels or speaking to spiritual beings we are not supposed to address. I think this is a basic misunderstanding of the hospitality principle of the Kingdom and the meaning of malak, a messenger of the Most High, whether heavenly or earthly guest bringing the Presence with him/her by virtue of their faithful walk in the Word. Servants of the Most High sent with a blessing from Heaven for the Shabbat home they visit.

By hosting the righteous guest to the Shabbat table, the host has opened his home to the Most High Himself. The host is now part of the work Heaven sent that malak to do even though all the host did was prepare his or her home for the guest with good food and drink, a place to rest comfortably and safely, and a place to wash up from the journey. 

Knowing what you know now about Yeshua's instructions to greet a host's home with shalom and to bless it with shalom before leaving it, read the song:

Peace be unto you, ministering angels, angels of the Most High, coming forth from the King of kings, the holy One, blessed be He.

May your coming forth be in peace, angels of peace, angels of the Most High, coming forth from the King of kings, the holy One, blessed be He.

Bless me with peace, angels of peace, angels of the Most High, coming forth from the King of kings, the holy One, blessed be He.

May your departure be in peace, angels of peace, angels of the Most High, coming forth from the King of kings, the holy One, blessed be He. 

We sing the song not just for the blessings promised to the host home, but for the opportunity to welcome the Divine Presence to fellowship with us at the weekly moed. How Shabbastic is that?

And about those blessings...if your righteous guests are not aware they have the authority to bless your home when they enter and leave, do mention it! Just like honoring one's father and mother comes with a promise, a righteous host can expect the guest to speak specific blessings that bring shalom, or completeness, to his household. Don't let that guest leave without blessing you! Be like Jacob, and hang on until they give up that blessing! (Ge 32:26)

You might say, well, you know what? When I go to somebody's house, I probably won't heal anybody, or teach a Torah portion. I may not lead somebody to salvation and immerse them. 

It doesn't matter. Your very presence is a blessing of peace, for you are the stand-in messenger of Yeshua. The King of Kings. So be an angel, a malak. Speak what that family needs to make them whole spiritually and physically. 

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I have come into my garden, my sister, my bride;

I have gathered my myrrh along with my balsam.

I have eaten my honeycomb and my honey;

I have drunk my wine and my milk.

Eat, friends; drink and imbibe deeply, O lovers.”

Last week, we learned:

"Of all the righteous ones of Scripture, Avraham and Sarah were the best known for hospitality to strangers, especially when they received the three angels. (So 5:1)

Good gardening is good hospitality to the voice of Adonai, His holy Presence. Because human beings, particularly believers walking in the Way of Yeshua, are in His image, practicing hospitality toward people of faith is an especially sweet fruit of the Ruach HaKodesh."

Hospitality prepares us to be a part of the Garden of Eden conversation in the Scripture above. We can both invite the Bridegroom hospitably and remain in the Garden because we possess the vital character of hospitality without which a human cannot remain in the Garden. We can be a worthy guest...and friend...who will bless the Garden.

To get a better handle on this trait, let's take a careful look at what hospitality is. What does the word mean?

Hospitality:

Middle English hospital, "residence for pilgrims and travelers, charitable institution providing residence for the poor and infirm," "guest accommodations" (probably by ellipsis from hospitāle cubiculum "sleeping room for guests"), noun derivative of hospitālis "of a guest, of hospitality, hospitable”

The Hebrew word for “guest” is kara קָרָא

The KJV translates Strong's H7121 in the following manner: call (528x), cried (98x), read (38x), proclaim (36x), named (7x), guests (4x), invited (3x), gave (3x), renowned (3x), bidden (2x), preach (2x)

Outline of Biblical Usage

to call, call out, recite, read, cry out, proclaim

(Qal)

to call, cry, utter a loud sound

to call unto, cry (for help), call (with name of God)

to proclaim

to read aloud, read (to oneself), read

to summon, invite, call for, call and commission, appoint

to call, name, give name to, call by

The Book of Leviticus is "Vayikra" ["and called"], a book of holies, our calling to create a sanctuary of holiness for YHVH. This hospitality “preaches” His Presence to the earth and His desire to dwell with us. The Torah describes to us our holy "calling." Not only that, Adonai listens to the cries / proclamations of human beings, especially the poor and distressed.

Somewhere in this world, your name can be proclaimed to Heaven, either in frustration, agony, and pain,

or in gratefulness, relief, and consolation.

How this works is that the needy “give name to” the situation in that home or community. A guest can “summon” Adonai’s attention for blessing or chaos. He will actually come investigate the call for Divine help or proclamation of gratefulness!

• Now the LORD appeared to Abraham by the oaks of Mamre, while he was sitting at the tent door in the heat of the day. When he raised his eyes and looked, behold, three men were standing opposite him; and when he saw them, he ran from the tent door to meet them and bowed down to the ground, and said, “My Lord, if now I have found favor in Your sight, please do not pass Your servant by. Please let a little water be brought and wash your feet, and make yourselves comfortable under the tree; and I will bring a piece of bread, so that you may refresh yourselves; after that you may go on, since you have visited your servant.” (Ge 18:1-5)

Avraham understood what a special opportunity he had. Without a guest, who would bless? Righteous guests are given a Divine mandate to bless or destroy a home. It's an apocalyptic opportunity symbolic of the end of days.

Washing feet and providing a safe place to rest with food is the ancient practice of hospitality to guests, especially honored guests. Yeshua told his disciples to honor one another, not a new commandment, but an affirmation and demonstration of an old pattern of hospitality. It strengthens bonds of holiness and signals a desire to return to the ultimate place of hospitality, the Garden.

Abraham and Sarah’s [Pesach] hospitality was rewarded with a resurrection of their reproductive process.The messenger guest told them that they would have a son at the appointed time next year. The righteous guest has the Divine ability and OBLIGATION to bless a righteous host. In this respect, the blessing is mutual. The host blesses the righteous guest with three basic things, and the guest blesses the host with something that will bring shalom to the household. This is a Biblical pattern and principle.

• “Truly, truly, I say to you, a slave is not greater than his master, nor is one who is sent greater than the one who sent him. If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.” (Jn 13:16-17)

Yeshua teaches the Garden principle of hospitality. With hospitality, one didn’t wash the whole visitor, but his feet. It is an act of extreme humility, making the benefactor the servant and the guest the recipient of unearned hospitality. Yeshua washed his disciples' feet to demonstrate the principles:

• “You are My friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you. (Jn 15:14-15)

This relationship with his disciples echoed El Shaddai's relationship with Avraham, the father of hospitality, which was based on believing Elohim, Who credited him with righteousness. Hospitality to the angelic messengers (possibly a pre-incarnate visit with Yeshua) resulted in an actual friendship with the Creator of the Universe. (Is 41:8; 2 Ch 20:7; Ja 2:23)

As a result, Adonai revealed to Avraham not only the specific household blessing of having a son whom he would name Yitzchak, but the destruction of the five cities of Sodom. He didn't want His friend to be caught off-guard in either the blessing or the destruction.

Likewise, Yeshua regularly updated his disciples on coming events, both good and bad. When he washed their feet at Pesach, he told them what was about to happen. From the hospitable foot-washing, Yeshua continues and points out the disciples who would betray him: the one who betrayed his hospitality of bread and rest at the seder:

• “I do not speak of all of you. I know the ones I have chosen; but it is that the Scripture may be fulfilled, ‘HE WHO EATS MY BREAD HAS LIFTED UP HIS HEEL AGAINST ME.’ From now on I am telling you before it comes to pass, so that when it does occur, you may believe that I am He. “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who receives whomever I send receives Me; and he who receives Me receives Him who sent Me.” When Jesus had said this, He became troubled in spirit, and testified and said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, that one of you will betray Me.” (Jn 13:19-21)

Yeshua is re-living the encounter with Avraham, a time when Avraham and Sarah would BELIEVE the promise and receive the power to conceive Isaac a few months later. Yeshua reiterates that when we receive a righteous guest, we receive the One who sent him or her, just as we receive the Father when we receive Yeshua.

When we show hospitality to a guest, our generosity welcomes the Presence of Elohim to His Garden. As He was the benefactor, yet served the undeserving creation, so we must restore our sense of hospitality to welcome Him first like a “guest” so that His Presence no longer must ascend and descend due to sin, idolatry, adultery.

Good hospitality creates a little sanctuary for blessing.

Good guests respect the sanctuary and bless the host’s service.

This is the fractal of the greater principle of the Sanctuary and the Garden; the host blesses the guest who blessed the host. This is the practice of the Temple:

Behold, bless the LORD, all servants of the LORD,

Who serve by night in the house of the LORD! Ps 134:1

O house of Israel, bless the LORD;

O house of Aaron, bless the LORD; Ps 135:19

O house of Levi, bless the LORD;

You who revere the LORD, bless the LORD. Ps 135:20

↓

The LORD has been mindful of us; He will bless us;

He will bless the house of Israel;

He will bless the house of Aaron. Ps 115:12

A righteous guest seeks a righteous home for hospitality, and he/she has the authority to bless that home with peace:

• “Do not acquire gold, or silver, or copper for your money belts, or a bag for your journey, or even two coats, or sandals, or a staff; for the worker is worthy of his support. And whatever city or village you enter, inquire who is worthy in it, and stay at his house until you leave that city. As you enter the house, give it your greeting. If the house is worthy, give it your blessing of peace. But if it is not worthy, take back your blessing of peace. Whoever does not receive you, nor heed your words, as you go out of that house or that city, shake the dust off your feet. Truly I say to you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for that city.” (Mt 10:9-15)         

What of INhospitality, though? Are there consequences for being inhospitable?

The answer to that question is found in the nine times "Sodom and Gomorra" are mentioned in the New Testament, or Brit HaChadasha. Yes, inhospitality is a thing. A very bad thing.

Sodom and Gomorrah were famously wealthy, greedy, inhospitable, murderous, and sexually perverted (more on that in a coming newsletter). They oppressed the guests and the needy, who cried out to their Creator at the inhospitality:

• And the LORD said, “The outcry of Sodom and Gomorrah is indeed great, and their sin is exceedingly grave. I will go down now and see whether they have done entirely as the outcry, which has come to Me indicates; and if not, I will know.” (18:20-21)

When we are inhospitable and stingy, especially to righteous visitors or the poor and distressed, their cry has a direct line to the Heavenly ear. The Holy One WILL conduct a thorough investigation. In the case of Sodom and its daughter cities, the cries were not only accurately describing the inhospitality, but they were ENTIRELY accurate.

And the cities were burned. Destroyed with a spirit of burning.

• “For the LORD your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God." (Dt 4:24)

In the verse above, it is in the context of the penalty for idolatry. Colossians 3:5 compares greed to idolatry. Inhospitality is like idolatry.

• “Know therefore today that it is the LORD your God who is crossing over before you as a consuming fire. He will destroy them and He will subdue them before you, so that you may drive them out and destroy them quickly, just as the LORD has spoken to you." (Dt 9:3)

When a city is stingy, greedy, perverted, and sheds blood, it will be burned with fire eventually. The one thing Lot got right was a last-chance opportunity to be hospitable to the One Who burns with fire.

A righteous guest is to seek a righteous home for hospitality, and he/she has the authority to bless that home with peace. It says much that the angels at first declined to spend the night in Lot's home. The spiritual ambiguity in his home made their reaction like the up-and-down visit to the Garden after Adam and Eve sinned.

Vayikra 6:13 says, "Fire shall be kept burning continually on the altar; it is not to go out." Vayikra is our holy calling, our proclamation to the world that the House of Prayer for All Nations is a hospitable place for all to come meet the Bridegroom...while there is still time. How is our home fire burning for righteous guests and the needy? And is it hospitable to them?

Somewhere in this world, your name is proclaimed to Heaven,

either in frustration, agony, and pain,

or in gratefulness, relief, and consolation.

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I have come into my garden, my sister, my bride;

I have gathered my myrrh along with my balsam.

I have eaten my honeycomb and my honey;

I have drunk my wine and my milk.

Eat, friends; drink and imbibe deeply, O lovers.”

Of all the righteous ones of Scripture, Avraham and Sarah were the best known for the hospitality to strangers, especially when they received the three angels. (So 5:1)

Good gardening is good hospitality to the voice of Adonai, His holy Presence. Because human beings, particularly believers walking in the Way of Yeshua, are in His image, practicing hospitality toward people of faith is an especially sweet fruit of the Ruach HaKodesh.

“Given to hospitality” is not a light characteristic to the righteous. It is integral. It was incorporated into the believers’ daily habits in the Books of Acts, and it is a vital quality for an elderwoman of the congregation...

The number 60 is signified by the Hebrew letter samekh, which means to support, sustain, to lean upon, ordain:

• "Moses did just as the LORD commanded him; and he took Joshua and set him before Eleazar the priest and before all the congregation. Then he laid his hands on him and commissioned him, just as the LORD had spoken through Moses." (Nu 27:22-23)

 וַיִּסְמֹךְ אֶת־יָדָיו עָלָיו וַיְצַוֵּהוּ כַּאֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר יְהוָהבְּיַד־מֹשֶׁה

The appearance of the letter samekh is round, like a wheel. A burden may be moved more easily in a wheeled cart than dragged or carried, and to ordain someone for ministry is to infuse them with the spiritual strength to be that person who eases the burdens that others must carry for the Kingdom. The anointing of the ordination is to help that servant bear the suffering for that ministry in the Kingdom. As those who ordain must lean their hands upon the one receiving the ordination, so others will lean upon him or her to ease their suffering.

Those who plead for an anointing may not understand exactly what they're asking for. With the anointing comes the suffering!

By the age of 60, the individual is considered to have committed his or her best physical years to the royal priesthood, slightly different from the Levites, who formally served from ages 25 to 50 (Nu 8:23-26). This did not preclude them from assisting their younger brothers, serving as mentors. The holy Mishkan/Mikdash work was physically demanding as well as exacting.

At the age of 60, a righteous woman has achieved an age where she needs physical support as her due for devoting her life as a royal priestess to the support of the righteous community and her family. She is still a teacher and mentor to the younger, but as others have leaned upon her, now she must lean upon others for physical support:

• “A widow is to be put on the list only if she is not less than sixty years old, having been the wife of one man, having a reputation for good works; and if she has brought up children, if she has shown hospitality to strangers, if she has washed the saints’ feet, if she has assisted those in distress, and if she has devoted herself to every good work.” (1 Ti 5:9-10)

The age of 60 suggests that she has fulfilled the days of her ordination to every good work. Just as Levites were still entitld to portions from the Temple gifts after retirement, so a righteous elderwoman is entitled to eat from the common fund of the congregation she's served.

Paul defines for Timothy the behaviors that are elderwoman good works according to the Word:

1. bringing up children
2. showing hospitality to righteous strangers
3. washing the feet of the righteous (extended hospitality as in #2)
4. recognizing and assisting those in distress

A reputation is a “name,” and Ruach-filled women who demonstrated this vital attribute of a good name were entitled to full benefits from their congregations in old age. It was NOT the responsibility of the government, but her congregation if her family was unable to provide.

Hospitality is that vital in doing good works, both to relieve the distress of the righteous as well one's own family. Through her hospitable good works, the elder woman has offered aromatic spices as a royal priestess, making the Holy Name famous. Those aromatic spices are those of good reputation that the Bridegroom Messiah Yeshua will gather into the Garden.

Honoring other believers with hospitality is not just an old lady fruit of the Ruach. It is expected of EVERY believer as an outworking of love.

Remember, love is not always an emotion. Love can be a preference for one thing over another or one person over another in a specific situation. This does not negate Peter and James’ admonitions that “God is not a respecter of persons.” It explains it:

• “The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool?” (Mt 22:44 KJV)
• ‘Behold, I will cause those of the synagogue of Satan, who say that they are Jews and are not, but lie—I will make them come and bow down at your feet and make them know that I have loved you.” (Re 3:9)

vs

• Opening his mouth, Peter said:“I most certainly understand now that God is not one to show partiality, but in every nation the man who fears Him and does what is right is welcome to Him.” (Acts 10:34-35)

For context, the "synagogue of Satan" or "seed of Satan" meant something specific in the First Century. It meant someone who misapplied the Words of Scripture, twisting them like a serpent. The Hillel Pharisees, with whom Yeshua's teaching frequently aligned, welcomed converts to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, seeing them as children of Abraham, the person who first came to YHVH in faith from a house of idolatry.

The Shammai Pharisees, Sadducees, and other sects rejected Gentile converts. In fact, they did not believe the Gentiles had a place in the World to Come, so they took advantage of the Gentiles who came to the Temple to purchase a sacrifice. If the Gentile did not know to designate his coins to the person at the moneytable, the moneychanger (who exchanged tokens for the sacrifice) would divert the money to the Temple fund for repairs and upkeep, not the sacrifice the Gentile believed he/she had purchased with the money. This infuriated Yeshua! This was not the purpose of the Temple! This was the synagogue of Satan, twisting the Torah to exclude unsuspecting Gentiles. The Shammai Pharisees looked the other way when this happened.

The House of Prayer for all nations was for the “man who fears what is right.” He was welcome there, no matter his lineage or economic situation. This is what the Hillel Pharisees taught, which is what Peter and Paul (a Hillel Pharisee) later affirm, and which John establishes as the norm in his "synagogue of Satan" reference. A righteous Gentile will find himself assigned a higher place in the Kingdom than those who sought to exclude him.

Yet, it is not “right” for the visitor to desecrate the sanctuary in which he is a guest, for to do so would be inhospitable to that very relationship he seeks in the House. Both those who serve and those who visit are obligated to bless one another, which brings down the blessing of peace from the Voice of Elohim, especially through the Birkhat HaKohanim (Aaronic Benediction). One new man.

• “Then they came to Jerusalem. And He entered the temple and began to drive out those who were buying and selling in the temple and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who were selling doves; and He would not permit anyone to carry merchandise through the temple. And He began to teach and say to them, “Is it not written, ‘MY HOUSE SHALL BE CALLED A HOUSE OF PRAYER FOR ALL THE NATIONS’? But you have made it a ROBBERS’ DEN.” (Mk 11:15-17)

Inhospitality to those seeking the Voice of Adonai is inhospitality to the Presence of Adonai Himself.

Those who are judged and sentenced to the Kingdom “footstool” by Adonai are enemies of the faith, whether through hostility to Him and His holy ones or unrepentant hypocrisy. A fellow believer should be honored, loved [preferred], and judged according to his active faith, not his bank account. We judge our own assemblies with righteousness according to our brotherhood:

• “My brethren, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism. For if a man comes into your assembly with a gold ring and dressed in fine clothes, and there also comes in a poor man in dirty clothes, and you pay special attention to the one who is wearing the fine clothes, and say, ‘You sit here in a good place,’ and you say to the poor man, ‘You stand over there, or sit down by my footstool,’ have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil motives?” (Ja 2:1-4)

The key is that both visitors to the synagogue were righteous men seeking to worship and hear the Word read on Shabbat. To look at two righteous men and show favoritism to the rich one IS wicked. Since we are to judge within our own communities, James says we are evil judges to do such a thing. Favoritism is to be shown the righteous over the wicked, not to set a fellow-believer in a lower place because he lacks money, power, or fine appearance.

• “Since we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, each of us is to exercise them accordingly: if prophecy, according to the proportion of his faith; if service, in his serving; or he who teaches, in his teaching; or he who exhorts, in his exhortation; he who gives, with liberality; he who leads, with diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness. Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love; give preference to one another in honor; not lagging behind in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord; rejoicing in hope, persevering in tribulation, devoted to prayer, contributing to the needs of the saints, practicing hospitality.” (Ro 12:6-13)

Practicing hospitality to fellow believers is “incense,” spices fit for the Mishkan.

• Let love of the brethren continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by this some have entertained angels without knowing it. (He 13:1-2)

Hospitality to the "brethren," the righteous guest, signifies one’s willingness to welcome back the Presence of Elohim on earth. The Hebrew cognate to xenos, the Greek word for guest, stranger, visitor, is oreach, (the Sept. for אֹרֵחַ)

The best food, drink, and resting accommodations were prepared for the visitor. Footwashing was a mandatory courtesy:

• “Please let a little water be brought and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree...” (Ge 18:4) Also Ge 24:32; 43:24

Even entering the Holy Land, the feet of the priests were supernaturally and hospitably “washed” as they crossed over.

• “...and when those who carried the ark came into the Jordan, and the feet of the priests carrying the ark were dipped in the edge of the water (for the Jordan overflows all its banks all the days of harvest)...” (Josh 3:15)

And finally, Yeshua demonstrated the righeousness required of the elderwoman:

• “Then He poured water into the basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel with which He was girded... If I then, the Lord and the Teacher, washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I gave you an example that you also should do as I did to you.” (Jo 13:5;14-15)

Yeshua did not wash the feet of the wicked, nor did he seek out those just looking for miracles or a feel-good sermon at his appointed time. He washed the feet of those who were committed to serving him both in this world and the World to Come. We should do good to all people, but ESPECIALLY to those of the household of faith. Yeshua was not interested in ordaining Lady Liberties, but the Leaning Ladies.

And Gentlemen.

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It will no longer be said to you, “Forsaken,” nor to your land will it any longer be said, “Desolate”; but you will be called, “My delight is in her,” and your land, “Married”; for the LORD delights in you, and to Him your land will be married. (Is 62:4)

The Land of Israel married?

Yes!

The full plan of Creation was not for Elohim to create an estranged, distant earth that He found offensive. He created it so He could walk and talk with His creatures, especially human beings; they were made in His image for just this purpose. The Garden of Eden was the geography of the starting place of this Divine plan, a perfect setting for human beings to become acquainted with Him.

Elohim placed every plant good for food in Eden so they could enjoy the variety of His bounty (with one exception). In other words, He made a most hospitable environment to begin the journey together. The home looked good, smelled good, sounded good, tasted good, and felt good to both the Creator and His creatures.

Sin, however, made the Garden inhospitable to the human beings, and they were expelled. Sin could not inhabit such a holy place. Their disobedient presence had made the Garden also inhospitable to the Presence of their Creator.

“They heard the sound of the LORD God walking [מִתְהַלֵּךְ] in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden.” (Ge 3:8)

The idea of the voice of Elohim descending and ascending comes from this verse. Because Adam and Chavah sinned, Elohim no longer holekh, but mithalekh, as if He were going up and down. It is thought that Heaven withdrew one level when Adam sinned, eventually withdrawing seven levels due to such behavior such as that wickedness that preceded the Flood, then eventually descending with the faith of righteous men such as the patriarchs and Moses. Of all the righteous ones of Scripture, Avraham and Sarah were the best known for hospitality to strangers, especially when they received the three angels.

So what does all this have to do with the Beverly Hillbillies?

Younger folks may not remember the Beverly Hillbillies, but we older ones not only remember them, we remember when they went from black and white to “living color.” In a nutshell, Jed, Granny, Jethro, and Ellie Mae lived in the wooded mountains of northwest Arkansas. Jed shot at some “food” (it was a possum, so it wasn’t really food) and hit some bubblin’ crude oil instead. They sold the farm to oil men, became rich, and moved to Beverly Hills, a place more fitting of their new wealth. Their neighbors in Beverly Hills were less than thrilled at the hillbillies next door with their strange mountain ways. In contrast, the Beverly Hillbillies extended “a heapin’ helping of their hospitality,” always quick to share a meal or provide accommodations to guests…even a refreshing swim in the “cement pond.”

Their hospitality wasn't something they began because they'd become suddenly rich. It was something they'd practiced in the remote hills when they had next to nothing. In the midst of their inhospitable neighbors, the Beverly Hillbillies created a little island of hospitality. Likewise, an inhospitable earth needed a people who would sanctify a place to invite the Presence of Elohim to His creation once again.

The clue was in the “leaping, ascending, descending” reflexive verb mithalekh (rather than holekh) that described the movement of Elohim after Adam and Chavah sinned, indicating an inhospitable environment for His Presence. Through the agency of the righteous, especially Moses, The Mishkan (Tabernacle) and Mikdash (Temple) provided His Presence the opportunity to dwell before the fullness of the marriage takes place. It will be a full restoration of the Creation plan, both a people and place for human beings to be with their Creator and administer the earth on His behalf.

At Mount Sinai, the Presence descended to an earth that had become inhospitable to Him. Also at Mount Sinai, the Israelites received the instructions for the building of the Mishkan. Its design was based on the pattern of Creation, all the way to the two cheruvim embroidered on the veil.

“The Mishkan represents the fulfillment of God’s purpose in creating the world.” (Midrash to Shir 5§1)

Mankind and the earth were created so that Elohim could descend to the Garden, the holiest place on the planet, and fellowship with his most holy creation. Mankind was to create and maintain the atmosphere of hospitality in the Garden. The Mishkan also was built to do this for times of intimacy and communication. By offering “the food of your God,” the sacrifices, and building a resting place between the two cheruvim as it was in the Garden, Israel hospitably provided a welcoming place for the Presence of Elohim. Of course, He didn’t physically eat the sacrifices, but He consumed the hospitable, welcoming intent of the hearts that offered the best they could afford, something Abel knew, but Kain refused.

As a result of his inhospitality, Kain was driven from place to place, building cities but never finishing them. Perhaps this was a proper reaping of his inhospitality. Because his murderous, stingy heart contributed to the earth’s continued inhospitality to the Creator, Kain suffered the inability to dwell permanently in one place. Israel, however, is a people restoring the heaping helpings of hospitality by obeying the mitzvot in the earth…from generous hearts. Through faith in Yeshua, who said, “If you love me, keep my mitzvot,” they sanctify their lives to him, and he likewise promised to dwell with those who love and obey him:

“Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.” (Jn 14:23)

Through Yeshua, humankind can create a hospitable home for the Father once again. It is what we were created to be and do. The word “hospital” is related to hospitality. It is a refuge for the traveler to rest and heal in comfort from the journey. It is a little Garden of Eden we prepare in our hearts in the midst of an inhospitable world that rages against their Creator. It is our preparation as little tabernacles and temples of the Ruach HaKodesh to one day marry and live in a married Land.

“I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago—whether in the body I do not know, or out of the body I do not know, God knows—such a man was caught up to the third heaven.” (2 Co 12:2)

The Third Heaven is thought to be the Lower Garden, Garden of Eden, or Paradise. It is the realm that withdrew from the earth when Adam and Chavah were expelled from it for their inhospitality. It is also where the palace of King Messiah is thought to be, referred to as “The Bird’s Nest,” or Kan Tzippor, just above the Temple Mount. Indeed, Yeshua lamented, “How many times I would have gathered you as a hen gathers her chicks…but you would not.” (Mt 23:37) Inhospitably, Jerusalem, the Holy Hill, killed the prophets.

Another level of Eden, or Upper Garden, is thought to be just above the Garden of Eden, the Lower mirroring the Upper. When New (Renewed) Jerusalem descends, Eden will once again merge with the purified earth of the Promised Land below it and “marry” it, for it will be hospitable to the Presence. Obedient. Generous. A heapin’ helping of hospitality to the Creator from the Holy Hillbillies.

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“I have come into my garden, my sister, my bride; I have gathered my myrrh along with my balsam. I have eaten my honeycomb and my honey; I have drunk my wine and my milk. Eat, friends; drink and imbibe deeply, O lovers.” (Song of Songs 5:1)

As with the sending of pomegranates in Chapter Four symbolized the giving of the commandments to Israel, so this expression:

“I have gathered my myrrh along with my balsam [oil…]”

...can allude to a “good name.”

Those who bear the good Name have a reputation that is aromatic in the earth already. They do not wait for Messiah Yeshua to return, but they work hard “That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles which know not God:” (1 Th 4:4-5)

Because we must show hospitality to the stranger, alien, orphan, and widow, we must be a miniature “house of prayer for all nations” like the Temple. For those seeking healing, comfort, salvation, and the many things for which humans rely on their Creator to supply, we are the Father’s outstretched arms. And because He is holy, we must be holy.

Like the greeter at the door of Walmart represents our first impression of the store, so believers are the first impression the nations have of their Creator’s holy nature.

Like the holy incense was pounded and compounded for the holy Temple, believers will be pounded and compounded to release the pleasing aromas to the world. The discipline of our evil inclination, or yetzer hara, is like a daily death which turns into a fragrant Temple spice. Likewise, myrrh is a death spice, yet it is compounded with other spices like healing balsam oil to create a compounded fragrance.

 “A good name is better than precious ointment; and the day of death than the day of one's birth.” (Ecc 7:1)

The first statement sounds agreeable, but does the second?

If the gathering of myrrh and balsam is the gathering of the righteous to the Garden who have received the Good Name and who have returned their gifts and sacrifices for the sake of His Good Name to the Bridegroom, then how is their “gathering” related to the day of their death and a better day?

Death must occur before there can be a resurrection. What was sown in corruption must be raised incorruptible. Isn’t this what every righteous soul longs for?

• So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown a perishable G5356 body, it is raised an imperishable body;
• it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power;
• it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. (1Co 15:42-44)

• For this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality. But when this perishable [G5349] will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, “DEATH IS SWALLOWED UP in victory. (1 Co 15:53-54)

“Perishable” is G5349, phthartós, from G5351; decayed, i.e. corruptible, perishable, i. e. mortal, that which is liable to corruption

It is from: Strong's G5351 – phtheirō

to shrivel or wither, i.e. to spoil (by any process) or (generally) to ruin (especially figuratively, by moral influences, to deprave):—corrupt (self), defile, destroy.

Sin and death go together. As long as we are susceptible to death, we are susceptible to sin. Remove the strength of death, and the strength of sin is removed as well. The aromatic righteous will no longer be subject to the corruptibility of sin that destroys the Temple.

Outline of Biblical Usage G5351:

• to corrupt, to destroy
• in the opinion of the Jews, the temple was corrupted or "destroyed" when anyone defiled or in the slightest degree damaged anything in it, or if its guardians neglected their duties
• to lead away a Christian church from that state of knowledge and holiness in which it ought to abide
• to be destroyed, to perish
• in an ethical sense, to corrupt, deprave

Ummm…wasn’t Paul a Jew? It explains what he taught the Corinthians, who were quite a lusty folk, that corrupting their bodies with sin was like destroying the holy Temple. Perhaps they were merrily celebrating Chanukkah at the Feast of Dedication with their Jewish friends, yet also merrily carrying on in certain lustful sins, defiling their own temples.

Here are a couple more examples of its use in context:

• "If any man destroys G5351 the temple of God, God will destroy G5351 him, for the temple of God is holy, and that is what you are." (1Co 3:17)
• "Do not be deceived: 'Bad company corrupts G5351 good morals.'” (1Co 15:33)

When Messiah comes into the Garden, he gathers the spices of those who have attained a “good name” and a new day of birth, which also their day of death. These have grieved over their susceptibility to sin after salvation because they know how destructive it is. They labored in their walk with Messiah to do so worthy of the Good Name, the pomegranates of the 613 mitzvot. They diligently guarded the temples of their bodies. When they sinned, they repented. The death of wrong desires was compounded with balsam oil to make a precious ointment that will only be fully understood when we are gathered by our Beloved to the Garden.

As they have offered this sweet-smelling aroma of a sacrificial life, striving to purify their temples, now they are rewarded with a birthday on their death day so that they may no longer be susceptible to sin and its decaying effects. They are assembled to worship in the incorruptible Temple. What could diminish the joy of being gathered in the Garden? Perhaps knowing we didn’t try very hard to encourage more people to join us!

The lost and needy of the world need to see us practicing habits of repentance. We’re not born good at it; we’re born bad at it! When we manage our sins not by hiding or denying them, but by acknowledging them, repenting of them, asking forgiveness of those whom we’ve wronged, and resuming the holy walk, it is proof that Yeshua DOES have the power to transform us and renew our minds.

When we renew our minds, the body will follow. When the body follows, it is a living testimony of Yeshua’s righteousness. This is how we are pounded and compounded as fragrance for both the Garden of our resurrection as well as this earth right now. This is how we gain a reputation as a Temple builder and repairer rather than a destroyer.

If you love Yeshua, then you hate sin. You hate it when you sin. You wish you didn’t have to fight it day after day because you know it is the “old man,” not the one seated with Messiah in the heavens. Like Paul also said, “I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.” (Ro 7:21) Last week’s newsletter explained why satan’s greatest attraction is to the holiest places. If we follow Messiah and guard our Temples, then surely temptations will come. We will sometimes fail and sin, and yet we have the opportunity through repentance to build a good name in this temple of our bodies. As we walk in the Word, we will be pounded and compounded, but know this:

A resurrection birthday is coming. We will die, even if only for the duration of a twinkling of an eye, but it is even better than the day of our natural birth. On the day of our natural birth, we were born with a sin nature. On the day of our resurrection birthday, we will have only a holy nature. A good name.

That persistent gravity of sin and death will be destroyed, and its corruption will no longer have power over you. Your greatest grief, that you would continue to sin even after coming to Messiah Yeshua to accept his salvation, will be comforted. You will know sin no more because you will not desire it. You will desire only to know Yeshua in all righteousness.

Well, done, good and faithful servant.

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Awake, O north wind,

And come, wind of the south;

Make my garden breathe out fragrance,

Let its spices be wafted abroad.

May my beloved come into his garden

And eat its choice fruits!” (So 4:16)

This call to “Awake, O North” is thought to encompass three distinct calls recorded in

1. Jeremiah 31:7-8 (exiles of Israel),

2. Isaiah 41:25 (Messiah)

3. Gog and Magog (Ezek 38:2)

Why are Gog and and Magog are so attracted to “the beloved city” and its inhabitants to want to destroy them at least twice in Biblical history? Last week's study of the yetzer ha-ra, or evil inclination, as it pertains to satan, was a key piece to the answer. If we can understand that the power of satan is strong against the holy things of this earth, that will explain it.

It does need to the be strong to cultivate evil from the wicked. They are already his willing subjects. It is the holy who require him to exert his maximum strength. This sounds incredible, but Scripture reinforces this Jewish principle:

• “The evil inclination, as a general rule, gravitates toward holiness, and functions at its greatest strength where holiness resides...Evidently, it is because the forces of evil concentrate their greatest efforts on enticing the righteous, those people most deeply immersed in holiness.” (Midrash Rabbah to Shir HaShirim 5§4)

WHAT? You're telling me that if I pursue holiness by obedience to the commandments that I make a bigger target?

I put that in all caps because we always seem so surprised and indignant when bad things obstruct our pursuit of the Word. I'm not usually an all-caps writer. More than one question mark is just a bridge too far, though. I don't think I've ever had a peeve as a pet, but if I did want a pet peeve, that would probably be it. Multiple question marks instead of one. Only one per interrogative. Please.

So, yes, Scripture suggests that holiness acts like a magnet to evil. Even more perplexing, sometimes the Ruach HaKodesh leads us to the place or situation to be be tested in the Word. Here are a few examples of the principle:

• “I was watching Satan fall from Heaven” (Lk 10:18)
• “...there was no longer a place found for them in heaven.” (Re 12:7-9)
• “And when the dragon saw that he was thrown down to the earth, he persecuted the woman who gave birth to the male child.” (Re 12:13; 16, 17)
• “the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came among them.” (Job 1:6)
• e. “...a slave-girl having a spirit of divination met us, who was bringing her masters much profit by fortune-telling. Following after Paul and us, she kept crying out, saying, ‘These men are bond-servants of the Most High God, who are proclaiming to you the way of salvation.’ She continued doing this for many days.” Acts 16:16-18; 8:9-18)
• f. “Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.” (Mt 4:1)

When Scripture identifies the intense effort to sabotage the righteous ones and the Holy City Jerusalem, then it is quite evident that the dragon’s desire to dominate the heavens is still strong even when bound!

For that reason, the satan, the evil imagination, must be bound in our daily lives. It does not go away...it is bound. Disciplined. Exercised authority over.

How do the pre and post millennial battles with Gog of Magog (the wicked among the nations, “Amalek”) relate to the texts of Shir HaShirim 4:16 and 5:1?

Both attack the Garden-ruled Kingdom of Heaven on earth. Song of Songs 4:16 invites the awakening of the Anointed One to execute the process of the resurrection of the righteous dead and the purging of the wicked, including the satan. He will be bound and tossed into the Abyss, which will be sealed over him for 1,000 years. That's important. If he is only bound or imprisoned by the Holy One, then we cannot try to kill it. We must learn how to discipline and bind it with "It is written."

Just quoting "It is written," however, is not enough. It must be written and applied in the proper context in which we are tempted! The Word is frequently used by the serpent deceptively...out of context.

This is why Job's friends fell so short in their "counsel" to the suffering Job. They really hadn't invested the time to understand how what they knew of the Holy One really applied to Job's situation. They didn't understand the dynamics of what had taken place in Heaven in order for Job's test to be authorized. Job was already confused as to why his pursuit of righteousness was being punished:

• “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?" (Job 38:2)

Knowledge in Hebrew is daat, which means an intimate understanding and relationship. It is beyond wisdom and understanding. It is sacrificial love. Job had wisdom and insight to the Holy One, but until he'd suffered through testing, he would not "know" Him. For a man to "know" a woman is for them to cohabit and bear fruit. In Job's case, the result of the test would be greater fruit and a greater revelation of who the Holy One is. The verses in Job are majestic in their revelation of His Majesty and glory.

Job could not "bind and loose" the satan completely on his own, but with the authority of Yeshua, we do have the authority to exercise a system of judgment within the holy community as well as to appeal to the Holy One when we are sorely tested. We can invoke Yeshua's Name, for Yeshua is interceding on our behalf, perhaps something which Job did not enjoy. In His mercy, the Father may respond by shortening the test Himself ("Lead us not into hard testing" of Matthew 6:13) or reveal to us what we need to do to reach the conclusion faster. He will always refer us to His Word as a greater revelation of Him in that test. It is His desire that we answer these situations with "It is written..." accurately.

A proper "It is written..." really does get rid of the satan faster!

Something else to try is to forgive. The Luke text of the Disciples' Prayer alludes to the appeal to escape hard testing with forgiveness:

• "And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves also forgive everyone who is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation." (Lk 11:4)

Although spirits are not bound with physical chains, the Living Word, which is Yeshua, does hamper the work of the evil one among the holy. It is as close as we can come to putting cuffs on the satan like the Holy One, for in our obedience, we are exercising His power over the accuser and saboteur of our holy life.

While the satan is bound during the millennium, the nations will be free to learn of and obey Yeshua without that evil inclination constantly hampering their efforts. What a deal, right? Perhaps this is the reason the satan is released one final time, to test those nations. Will they truly love Yeshua and restrain evil, or will they join Gog as Magog to rebel against the Word?

For 1,000 years, the un-resurrected among the nations will be subject to the Word, loving restraing “cords” of the YHVH, Messiah, and the royal priesthood:

• “Why are the nations in an uproar and the peoples devising a vain thing?The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers take counsel together against the LORD and against His Anointed, saying, ‘Let us tear their fetters apart and cast away their cords from us!’” (Ps 2:1-3)

This uproar among the nations and their rebellion against Jerusalem’s administration is possible because the satan, the yetzer ha-ra, is released to once again deceive and threaten the Garden and rule of righteousness from the Holy City.

The Gog and Magog deception frogs will once again sing a song of deception like they did before the millennium: "And I saw coming out of the mouth of the dragon and out of the mouth of the beast and out of the mouth of the false prophet three unclean spirits like frogs..." (Re 16:13)

Among the nations are leaders and people who will invite the deception to take root in their hearts that enjoyed the privilege of learning the Word without its evil inclination for 1,000 years. Ultimately, they will be bound with the lies they believed because they chose not to trust Elohim, their Creator, and His saving right hand Yeshua. They will learn of Him in peace, yet they will reject Him.

The sages associate this rebellion of the created against the Creator as the rebellion of a degenerate child against his parent. They read the prophecies of Gog and Magog along with the rebellion of Absalom against David:

• Rabbi Jacob bar Acha said: Why is the portion of Absalom juxtaposed with the portion of Gog and Magog? To teach that a wicked son is more difficult for a father than the war of Gog and Magog...” (Midrash to Tehillim 3:2)
• Degeneracy in a man’s house is considered far more grievous than the war between Gog and Magog. For with reference to the war between Gog and Magog it is written: Why are the nations in an uproar? (Midrash Tanchuma, Shemot 1:7) 

                                   and...

• Avraham’s taking of a skin of water and bread in sending away Ishmael is also associated with Gog and Magog. “Immediately, “Abraham rose early in the morning, and took bread and a skin of water…” , teaching you that he hated Ishmael because he set out on a path of depravity, and sent him and his mother Hagar emptyhanded...and without sustenance?...The path of depravity in a person’s household is worse than the war of Gog and Magog, as regarding Gog and Magog it is written: “Why do nations rage and peoples meditate in vain?”..., wealth, and good deeds....he bound him and tied him, and [Isaac] did not prevent [him from doing so].

The perfect marriage of YHVH through Messiah in the Beloved City and “married” Garden Land with the holy ones, the righteous, is ultimately and finally gained through purging the unrepentant wicked who refuse to cede authority and rulership to their Creator.

It reminds me of a beautiful song from the 90s:

One day every tongue will confess You are God

One day every knee will bow;

Still the greatest treasure remains for those who gladly choose You now.

(Brian Doerksen. 1998 Vineyard Songs)

Let us choose to serve the Holy One of Israel now. Even before satan loses his place in Heaven. Before he is bound, loosed, and bound again. Let us be counted among those gathered who will be perfected, no longer susceptible to sin after the resurrection. Inheritors. Forever.

"Depart from evil and do good, so you will abide forever. For the LORD loves justice and does not forsake His godly ones; they are preserved forever, but the descendants of the wicked will be cut off. The righteous will inherit the land and dwell in it forever. (Ps 37:27-29)

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Awake, O north wind,

And come, wind of the south;

Make my garden breathe out fragrance,

Let its spices be wafted abroad.

May my beloved come into his garden

And eat its choice fruits!” (So 4:16)

This call to “Awake, O North” is thought to encompass three distinct calls recorded in

1. Jeremiah 31:7-8 (exiles of Israel),

2. Isaiah 41:25 (Messiah)

3. Gog and Magog (Ezek 38:2)

Why are all three being called to "Awake" simultaneously?

To awake in Scripture can have a few connotations. The contextual explanation is that there has been a period of inactivity, and the prophetic call is to arouse each group to action. Messiah will begin to gather the exiles who have aroused from a period of spiritual apathy, and simultaneously, Gog and Magog will awaken in that generation to create the chaos and darkness necessary to awaken Israel from spiritual "sleep."

Because the gematria of Gog and Magog is 70 [Gimmel-Vav-Gimmel Vav-Mem-Gimmel-Vav-Gimmel, 3+6+3+6+40+3+6+3], they are thought to represent the symbolic 70 nations of the world, which will gather against both 1. Adonai and 2. Israel.

Various commentaries make oblique references to Gog and Magog, but it will not be understood fully until the day arrives. Some say it is the descendants of Amalek among the nations. Amalek, from which King Agag arose, is the murderous spirit of Edom, or Rome, the fourth beast, headed by Babylon.

In that sense, Gog (chief person) and Magog (his nation, people) has arisen in every generation to provoke the Holy One and people who trust in Him and obey Him. The Scriptures cited below reiterate that Gog and Magog are not a single ruler and nation, but a wicked remnant embedded among all nations. In some generations, they will rise up with enough strength and cunning to marshal huge numbers of the population to join their murderous schemes.

The pre-millennial war will bring Israel to repentance, and Adonai Himself will destroy Gog and Magog with confusion, thunder, hail, blood, and lightning (Ezek 38-39). In other words, an amalgam of Egypt and Assyria’s judgments.

Psalm Two is traditionally associated with Gog of Magog:

• Why are the nations in an uproar and the peoples devising a vain thing?The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers take counsel together against the LORD and against His Anointed, saying,“Let us tear their fetters apart and cast away their cords from us!” He who sits in the heavens laughs, the Lord scoffs at them. Then He will speak to them in His anger and terrify them in His fury, saying, “But as for Me, I have installed My King upon Zion, My holy mountain.” (Ps 2:1-6)

The commentators note that in this attack of Gog, it revisits an important precedent in Babel: at the tower of Bavel, the united conspirators agreed to attack Heaven itself. As a result, YHVH confused them, and the 70 languages of the nations were born. This is the traditional location of Nebuchadnezzar’s golden statue. Amalek in the Torah portion Balak is referred to "first of the nations," in other words, the first to openly rebel against Heaven itself by attacking Israel in the wilderness; this "first" attack was also the first direct attack against Heaven since the "nation of mankind" attempted to penetrate it rebelliously at the Tower of Bavel.

At the final attack of Gog from Magog, the nations will once again undertake to assemble and attack YHVH and Messiah DIRECTLY, thinking the Holy City Jerusalem has a “Patron” who will defend it. They believe this was the wicked Amalekite Haman’s fallacy, attacking the Jews first instead of their God. Something will cause them to believe they have the wherewithal to wage war directly against YHVH and King Messiah.

What do Gog and Magog have to do with the third “awakening” of the winds?

• “Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding the key of the abyss and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold of the dragon, the serpent of old, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years; and he threw him into the abyss, and shut it and sealed it over him, so that he would not deceive the nations any longer, until the thousand years were completed; after these things he must be released for a short time.” (Re 20:1-3)

The “satan” is the adversary, or yetzer hara, Evil Inclination, which wars and accuses humankind; it is adversarial to the righteousness of the Spirit. The yetzer hara, identified with satan, is in conflict with the image of Elohim in every person, for He is the Creator, and He made mankind in His image. We are “inclined” toward imaginative creative, thought. What should lean toward tov, good imaginations, the yetzer tov, instead wars against the mind of Elohim with evil imaginations:

וַיַּרְא יְהוָה כִּי רַבָּה רָעַת הָאָדָם בָּאָרֶץ וְכָל־יֵצֶר מַחְשְׁבֹת לִבּוֹ רַק רַע כָּל־הַיּוֹם

• “Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” (Ge 6:5)  

Not part time, but full-time yetzer hara.

The satan is the Dragon, who holds the authority that is passed on to ”The Beast.” He operates first in deception to usurp the Garden. In CG Workbooks Two and Four, you learned that The Beast represents the appetite, emotion, intellect, and desire of the nefesh (soul), which wars against the truth of the Ruach HaKodesh, “it is written.”

As nations/empires, the Dragon is represented by Egypt, and its deceitful “authority” was wielded by the Beast empires: Babylon, Medea/Persia, Greece, and Rome in conquering the nations. Greece’s “spots” were its systems, much adopted from Persia and Babylon, by which it enticed, coerced, and forced subjugation of the nations. These systems incorporate the natural leanings, “yetzer,” lust of the nefesh: appetite, emotion, desire, intellect.

A wicked seed is deception. It can take root and form intent. Intent leads to wicked action.

• And I saw coming out of the mouth of the dragon and out of the mouth of the beast and out of the mouth of the false prophet, three unclean spirits like frogs. (Re 16:13)

Lacking the “food and water” of the Word, the beast/nefesh within a human creature is never completely satisfied because the nefesh, or soul, dominates the ruach/spirit.

When we fail to walk in ever-increasing holiness, immersing in the Word Yeshua, we are part of the serpent’s deception among the nations of our exile. Our sin deceives people concerning the purity of the Kingdom coming fully to this earth.

A believer should not be a deceiver.

We can deceive either through

1) not studying to understand the Word 

2) failing to apply it

To the undiscipled/undisciplined soul, an achievement or acquisition brings temporary happiness and satiety, but it quickly loses its luster, and the beast must hunt the next soul meal.

In contrast, a soul at rest is “like a weaned child,” (Ps 131:2) able to relax until the next challenge, test, or accomplishment, knowing the Ruach HaKodesh responds to the Word readily, but the nefesh is still in faith training [l’hitamen], re-wiring thoughts and actions to “It is written.”

• “When the thousand years are completed, Satan will be released from his prison and will come out to deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together for the war; the number of them is like the sand of the seashore. And they came up on the broad plain of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city, and fire came down from heaven and devoured them. And the devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are also; and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.” (Re 20:7-10)

Although Gog and Magog (the hostile nations) are defeated at the beginning of the 1000-year-reign, when the evil inclination is released again, the evil remnant among the nations gather for war again. The “sand of the seashore” is a hint to the ruined King of Egypt’s dead Egyptian army who served the dragon, the crocodile of the Nile. They were last seen on the sand of the seashore of the Reed Sea, or Yam Suf (the final sea).

Are you awake yet?

Next week, we will learn why Gog and and Magog are so attracted to “the beloved city” and its inhabitants to destroy them. We will also learn why the power of satan is so strong against the holy things of this earth.

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This week is a review of our mini-series of Walking on Water as a prophecy of the Greater Exodus.

Walking on Water has been a mini-series full of encouragement and hope. It grew from this verse in the Song of Songs:

"Awake, O north wind,

And come, wind of the south;

Make my garden breathe out fragrance,

Let its spices be wafted abroad.

May my beloved come into his garden

And eat its choice fruits!” (4:16)

To wrap up our series, let's review some key points. First, the walk through the Reed Sea is connected to the separation and gathering of waters at the Creation in Genesis One as well as the Tree of Life and the River of Life in Revelation. That's quite a swim, so Baruch HaShem we can walk on water!

What those Creation and Revelation bookends have in common is fruit trees along the water. This fruit symbolism appears in natural cycles, which reflect fruit cycles in their spiritual cycles. The natural world is merely the parable of the spiritual world, but by studying the creation, we can see the spiritual fruit cycles to which we will be in perfect tune in the millennial kingdom of Yeshua.

This is one reason it is so important to study and practice the feasts of Scripture, which are themed around agricultural themes. Israel works the fields to produce natural fruits which are offered as tithes, firstfruits, and offerings. The natural is elevated to the spiritual realm where it is perfected, just as those resurrected from the dead will be planted mortal, yet raised immortal, fully equipped to function in either the natural or spiritual world.

The feasts of Adonai loop year after year, offering believers an opportunity to be nourished by His fruit loops. No artificial dyes, added sugar, or whatever else it is that makes Froot Loops bad for you. This is fruit for those entering the Kingdom as little children, needing nourishment for maturity when they emerge from the water:

• Bahya writes. When they were walking in the sea and their children cried, the mother took an apple or a pomegranate and gave it to the child. There were apple trees and other fruit in the sea. The Holy One made them grow quickly and had fruits in the sea. *Bahya, Exodus, 14:22. [Tze'enah Ure'enah, Beshalach] *The Bahya text is a reference to Midrash Rabbah to Shemot 21§10 (Exodus 14:21-22)

The trip over the water-and-earth-bridge of the sea provided a taste of Eden. Not a complete transition to the Garden, but a brief experience, like their everwear clothes and sandals, food, and water.

What did the water bridge provide? It lifted their feet from the natural earth, supplying a cushion of purifying water for the swift journey. Things that ascend to the Garden in a physical body must pass through fire or water to purify them for holy use.

“You shall be holy, for I am holy.”

If we sanctify ourselves on earth, Adonai sanctifies and perfects us in heaven. It is our duty, and it allows the world to be enticed by our odor of holiness instead of despairing that a holy walk is impossible or not even a fruitful one. We die to the sin slavery of the natural body, yet we live according the resurrection spirit of Yeshua.

We have available the washing of water by the Word. This might explain Yeshua’s washing of the disciples’ feet...they would experience the supernatural, like Philip’s rapid translation after he witnessed to the Ethiopian. 

Our immersion in the water of the Word in the Torah cycles and feasts is like walking in Fruit Loops. As the mothers of Israel took fruits from the walls of water in the Reed Sea on the journey, so we enjoy the fruits of the Ruach when we enter the Kingdom as a little child.

As we mature, we also bear fruit to give to others who are maturing by the River of Life, for we are a part of the Tree of Life. The crossing of the Reed Sea recalled the Creation, yet according to the Song of the Sea, the nations witnessed Israel's journey as they walked on water.

It was dark, the waters split, nations saw the good fruits, and the fragrance wafted abroad. Likewise, Yeshua's return to gather his bride into the clouds of glory will be witnessed by all the earth: "BEHOLD, HE IS COMING WITH THE CLOUDS, and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him; and all the tribes of the earth will mourn over Him. So it is to be. Amen." (Re 1:7)

The pillar of cloud and light moved behind the Israelites, protecting their entrance to the “Garden and giving the Bride the opportunity to invite him after her into the Garden, which is customary. The Bridegroom does not enter the chuppah until invited by the Bride: "May my Beloved come into his garden and eat its choice fruits!" "He who testifies to these things says, 'Yes, I am coming quickly.' Amen. Come, Lord Yeshua." (Re 22:20)

As we taste his choice spiritual fruits, so he tastes the choice fruits the Ruach produced in the Bride who cultivates natural fruits of earthly service to offer the Bridegroom.

The pattern is this:

• Water represents spirit (as does fire)
• The earth is the substance of mankind, adam
• When YHVH turns the sea into dry land as a way of escape, that which was spirit became substance/flesh in order to provide a new beginning for Israel/mankind, a resurrection from the sin decay of mere earth to earthly life with the spirit, a promise of perfections from above
• New life follows a mikveh in Messiah, the Great Hand of YHVH.

"The Spirit and the bride say, “Come.” And let the one who hears say, “Come.” And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who wishes take the water of life without cost." (Re 22:17) Those fruits renew every month beside the River of Life. The Bride will be eternally new and renewed by the Ruach, free of mortal decay.

When Yeshua has perfected his Bride at the resurrection of her body and Body, she will invite him to once again join her in the Garden under the chuppah. Blessed is He who comes in the Name of YHVH. Lekha dodi. Come, my Beloved, to meet the Bride. The Ruach of Shabbat we receive.

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I have chickens. They are not my chickens. They belong to the neighbor. He already had chickens in a chicken coop. Now he has ten more chickens. They are not in the chicken coop. They are in my yard. My flowers. Digging holes in the yard and around the foundation of the house. Pooping on the porch. Hanging out.

I tried playing red-tail hawk sounds really loud. I tried taking watermelon rinds and veggie scraps over to their property, but they still lurk in the shady spots and follow me around every time I go outside to work. They just stick around.

It took me a whole day to lay chicken wire under the flower bed mulch to keep them from destroying my carefully designed and freshly-planted flower beds.

We let the neighbor know, but so far, we still have sticken’ chickens.

I even told them the story of when Billie Idol went missing, but while they enjoyed story time, they don’t connect Billie’s demise to their current situation.

Chickens are like that.

When I was four years old, my first pet was a chicken named Slicker.

Grandma’s cat Fuchsia ate it.

I didn’t connect a cat to Slicker’s current situation.

I was telling a good friend about our sticken’ chickens yesterday, and we were chatting about the danger of Moses’ forty days of absence on the mountain. The Israelites and mixed multitude pretty much gave up on his return. In spite of every miracle they’d seen, they couldn’t wait forty full days for the next one. Not only that, they started breaking the Big Ten. An idol. Sexual immorality. You know the story. They’d been delivered from slavery in Egypt; they’d been immersed as a congregation in the Reed Sea; they’d witnessed the glory of Adonai and agreed to His covenant at the mountain…and yet, they had sticken’ chickens from Egypt. They went right back to feeding slavery to sin. 

“For I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea; and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea...” (1 Co 10:1-2)

The tunnel of the Reed Sea was like a birth canal. Immersion has always been a symbol of a resurrection that is more than symbolic. On the Third Day of Creation was a birth of life from the water to fruit trees. On the dawn of the Seventh Day of Passover, the Israelites completed a supernaturally fast, effortless journey through the Reed Sea.

Likewise, immersion (mikveh) is undertaken as a rebirth. The pattern is this:

   •   Water represents spirit (as does fire)

   •   The earth is the substance of mankind, adam

   •   When YHVH turns the sea into dry land as a way of escape, that which was spirit became substance/flesh in order to provide a new beginning for Israel/mankind, a resurrection from the sin decay of mere earth to earthly life with the spirit, a promise of wholeness and perfections completed from above

   •   New life follows a mikveh in Messiah, the Great Hand of YHVH.

This is the mystical picture of the Reed Sea. When YHVH turned the sea into dry land, he figuratively resurrected the Israelites. When the natural body dies, it returns to the earth. In Messiah Yeshua, the bared arm of YHVH, mankind is resurrected from earth through water.

• “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it? Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin.” (Ro 6:1-7)

When we turn back to sin, we’re not quite dead enough.

Few who entered the Reed Sea mikveh entered as newborns in physical age; Israelites and the mixed multitude entered in various stages of aging. In that sense, we understand why a mikveh symbolizes rebirth, yet it is available to all ages for their various reasons.

Regardless of the age entering it, emerging from the mikveh is a re-set upon emerging. Immersion is a type of resurrection, especially as the water becomes the “dry land” of burial. It is a fresh start for a newborn who has yet to choose sin.

Purities of obedience begin in the home...

• “There are seven dwelling places listed in the Seder Gan Eden, and in each there is a righteous woman who teaches the Torah: Batyah, daughter of Pharaoh, Yocheved, mother of Moses, Miriam, sister of Moses, Huldah the Prophetess, Abigail, David’s wife, and beyond this point, the matriarchs, Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah.” In one source, those who enter Gan Eden (the Garden of Eden) go through four transformations through their learning experience. Upon entry, the righteous individual is changed into a child and tastes the joys of childhood (Raphael, p. 187)… “When the Torah was first given, it was taught to the women first. It is written, ‘Thus shall you say to the house of Jacob’ – the women – ‘and tell the sons of Israel’ (Ex 19:3).” (Kaplan, p. 59)

Whether literal or not, the principle is that purity and obedience are first learned in the home, the domain of the mother: “My son, observe the commandment [mitzvah] of your father, and do not forsake the teaching [torah] of your mother.” (Pr 6:20)

Yeshua reiterated how important childhood is in entering the Kingdom without a habit of sin, without the pride of rebellion against the Word.

• “At that time the disciples came to Jesus and said, “Who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” And He called a child to Himself and set him before them, and said, “Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever then humbles himself as this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” (Mt 18:1-4)

The humble child is like a slave, not yet inheriting, yet he/she already has everything. Children of every age are equal, yet honor and responsibility according to growth age.

There is no least or greatest in that sense. All are children. All begin as little children and need time to experience spiritual childhood because of its pure joy and lack of responsibility. Just because a child is precocious doesn’t mean he/she is ready for the keys to the Kingdom.

The Hokey Pokey of Eden

Yeshua said, “Unless you be “converted” and become like children...”

• στρέφω stréphō; to twist, i.e. turn quite around or reverse (literally or figuratively):—convert, turn (again, back again, self, self about).

“Now I say, as long as the heir is a child, he does not differ at all from a slave although he is owner of everything...”(Ga 4:1)

Immersion into Messiah Yeshua mimics this growth principle, re-setting to childhood for a new cycle, preparing the child to inherit the Kingdom. No getting around it! What the child must not do is mistake himself or herself for the slave who has no inheritance! A slave inherits nothing! A slave has Egyptian sticken’ chickens of sin. A child, though awaiting and learning in the Father’s house, will inherit the estate. The child does not serve because of his past, but because of his future.

A child who hangs around slaves, however, may believe he is a slave. He may begin to mimic sins that are not his mother’s training for the inheritance of their father…and Father.

This principle is so elementary to our faith. We must mature in our faith, learning to be holy on earth because He is holy in Heaven, our inheritance. Through repentance and conversion, constantly turning around to live innocently according to the “new man” that was immersed in Messiah, we can mature in the Word to inherit the Kingdom:

• “Therefore leaving the elementary teaching about the Christ, let us press on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, of instruction about washings and laying on of hands, and the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment. And this we will do, if God permits. For in the case of those who have once been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance, since they again crucify to themselves the Son of God and put Him to open shame. For ground that drinks the rain which often falls on it and brings forth vegetation useful to those for whose sake it is also tilled, receives a blessing from God; but if it yields thorns and thistles, it is worthless and close to being cursed, and it ends up being burned.” (He 6:1-8)

That’s horrible. Our continued sin crucifies and shames Yeshua again! It is as if we are among those screaming, “Crucify him! Crucify him!” It is as if we whipped Yeshua, spit on him, and drove the nails into his hands and feet. We are false witnesses, for while in one breath we speak of Messiah Yeshua, in the next breath we sin as if Yeshua is dead. If he is alive, we are his little children, learning, repenting, correcting, and trusting Yeshua the Living Word is alive in us. If we practice sin, we proclaim the death of Messiah, but not his resurrection.

If we don’t believe Messiah Yeshua is dead, then we need to cease dead works.

Dead works, too, are a testimony, not of Messiah Yeshua’s life, but of his death.

Let the world see the life of Yeshua in us resurrect us to increasing pure, holy, and faithful works when we trip over sticken’ chickens and fall. We can do the hokey pokey and turn ourselves around, but we must make the connection to our current situation.

Although I have sticken’ chickens during the day, at night, they go home to roost. Ultimately, that’s what sin does. It returns to the one who provides it a resting place. Those kinds of chickens should find no place to rest or roost in a believer. Yeshua lives. Let the little child arise from the waters of immersion, no matter what our age. Children were Yeshua’s greatest fans, and he always welcomed them with open arms, no matter how busy he was healing, teaching, and delivering the grownups.

How does water relate to the resurrection of the whole spirit, soul, and physical body? When we make transgressions, the spirit of grace offers a path of reconciliation with our Father, our King. If we sincerely repent and immerse, we come up a new creation, a new child. Forget the Fountain of Youth-this water is WAY better! It is a fountain of youth with an eternal inheritance!

As we wait for Yeshua's return, let us not grow weary of waiting or become vulnerable to Egypt's sticken' chickens. An inheritance awaits.

“For we will surely die and are like water spilled on the ground which cannot be gathered up again. Yet God does not take away life but plans ways so that the banished one will not be cast out from him.” (Wise Woman of Tekoa in 2 Sa 14:14)

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In the last several newsletters, we've taken a close look at the many prophecies embodied in Yeshua's walk on the water of the Galilee in Matthew Fourteen. How different was Yeshua's perception of the walk than Peter and the other disciples'! For the one who was the water in the Rock…and the Rock…in the wilderness for the Israelites, it was no problem to also be the Rock in the water to his students. 

“He alone spreads out the heavens and treads on the waves of the sea…” (Job 9:8)

Sometimes it helps to put the Gospel of Matthew back into its original Hebrew text. While no one is certain of where that text might be (only fragments are known to survive), there is a version whose provenance can only be traced so far back in Jewish history, yet it is quite accurate considering it was used by a less-than-friendly readership. It is the Shem Tov’s Evan Bohan version from the Fourteenth Century. The differences between the Hebrew and Greek texts are not drastic.

To Yeshua, the stroll on the Galilee during the storm was perceived much differently than his students, who perceived it as dangerous, chaotic, and "contrary." In the Hebrew Matthew version, the word for contrary is neged, or opposing, opposite. Neged has a good side, too, for Adam’s wife Chavah was his ezer kenegdo, or “helper opposite him,” which brings balance. When opposition is a helper, it is because in spite of the opposition, the overall purpose is to achieve unity walking in the Word. The opposite helper pulls the weight of the yoke beside the other, ensuring the burden does not get dragged in endless circles, but can go straight. For example, grace and truth are not opposed to one another. One cannot be practiced at the expense of the other. In Yeshua, they work together.

Sarah wasn’t such a good helper when she suggested Hagar as a solution to their problem, but she was a good helper when she advised Abraham to send away Ishmael, who had not internalized the righteousness of his father and threatened the inheritance of Isaac. The disciples did not see the waves of the storm as their ezer kenegdo, or helping opposition, but as a destructive force. They were just rowing in circles in the middle of the Galilee, taking on water.

Galilee does indeed imply circles in Hebrew, like a roll or spool, and a wave is a gal, pronounced gahl (not to be confused with other gals). This is perhaps what it has in common with the “circle of the earth,” and why from Isaiah’s prophecy, Galilee came to be called “Galilee of the Nations.” In Jewish tradition, Moses hid the Rock that followed them in the wilderness in the bottom of the Galilee before he died, which explains why Yeshua would have made his early home near the Galilee and begun his ministry there. The Rock was both the water in the Rock, the Rock, and the Rock in the water.

It also explains how Yeshua’s ministry prepared the way for the nations to hear the Gospel message from his disciples:

• “But there will be no more gloom for her who was in anguish; in earlier times He treated the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali with contempt, but later on He shall make it glorious, by the way of the sea, on the other side of Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles. The people who walk in darkness will see a great light; those who live in a dark land, the light will shine on them.” (Is 9:1-2)

As the region of the Galilee represented the Gentile nations in the time from Isaiah to Yeshua’s ministry, so the disciples were dispersed to proclaim the Light of the Word Yeshua to the scattered of Israel as well as the Gentiles who dwelled among the raging waves of tormenting wickedness.

Even as we are rescued, we are tested of the Ruach HaKodesh, the Holy Spirit, who also is described as a “Helper.” An ezer kenegdo may seem contrary, yet it is a necessary instrument of contention from the Father before we officially enter into “the bond of the covenant” with Him. While we said “We will do and we will hear” at many Shavuot feasts in our wilderness of the peoples, a final reckoning under the Shepherd’s rod will occur at a future Feast of Trumpets (Rosh HaShanah) so that the bond may be sealed at Yom HaKippurim before we enter into the chuppah of Sukkot with Yeshua:

• “I will bring you out from the peoples and gather you from the lands where you are scattered, with a mighty hand and with an outstretched arm and with wrath poured out; and I will bring you into the wilderness of the peoples, and there I will enter into judgment with you face to face. As I entered into judgment with your fathers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt, so I will enter into judgment with you,” declares the Lord GOD. “I will make you pass under the rod, and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant; and I will purge from you the rebels and those who transgress against Me; I will bring them out of the land where they sojourn, but they will not enter the land of Israel. Thus you will know that I am the LORD.” (Ezek 20:34-38)

If there are rebels, they will be purged in the wilderness of the nations, but the testing and refining process will not feel good to any believer even if they are not sifted out by the test.

When we follow Yeshua, we will encounter the contrary waves of the Galilee, for we fish people in “Galilee” of the nations. For many walking with Yeshua, whether on land or sea, they realize that they are already a long distance from where they departed, but yet are quite a distance from where they are going. At this point, turning around might seem easier because that's the way the wind is blowing. Just ride it wherever it blows, right?

It really isn't the easiest way out of the storm, though. Hebrew Matthew 14:24 says the disciples’ boat was b’emtzah, or “in the middle of, the center of” the sea. It’s just as far to go back as it is to go forward, yet fear makes going back to the wilderness of Egypt, the starting place, seem less painful and scary than riding out the storm.

It isn’t.

When Yeshua steps into our “boat,” the journey will be over in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye. “So they were willing to receive Him into the boat, and immediately the boat was at the land to which they were going” even though the text states they were three or four miles along the water (Jn 6:21), and Matthew says they were in the center of the Galilee.

Yes, going forward feels like going nowhere because every stroke of the oars meets resistance. What discouraged Peter mid-walk was that the wind was chazak, or "strong.” A strong force was at work on the Galilee. The forces that test us ARE strong. The disciples could have no better object lesson of struggle not being against flesh and blood, but against “principalities and powers in high places.” No wonder the disciples thought Yeshua might be a not-so-friendly-ghost, or in Hebrew, a sheid (demon).

On the other hand, their struggle was against flesh and blood…their own fears and limitations to act in the storm.

• "But the boat was already a long distance from the land, battered by the waves; for the wind was contrary." (Mt 14:24)

Two words describe the reason for the disciples' fear: "battered" and "contrary."

The Greek word for “battered” is:

basanizō

The KJV translates Strong's G928 in the following manner: torment (8x), pain (1x), toss (1x), vex (1x), toil (1x).

to test (metals) by the touchstone

to question by applying torture

to torture

to vex with grievous pains (of body or mind), to torment

to be harassed, distressed

In Sodom, Lot was also tortured by the wickedness surrounding him:

"...for by what he saw and heard, that righteous man, while living among them, felt G928 his righteous soul tormented G928 day after day by their lawless deeds)..." (2 Pe 2:8)

The disciples were figuratively among the nations, “battered” by the waves, their righteous souls tortured at the level of Sodom’s wickedness.

In the Hebrew Matthew, the wording is slightly different: “The boat was in the midst of the sea, and the waves of the sea were driving it because the wind was contrary.”

While the Greek describes the waves as tormenting the disciples, the Hebrew is dachaf, which means pushing and shoving. Who or what are these deathly tormenting, pushing, shoving, waves driven by contrary, neged wind?

“When the waves of death surrounded me, the floods of ungodliness made me afraid.” (2 Sa 22:5)

It is ungodliness that tests us just as it tested Lot and every other righteous person in Scripture. Yes, ungodliness is very frightening. Every stroke of the oar that should impel us forward to the goal meets strong resistance. We’re pushed and shoved. Faith in Yeshua, however, can cause the storm to give it a rest.

Think of this. Although it feels as though we’re not stronger than the wicked waves, going wherever the contrary ruach shoves us, the opposite is true. In the boat with faith in Yeshua, we DO have control over the direction of the boat even in the storm. Obedience to the Word is a definite direction, not drifting. When we invite Yeshua into the boat, it shortens the journey to where we’re going. The longer we struggle against it alone with our fears, the longer it will take.

Yeshua is still the Rock in the water of the nations. When we walk on his Word, we walk on a solid foundation.

And eventually, the nations will stand still and watch the salvation of YHVH like the Israelites did while Yeshua arranged the waters of the Reed Sea for their journey home. The nations will have to watch Yeshua be the cloud, the bridge, the strong hand that leads His people to their destination in the City of Comfort. When the Israelites crossed the Reed Sea, the waters below them became dry land; the waters to their right and left hardened into brick-like stone walls, and the water above them was the cloud: “For I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea; and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea...” (1 Co 10:1-2)

Remember this from the beginning of the “Walking on Water” mini-series:

• “All the waters of the world were split when the sea was split. Ten miracles occurred at the sea. First, that it split. Second is that it was made like a dome or a roof and Israel walked under the water. The water was under, on the sides of and over Israel. Third, it was dry under them, so that Israel should not smear their feet with mud. Fourth, for the Egyptians, the earth was all mud and slime and they sank into it. Fifth, the water was congealed and hard as stone. Sixth, the water was not congealed completely, but it was congealed a section at a time. It was like large boulders, in the expectation that when the Egyptians would drown, the hard water would smash their heads, like stones. These pieces were on top of each other, like a brick wall.” (Tze'enah Ure'enah, Commentary to Beshalach)

Understanding the symbolism of the Galilee in relation to the crossing of the Reed helps us to make the connection between the Exodus from Egypt and the coming Greater Exodus. The ancient rabbis carefully read the Exodus text, and they saw the “stone wall” composition of the sea walls when it parted to make a way for Israel to cross the earth on its journey home. The pushing, shoving, tormenting waves of the world were frozen in place so that they could not move, forced to watch the salvation of YHVH’s strong right hand Yeshua as he led Israel to a supernatural existence:

“Terror and dread fall upon them;

By the greatness of Your arm they are motionless as stone;

Until Your people pass over, O LORD,

Until the people pass over whom You have purchased.

You will bring them and plant them in the mountain of Your inheritance,

The place, O LORD, which You have made for Your dwelling,

The sanctuary, O Lord, which Your hands have established.” (Ex 15:16-17)

When the Israelites completed their journey, the "stones" fell on one another, wicked smashing wicked.

Imagine what the gathering of Yeshua will be like. The wicked will be frozen, unable to move, while Israel exits the natural world and begins walking in the supernatural world of Eden. It’s a realm of heavenly waters where supernatural meets the natural, just above us.

Peter said to Yeshua, “If it is you, command me to ‘Bo!’”

Yeshua said, “Bo!”

“Come up here!”

Step on up, students. There’s a Rock in the waters.

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When I worked at the federal prison, there was a particular officer with a funny voice, kind of like the drill sergeants at boot camp. It could penetrate cinder block walls, mainly because it had to. The best I can describe it is 50% drill sergeant, 35% smoker's throat, and 15% helium.

When it was time for a "standing count," inmates were required to stand up for the count. It made it easier for the officer to obtain an accurate count, and more importantly, the officer was sure the prisoner

1) was still alive and well, and

2) really there; it wasn't just a lump of pillows under a blanket

When I worked with this officer, he called out in that boot camp voice, "Count time! On your feet!" You couldn't not hear it. He said more colorful things than "Count time!" when inmates or staff caused him problems, but those are best not repeated.

We are quickly approaching Shavuot, the end of "Count time! On your feet!" The harvest time between Pesach and Shavuot is extremely busy agriculturally, but it only get BUSIER between Shavuot and the fall feasts of ingathering. If we're struggling to stand, much less walk right now, we might need a fainting couch when the relentless summer heat hits.

Yeshua told the following parable:

• "Other seed fell on rocky soil, and as soon as it grew up, it withered away, because it had no moisture. Other seed fell among the thorns; and the thorns grew up with it and choked it out. Other seed fell into the good soil, and grew up, and produced a crop a hundred times as great.”...“Now the parable is this: the seed is the word of God... Those on the rocky soil are those who, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no firm root; they believe for a while, and in time of temptation fall away. The seed which fell among the thorns, these are the ones who have heard, and as they go on their way they are choked with worries and riches and pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to maturity. But the seed in the good soil, these are the ones who have heard the word in an honest and good heart, and hold it fast, and bear fruit with perseverance." (Lk 8:7-15)

The "fresh" Word does wonders in our lives. It makes for a fun Passover when we've renewed the joy of our salvation each year. A week or two into the count, though, the seed of the Word is in mortal danger. Seed is the promise of life, yet when the soil isn't prepared, protected, nurtured, and watered, the fruit that could have matured in that field dies in the early stages.

As the omer count goes on, it's harder to stand and be counted. A temptation comes, perhaps a "stones-to-bread" twisting shortcut of what the Word actually means, or the consequences of throwing one's self off a height of risky behavior, hoping an angel will catch us, or even a brush with idolatry: greed, rebellion, sexual immorality, etc. Others will be choked by worries, busy-ness thorns that choke off the nourishment times of studying the Word needed to put down deep roots and to choke out the thorns instead.

• But the Lord answered and said to her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about so many things; but only one thing is necessary, for Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her.” (Lk 10:41-42)

Our busy days will be weighed in the balances of the Kingdom when we enter, and imagine how much of it will be taken away as we cross the threshhold to the Garden. And imagine what will not be taken away. Any time invested in the Word of the Father will remain, and in that Kingdom, it will continue to bear eternal fruit, especially if we've grown and pulled that fruit from the bitter waters of a test.

There's something in the water during count time. What is it?

While walking through, under, on, and between water of the Reed Sea might feel miraculous and spectacular, the omer count time is also a time when the Father begins to test His Word in us. It will not feel so miraculous or spectacular.

This will bring back the bitter Egyptian taste of mistrust. The Egyptian masters coerced and abused their slaves*, and life only became worse, not better. Is YHVH the same kind of master? Is he an abusive father like Pharaoh, demanding everything, yet slow to deliver what was owed or not delivering at all? Our "childhood" walk to Shavuot will be characterized by a major test or two because "...as long as the heir is a child, he does not differ at all from a slave although he is owner of everything...(Ga 4:1)

Israel was the heir to the Promised Land, the Kingdom, yet they were being treated like slaves, forced to rely upon the Father at every stop along the way to Sinai, starting with the encounter with the bitter water. Remember as kids when we hated boring, long rides in the back seat (because we didn't have "devices" for distraction back then!), doing chores, making our beds, or having to spend time at a family occasion when we could have been out playing with our friends?

Children are being introduced to the fundamentals of the Torah so that they can later become disciples, routine practicers of even the more exacting holy commandments required of a kingdom of royal priests. Before that betrothal into discipleship at Sinai, though, we learn the fundamentals of the faith and practice them. Remember? L'hitamen is the reflexive form of L'haamin, "to trust, to have faith." L'hitamen means to practice, drill, and train.

Amen?

Some believers love count time. Some don't. Some believers embrace test day; others develop a stomachache and stay home.

Really, can’t you divide most believers into those who view Moses’ instructions as sweet, the Tree of Life, and those who see them as bitter, distasteful, and unnecessary to their maturation into the Bride of Messiah?

In fact, we all swing between those two positions along the journey. As the Father prepares the Bride, He will gently wash, wash, wash. We must practice, practice, practice, drill, drill, drill, correcting our attitudes. How? In spite of the bitter taste of water, it tests the sotah. The test of the sotah called for the suspected adulteress to drink bitter water containing both the words of Torah and the sacred Name YHVH, which would be washed off in the water she drank.

If innocent, she would experience no harm and bear fruit. Good soil.

If guilty, both she and her adulterous partner would waste away. Dry soil. Summer heat. Unguarded against predators. Choked by non-Kingdom business. Not hearing, which means not doing, the Seed of the Word. Not enough practice in righteousness to balance the worries that always come.

Vulnerability leads to easy pickins for the adversary. Not the harvest of good barley and wheat, but the opposite. The adversary plucks up before the plant comes to maturity. Practice in righteousness slowly washes away the victim mentality of Egypt along with its vulnerabilities that invite predators; practice in the commandments sends down good roots that will find water when the topsoil is dry.

Count time is a vulnerable time. Practice.

The bitter water of Marah tested the Israelites who had just walked on water! Were they thinking of adultery/idolatry again? Or could they think through the problem, practice faithful thinking based on His Word and promises, and find sweetness in the situation? Actually bear good fruit because of the bitterness...in spite of it? Could they do what Moses did, which was to throw a "stick" (etz) into the water. An etz is a tree.

Trees are sometimes metaphors of human beings in Scriptures. ("I see men like trees walking...") Sometimes we see ourselves in the water. That's when we need to throw ourselves into the water. Go all the way under. If our reflection doesn't look so good, it's time to jump in the bitter water and sweeten it with our faithfulness.

When we pop back up, we'll be surrounded by the concentric water circles waving and traveling outward. They remind us that we are maturing plants, and our faithfulness will have an impact on those around us that just keeps on going.

Don't see anything?

Keep going under until you bob up and see fruit.

Keep drinking until it's sweet.

If we will allow our bitter tests to be refreshed with washing of water by the Word, Yeshua, then where there were bitter memories of past wrongs and dashed hopes, there will be the seed of fresh fruit. It will be a great step in leaving the past behind and pressing forward.

The pomegranate represents the Torah because of its approximate 613 seeds, representing the 613 commandments. There is a fruit tree of the Word awaiting us in the water. Maybe Peter wasn't really sinking in the water after all. Maybe he was just learning to stand and be counted, washing and polishing his commandment pips, learning to trust Yeshua to finish and perfect his childlike faith in bitter tests between then and Shavuot.

If we saw Yeshua, a Living Word, the Tree of Life, as our reflection in the water, it would transform the bitter test to a sweet one. How far do we need to go to change our attitudes about tests to conform to Yeshua's attitude? It's not different water. It's not a different Word. It's how we view the changes that need to take place in us in order to taste a hard Word as a sweet one.

If we wait upon the Father’s will and practice His Word, He will sweeten the water and improve our reflection in His time. He'll teach us "the good part, which shall not be taken away." Our reflection in the water will be transformed by the washing, sweet water of the Word. We need not be either thirsty or unclean in His Presence at Sinai.

There is something in the water. It is Yeshua. His solution to an ugly reflection at count time?

On your feet!

And jump in!

*Archaeologists have found potsherds scattered around the Egyptian pyramids and other building projects where workers scrawled their complaints onto the scraps of pottery. Perhaps the complaints were too dangerous to say aloud, and they contented themselves with scattering these anonymous grievances around the work camp for the supervisors to find. One of the main complaints was that they were shortchanged wages, which was sometimes goods, or the wages were slow to arrive.

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When it looks like the angels of the four winds, or princes and principalities, or spiritual darkness in high places (and low ones!) are bringing destruction, our confidence is in the right arm and saving hand of YHVH, Yeshua. For Peter, the last watch of the night, the time of immindent destruction, was too close for comfort. He knew that the "dry land" he walked on could turn to stones of destruction at any second.

Yeshua said to Peter, "Come!" In Hebrew, he said, "Bo!" [בֹא]That should sound familiar from our Reed Sea salvation as well:

The sons of Israel went through the midst of the sea on the dry land,

וַיָּבֹאוּ בְנֵי־יִשְׂרָאֵל בְּתוֹךְ הַיָּם בַּיַּבָּשָׁה

The verb? Yavo-u! The collective congregation in plural form of Bo. Peter knew YHVH walking on water had happened in the past...if Yeshua was who he said he was, the son of YHVH, then wouldn't he want the disciples to Bo! now in their present time of trouble as well? If it was Yeshua, then it wasn’t a “ghost,” a spirit assigned to the East Wind, but Salvation guiding the East Wind.

This is an example to us that neither should we be distracted by the tempestuous spiritual forces being used to shepherd us into safe haven.

In this newsletter, we need to review the dark spiritual forces of "Egypt" that were bound at the Abyss of the Reed Sea and how they play a role in the prophecies of Revelation. It's a necessary layer of understanding to help us take the next step with Yeshua, the dry land, the resurrection, and the mystery of its mikveh.

It also is an encouragement that even as we walk on the water with Yeshua when he says "Bo!", he is marshaling the King of Abaddon and "Egypt" to take vengeance on the very adversaries who pursued us. He is surrounding us with a protective, pure tunnel of salvation.

Please review the Chariots of the Abyss this week, and we will progress to the mystery of immersion in Messiah next week. Since each of these lessons of the mini-series builds on the previous one, it is recommended to print and review in order if possible.

Also, if you want to review a related video, Chariots of Abaddon it is free to view on YouTube.

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a) Sababa! Yes! I can walk on water like it's dry land! It's like the Exodus!

b) Oy vey! It's the last watch of the night, and the wind will allow the waters to return to normal at daybreak! I could be killed like Pharaoh's army!

Yeshua, however, had authority over the wind frightening Peter with its ability to destroy armies and pound them into the abyss of a watery grave. Yeshua’s authority over the angels of the four winds and all other principalities and powers is a second key to understanding why Peter might have had that sinking feeling that his solid footing in the water might collapse.

One example is the destruction of Sodom and three other cities of the valley at sunrise. Oddly, the text describes Lot and his daughters as arriving in Zoar when the sun came up, yet, this is when the angel took them by the hand to depart Sodom! How could they be in two places almost simultaneously? It was humanly impossible to escape to Zoar that fast unless there was a supernatural quality to the angel's "hand" that saved them.

• Likewise, Yeshua took Peter's hand when Peter cried out, "Lord, save me!" Yeshua walked him to the boat, and John adds a detail: “So they were willing to receive Him into the boat, and immediately the boat was at the land to which they were going” even though the text states they were three or four miles along the water. (Jn 6:21)

This, too, would be impossible if Yeshua's hand of salvation weren't supernaturally fast transportation. A boat is a symbol in Scripture not only of international commerce, but of how nations and continents are connected and interconnected. The fact that walking on water occurs on the Galilee is also symbolic. Galilee came to be known as "Galilee of the Nations" not only because of the diverse people groups that lived there during epochs of history, but because of Isaiah's prophecy:

• But there will be no more gloom for her who was in anguish; in earlier times He treated the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali with contempt, but later on He shall make it glorious, by the way of the sea, on the other side of Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles. The people who walk in darkness will see a great light; those who live in a dark land, the light will shine on them. (Is 9:1-2)

While Peter made the connection between the Exodus past and a prophesied Exodus of the future, the Book of Acts suggests he didn't completely internalize the commission to the Gentiles until much later. Perhaps he assumed that Isaiah's prophecy was intended only for the lost Israelites among the nations who were to be restored by Messiah.

Indeed, the deportation of many Israelites and Jews occurred from that very area, yet the Greater Exodus will also draw many from every nation, tribe, and tongue just as it did in the first Exodus. All those who call on the Name of YHVH will be saved then as Peter demonstrated.

In Part One, we parsed the Hebrew text of Exodus 14:21 to see that the English translations of how the water was swept back all night didn't do justice to the text:

• “Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the LORD swept the sea back…”

But let’s read the literal words:

• “And stretched Moshe his hand over the sea and will walk YHVH the sea…”

For modern English grammar purposes, let’s read: “and YHVH will walk the sea.”

It explained why Yeshua, the arm of YHVH, walked on water and why Peter believed it might be Yeshua instead of a "ghost"...and why he, too, might walk on water:

• The sons of Israel went through the midst of the sea on the dry land,

וַיָּבֹאוּ בְנֵי־יִשְׂרָאֵל בְּתוֹךְ הַיָּם בַּיַּבָּשָׁה

In Part One, we consulted the Creation text of Genesis One to see that the parting of the sea was not only into two walls as artistry usually depicts, but it was like walking through a water tunnel. Water above, on either side, and below. And if below, why did Peter consider water walkable, or "dry land"? Again, the Hebrew text explains:

Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the LORD swept the sea back by a strong east wind all night and turned the sea into dry land, so the waters were divided.

וַיָּשֶׂם אֶת־הַיָּם לֶחָרָבָה וַיִּבָּקְעוּ הַמָּיִם

"And made the sea to dry land and split the water"

Incredibly, supernaturally, the Salvation of YHVH split the water and made the sea dry land. Made the sea dry land. Made the sea dry land. You'll remember that some day if you are among the generation alive at the time of the resurrection. He will make the water into dry land and split the water, just as John prophesies that he will "split the sky":

• "The sky was split apart like a scroll when it is rolled up, and every mountain and island were moved out of their places." (Re 6:14)

If that weren't incredible enough, the Revelation continues along a strange thought found in the ancient Jewish commentaries on the crossing of the Reed Sea. We accept that Yeshua will catch the righteous dead and living into a "cloud" to meet him in the air, or sky, but we are resurrected, not just "ghosts" swirling and booing in the wind. We will have substance, and so will the cloud, just like the water of the Reed Sea.

If the water is somehow transformed into substance to provide that supernaturally swift last-watch-of-the-night ride to safe haven (literally) for the saved, then the rabbis' comments concerning one of the miracles at the Sea make sense:

• “The waters were split” [14:21]. All the waters of the world were split when the sea was split. Ten miracles occurred at the sea. First, that it split. Second is that it was made like a dome or a roof and Israel walked under the water. The water was under, on the sides of and over Israel. Third, it was dry under them, so that Israel should not smear their feet with mud. Fourth, for the Egyptians, the earth was all mud and slime and they sank into it. Fifth, the water was congealed and hard as stone. Sixth, the water was not congealed completely, but it was congealed a section at a time. It was like large boulders, in the expectation that when the Egyptians would drown, the hard water would smash their heads, like stones. These pieces were on top of each other, like a brick wall. (Tze'enah Ure'enah, Commentary to Beshalach)

The commentators describe changes in the substance of the sea. In the first miracle, the waters split, but not only the Reed Sea, but all the waters of the world so that the world could witness the salvation of Israel. Too fantastic? Not so much when we see that Yeshua walks on water on the Galilee in the territory of Galilee of the Nations! Prophetically, all nations would one day see the glory of the Father and how much He loves His creation, especially those who seek His Son.

Rahab tells the Israelite spies this forty years later: “For we have heard how the LORD dried up the water of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt…” (Joshua 2:10)

He didn't just part the waters, He dried them! And the nations knew it!

The fifth and sixth miracles are a little harder to swallow until we read John's prophecy of what happens once the sky is split in Revelation:

• "Then the kings of the earth and the great men and the commanders and the rich and the strong and every slave and free man hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains; and they said to the mountains and to the rocks, 'Fall on us and hide us from the presence of Him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb; for the great day of their wrath has come, and who is able to stand?'” (Re 6:15-17)

The pursuit of the righteous by the wicked among the nations will be swallowed up by great miracles at the Sea of the Peoples. They'll first get all mucky and confused (already there!), then they'll realize that the safe path for the saved by the Blood of the Lamb is not safe for those under the Wrath of the Lamb. It's turning to smashing rocks!

Peter lost faith when he saw the wind, and he had to call on Yeshua. Remember this. When it looks like the angels of the four winds, or princes and principalities, or spiritual darkness in high places (and low ones!) are bringing destruction, our confidence is in the right arm and saving hand of YHVH, Yeshua. For Peter, the time of destruction was too close for comfort. He knew that the "dry land" he walked on could turn to stones of destruction at any second.

We, too, should not be distracted by the spiritual forces being used to shepherd us into safe haven. A time will come when it seems darkest that "immediately" we'll find ourselves transported in a watery cloud of dry land nicknamed "Capernaum," the place where Yeshua docked their boat (Jn 6:21). Capernaum in Hebrew is Kfar Nachum, or "City of Comfort." Yes, it has the same two-letter Hebrew root, nach, as Noah. Yes, you will walk on water with Messiah.

Remember this when it seems Yeshua is nothing more than a ghost.

Remember this when he takes your hand and walks you through the water to a City of Comfort like the parable of Lazarus being escorted by angels to comfort while the rich man endured torment.

• "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." (He 11:1)

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• But the boat was already a long distance from the land, battered by the waves; for the wind was contrary. And in the fourth watch of the night He came to them, walking on the sea. When the disciples saw Him walking on the sea, they were terrified, and said, “It is a ghost!” And they cried out in fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, “Take courage, it is I; do not be afraid.”
• Peter said to Him, “Lord, if it is You, command me to come to You on the water.” And He said, “Come!” And Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came toward Jesus. But seeing the wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, “Lord, save me!” Immediately Jesus stretched out His hand and took hold of him, and said to him, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” When they got into the boat, the wind stopped. And those who were in the boat worshiped Him, saying, “You are certainly God’s Son!” (Mt 14:24-33)

Last week, we found one answer as to why Yeshua walked on water. We’ll look at some other answers next week, but our second question was, “Why was Peter afraid of the wind?” Hadn’t the wind been blowing just as fearfully up until then? He didn't think about that before he crawled out of the boat?

Knowing what Peter knew about the dangerous time of the morning watch, the last watch of the night, we can venture an educated guess. To know what Peter knew, we refer to the Torah:

• “When morning dawned, the angels urged Lot, saying, ‘Up, take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or you will be swept away in the punishment of the city. But he hesitated. So the men seized his hand and the hand of his wife and the hands of his two daughters, for the compassion of the LORD was upon him; and they brought him out, and put him outside the city.’” (Ge 19:15-16)

• The sun had risen over the earth when Lot came to Zoar. Then the LORD rained on Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD out of heaven, and He overthrew those cities, and all the valley, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground. But his wife, from behind him, looked back, and she became a pillar of salt. Now Abraham arose early in the morning and went to the place where he had stood before the LORD; and he looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the valley, and he saw, and behold, the smoke of the land ascended like the smoke of a furnace. (Ge 19:24-28)

Yeshua came to rescue the disciples from the windstorm in the last watch of the night [in Roman calculation, the fourth watch; in Hebrew calculation, the third watch]. From the texts above, we can see that the last watch of the night before the dawn is a dangerous time. Especially back then, who could know the precise moment when the sun would break the horizon, ending the last watch and beginning the timeframe of morning?

When the morning dawned, destruction could begin, rescue could end, or righteousness could view the destruction from afar, or “the place where he stood before the LORD.”

In this account of Genesis Nineteen, Peter could see the traditional explanation of the destination of three groups of people: the righteous (Abraham), the lukewarm (Lot and his wife and daughters), and the wicked (the cities of Sodom). Yeshua reminds the Laodiceans in Revelation of the danger of remaining in the category of the lukewarm, who ultimately cannot stand in the same place as the righteous in the Kingdom. It doesn’t mean they are not rescued, but it does mean they are not in good “standing” relative to the righteous.

At the crossing of the Reed Sea, Peter has this reference for destruction following the last watch of the night:

• So Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the sea returned to its normal state at daybreak, while the Egyptians were fleeing right into it; then the LORD overthrew the Egyptians in the midst of the sea. The waters returned and covered the chariots and the horsemen (Ex 14:27-28)

The last watch is a time of uncertainty. No one knows exactly when the day will break. Peter knows the east wind that divided and congealed the water will cease blowing and the water will return to its liquid state at daybreak.

Perhaps in that moment he believes he, too, is “appointed to wrath” with the destruction of Israel’s enemies by the one coming from Edom with vengeance. The disciples acknowledge Yeshua as the “Son of God” when he saves Peter. It was a teaching moment for Yeshua to remind the disciples that not only did they believe in him as Messiah, they followed him completely. They were not appointed to a place of wrath, but to obtain a final salvation like their father Avraham, who stood in a righteous place of faith. What they'd just experienced was simply a little test, a tribulation. Yeshua asks, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?”

• “...and to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, that is Jesus, who rescues us from the wrath to come.” (1 Th 1:10)

• “...hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved; with the result that they always fill up the measure of their sins. But wrath has come upon them to the utmost.” (1 Th 2:16)

• “For God has not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ...”(1 Th 5:9)

The plan was never to save as few people as possible, but as many as possible, including the Gentiles. The disciples’ commission was to go to the nations and proclaim this compassionate salvation so that the Gentiles could choose to also stand in the place of righteous faith like THEIR father Avraham as well:

• “…and the father of circumcision to those who not only are of the circumcision, but who also follow in the steps of the faith of our father Abraham which he had while uncircumcised…For this reason it is by faith, in order that it may be in accordance with grace, so that the promise will be guaranteed to all the descendants, not only to those who are of the Law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all…” (Ro 4:12, 16)

How could Peter preach to the Gentiles if he was doubtful that Yeshua would save him from the wrath upon the wicked? Before we blame Peter for being so unsure about his own salvation, how many times have we questioned our own relationship with Yeshua?

Or how many put more faith in their job security, ammo, food prepping, or withdrawing from personal evangelism in order to protect themselves from the coming wrath on the wicked rather than in Yeshua’s ability to make us stand in a place of righteousness or take us by the hand to walk us to our rescue?

We, too, sometimes doubt if we are making our "calling and election sure" or if Yeshua will save us from a time of vengeance upon the wicked. The Prophet Isaiah gives a chilling prediction and a comforting reassurance, just as Lot’s family received “the compassion of the Lord”:

• “...For the day of vengeance was in My heart, and My year of redemption has come. I looked, and there was no one to help, and I was astonished and there was no one to uphold; so My own arm brought salvation to Me, and My wrath upheld Me.” (Is 63:4-5)

Both the saved tribes and Gentiles will be saved from the vengeance and wrath on the wicked or the lukewarm who choose to remain in wickedness rather than flee from it, holding onto the hand of Yeshua. It is Yeshua's job to uphold the relationship of those who are saved for the Father. He is the Father's "own arm" of salvation.

When we are too focused on our ability to hold Yeshua's hand instead of his ability to hold ours, we falter in obedience, either failing to perform his Word out of despair to protect ourselves or proudly believing others don't deserve to receive salvation and withdrawing our "righteous" selves from their presence. Neither response is the faith of Avraham, who ran to welcome guests so that he or recue his nephew so he could demonstrate the faithfulness of El Shaddai to His creation.

The people who laugh at your commandment-keeping today will come seeking you in a time of trouble.

The people to whom you could have ministered will arise and accuse you at the end of days. (Lk 11:30-35)

Yeshua tells Peter that he needs to practice his faith. Everyone has a little faith, but not everyone exercises it in a day of trouble, which is only a tribulation, not the inescapable wrath of the Lamb, which will leave no rock unturned in the search to root out the wicked from the earth.

We can learn from Peter’s doubt in the actual test of his faith. In fact, it’s a relief to know that men who literally walked with Yeshua didn’t get things right on the first try.

In 1 Thessalonians 2:16, Paul made a sobering prediction: those who hinder the process of proclaiming salvation to everyone will suffer the very wrath they presume they will escape! Not everyone is a great evangelist, but by practicing, exercising our faith in the Word, we will proclaim Messiah until he returns. A life lived faithfully according to the Word will never hinder those who could be saved. It will invite them to the Shabbat table so that they may see that the Lord is good.

The question is, are we practicing our faithfulness in front of those who have yet to receive Yeshua as the Messiah? Do we engineer our Shabbats, the Feasts of YHVH, kosher eating, etc., so that they do not bring attention to us, or do we let that light shine? If we don't shine, thinking self-preservation is preferable to the salvation of others, how will they ever make the stand of righteousness that Avraham took?

Avraham stood in a very secure place, only seeing the smoke of Sodom from afar. He suffered no loss from the fires of Sodom (1 Co 3:13). Not like Lot and his family, to whom the smoke was probably clinging, and they suffered a huge loss in their rescue even though it was “the compassion of the LORD”: (1 Co 3:15; Jude 1:23): “…save others, snatching them out of the fire; and on some have mercy with fear, hating even the garment polluted by the flesh.”

Such a salvation was the result of keeping a low profile with friends and family, so much so that Lot’s sons-in-law thought he was joking when he finally spoke up, and the townspeople were furious at him.

The wrath of the Lamb was the risk Peter thought he was taking when he looked at the wind and waves in the last watch. We, too, can be distracted by the news, war rumors, economic woes, political maneuverings, and the abominable behaviors akin to Sodomite living with no boundaries, but we don’t have to worry about Yeshua’s wrath if we take his hand. He is the outstretched compassionate arm of YHVH, the Living Word of our salvation. Spiritual darkness in high or low places has no claim over our salvation, and we will be tested until we grow in our faith in Yeshua.

In Part Three in the next newsletter, we’ll take a look at another significant fear Peter likely had when he looked at the wind and waves. It will extend the idea of the danger of wrath and judgment coming at the dawning of the day. It will reinforce the prophecy that Messiah will come from Edom when he comes in wrath upon the Beast and the nations who serve him, for to come from Edom is to come from the east like the east wind that blew all night to make a way of rescue for the Israelites at the Reed Sea.

Yeshua’s authority over the angels of the four winds and all other principalities and powers is a key to understanding why Peter might have had that sinking feeling that his solid footing in the water would collapse.

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More specifically, Chag HaMatzah, or the Feast of Unleavened Bread.

Before I explain that, let's begin with a not-rhetorical two-part question:

Why did Yeshua walk on water?

Why did the wind scare Peter?

Last week's newsletter established the underpinnings of the WOW season (Walking on Water). Review:

•The last watch of the night is a last opportunity to flee false security. It is the last opportunity to flee the people whose wicked agenda vexes the righteous Holy Spirit within. If one waits until the morning's dawn to flee, he flees with nothing. Only the deeds of the righteous can follow them into the eternal Kingdom of Messiah, for those are the only eternally true and fit deeds.

•The overturn of the cities of Sodom likely took place at Passover, for Lot baked unleavened bread for the angel of wrath.

The Wrath of the Lamb struck the cities of Sodom right at dawn, when Lot and his daughters reached safety and the last watch of the night becomes the past. Likewise, at dawn, after the strong East Wind completed its work of arranging the waters, the Israelites traveled through the waters to reach safety.

The Israelites still had the flesh of the Passover lamb, bitter herbs, and matzah in their bellies. Having obeyed YHVH's instructions, they were protected from the Wrath of the Lamb on Egypt and Pharaoh. All they had to do was Walk on Water, to escape to freedom. WOW!

So back to our question: why did Yeshua walk on water?

The Hebrew text of Exodus 14:21 gives the plainest of answers:

וַיֵּט מֹשֶׁה אֶת־יָדוֹ עַל־הַיָּם וַיּוֹלֶךְ יְהוָה אֶת־הַיָּם בְּרוּחַ קָדִים עַזָּה כָּל־הַלַּיְלָה וַיָּשֶׂם אֶת־הַיָּם לֶחָרָבָה וַיִּבָּקְעוּ הַמָּיִם

•"Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the LORD swept the sea back by a strong east wind all night and turned the sea into dry land, so the waters were divided."

The text reminds us of the First Mention of the waters’ division. Genesis 1:6-12 describe the first two occasions of the divided waters. First, the upper and lower waters were divided on the Second Day of Creation. Next, the waters were gathered into “one place,” and the dry land appeared, which then bore fruit trees (more on that next time!). The Hebrew explains the waters below the heavens gathered to “a unified, one place.” The ordinal number one in Hebrew is achat, but echad suggests unity, solidarity: אֶל־מָקוֹם אֶחָד. So think of the pattern: first, upper and lower waters were separated, the water unified, dry land appeared, and then:

•"The sons of Israel went through the midst of the sea on the dry land, and the waters were like a wall to them on their right hand and on their left." (Ex 14:22)

If we read Exodus according to the Creation pattern, we see more than just the walls of water to the right and left. First, upper and lower waters separated, lower waters unified, dry land appeared, AND then the waters to right and left congealed to some degree of solid matter and became like walls.

There was something about the water under the Israelites’ feet that had the appearance and substance of dry land…even though it was water! Just as the clouds above, below, to the right and left accompanied them on the wilderness journey…so the waters of the Reed Sea formed a protective type of tunnel for the Israelites.

Does this seem too fantastic? Let’s check the Hebrew text of Exodus 14:21 to see if perhaps Yeshua’s WOW bears out the Jewish way of reading the crossing of the Reed Sea. If you don’t read Hebrew, then you can verify the following by using your concordance.

וַיֵּט מֹשֶׁה אֶת־יָדוֹ עַל־הַיָּם וַיּוֹלֶךְ יְהוָה אֶת־הַיָּם

The English translation says this: “Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the LORD swept the sea back…”

But let’s read the literal words:

“And stretched Moshe his hand over the sea and will walk YHVH the sea…”

For modern English grammar purposes, let’s read: “and YHVH will walk the sea.” 

Walking on water, echad! “Shma, Yisrael, YHVH Eloheinu, YHVH Echad!”

Now we understand why Peter thought he could walk on water with Yeshua.

The Beshalach commentary on the crossing of the Reed Sea says, “Ten miracles occurred at the sea. First, that it split. Second is that it was made like a dome or a roof and Israel walked under the water. The water was under, on the sides of and over Israel. Third, it was dry under them, so that Israel should not smear their feet with mud…That is why the water was under them, like a bridge, so that they could easily walk on it.” (Tze'enah Ure'enah, Beshalach)

Peter has heard of these miracles. He wonders, are they true? Is Yeshua really the visible form of YHVH?

Twice per day Israel is commanded to recite the Shema, the declaration of the unity (echad) of YHVH: Shema, Yisrael, YHVH Eloheinu, YHVH Echad. The latest that one may recite the evening Shema is the last night watch, just before dawn; therefore, the sages encouraged everyone to say the Shema at the latest before midnight to ensure that nothing would hinder the proclamation of faith and lest the person find that the day had dawned before they could correct the oversight. This ensured that one was ready to be saved should the wrath come with the dawn as it did with Lot.

Yeshua reiterates this principle to his disciples, affirming the apocalyptic connotation of the Shema:

•“Blessed are those slaves whom the master will find on the alert when he comes; truly I say to you, that he will prepare himself to serve, and have them recline at the table, and he will come up and serve them. Whether he comes in the second watch, or even in the third, and finds them so, blessed are those slaves. But be sure of this, that if the head of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have allowed his house to be broken into. You too, be ready; because the Son of Man is coming at an hour that you do not think He will.” (Lk 12:37-40)

Reclining at the table is how one eats the Passover in the first watch of the night. At his Passover with his disciples, Yeshua served them as he hinted in Luke 12:37-40, even washing their feet, yet Yeshua also prayed far into the night, preparing himself for the wrath that was about to be poured out on him for all mankind.

When he returns, the Lamb will in turn pour out his wrath on mankind who refuse to acknowledge their Elohim, their Creator and Savior. Yeshua mentions the second and third watches of the night as potential watches of his return. Also think of the “about midnight” repetition in the haggadah of the Pesach seder night. Finish the meal before midnight; don’t wait until morning to consume it all. Make sure the Lamb is completely inside you, nourishing you, when he returns. Once the morning breaks, it is too late.

Yeshua says “even the Third Watch,” which suggests he is giving stragglers time to recite the Shema, or prepare for resurrection, by affirming the commandments. It’s not ideal, though. Ideally, the Passover Lamb is eaten before midnight and the Shema is declared also. The daylight is the conclusion of the “night” (exile) with the morning Shema. The Morning Star is the marker for this time, but it can be obscured by clouds. It is sounds that are emphasized, not sights; therefore, “Shema,” or “hear.”

•But the boat was already a long distance from the land, battered by the waves; for the wind was contrary. And in the fourth watch of the night He came to them, walking on the sea. When the disciples saw Him walking on the sea, they were terrified, and said, “It is a ghost!” And they cried out in fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, “Take courage, it is I; do not be afraid.”

•Peter said to Him, “Lord, if it is You, command me to come to You on the water.” And He said, “Come!” And Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came toward Jesus. But seeing the wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, “Lord, save me!” Immediately Jesus stretched out His hand and took hold of him, and said to him, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” When they got into the boat, the wind stopped. And those who were in the boat worshiped Him, saying, “You are certainly God’s Son!” (Mt 14:24-33)

Yeshua said to Peter, "Come!" In Hebrew, he said, "Bo!" That should sound familiar from our Reed Sea salvation as well:

The sons of Israel went through the midst of the sea on the dry land,

וַיָּבֹאוּ בְנֵי־יִשְׂרָאֵל בְּתוֹךְ הַיָּם בַּיַּבָּשָׁה

The verb? Yavo-u! The collective congregation in plural form. Without explaining how verb tenses are a little different between Biblical and Modern Hebrew, you can even see wordplay that sounds as if it is future tense as well. Peter knew YHVH walking on water had happened in the past...if Yeshua was who he said he was, the son of YHVH, then wouldn't he want the disciples to Bo! now as well?

WOW! WOW! WOW!

Our second question is, “Why was Peter afraid of the wind?” Hadn’t the wind been blowing just as fearfully up until then? That gives us another question to answer in the next newsletter!

May we all view the coming Wrath of the Lamb like the Israelites.

From above the lower waters, on the other side of the sea...with the salvation of the Passover Lamb inside.

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• “Lot lifted up his eyes and saw all the valley of the Jordan, that it was well watered everywhere—this was before the LORD destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah—like the garden of the LORD, like the land of Egypt as you go to Zoar.” (Ge 13:10)

When Lot “lifted up his eyes,” he saw prophetically. Before their destruction, the five cities of the valley enjoyed an Edenic-like climate and prosperity, yet the prophetic phrase “lifted up his eyes” predicts a restoration of that area, which sits in the Arava.

Revelation predicts a great miracles of the two witnesses, which helps us to understand "Sodom and Egypt":

• "And their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city which mystically is called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified." (Re 11:8)

What Sodom and Egypt have in common is that those who were saved and set on a path of righteousness (Lot and the Israelites in the wilderness) looked back at what at enslaved them as more to be desired than the Garden of Eden, the authentic Promised Land, that lay before them if they would walk in their salvation.

When the bodies of the two witnesses are caught up from Jerusalem, it is a witness to be understood as a last warning to believers who, in those last days, continue to cling to the cargoes of Babylon, who persist in begging to go "by way of Zoar to Egypt" instead of repenting and returning to the righteous walk of salvation epitomized by Avraham. The night is far spent by then.

The commercial success of the five cities lured Lot in. The deception was that its fruitfulness “like the Garden” was to be desired over the fruitfulness of the stars promised to Avraham. Lot’s wife preferred the deception of luxury with wickedness over the promise of good gifts from above.The Midrash concerning Sodom details how travelers were lured in, then maimed or killed and their goods confiscated.

• “When morning dawned, the angels urged Lot, saying, ‘Up, take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or you will be swept away in the punishment of the city.’” (Ge 19:15)

• The sun had risen over the earth when Lot came to Zoar. Then the LORD rained on Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD out of heaven, and He overthrew those cities, and all the valley, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground. But his wife, from behind him, looked back, and she became a pillar of salt. Now Abraham arose early in the morning and went to the place where he had stood before the LORD; and he looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the valley, and he saw, and behold, the smoke of the land ascended like the smoke of a furnace. (Ge 19:24-28)

Before Adonai destroyed Sodom, he sent warning of the wrath to come. Lot was aware of the blessings promised to Avraham, but he was also aware of the righteous life required for such eternal blessings. Lot chose precarious salvation over a life of obedience and teaching his children after him:

• “For I have chosen him, so that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing righteousness and justice, so that the LORD may bring upon Abraham what He has spoken about him.” (Ge 18:19)

Lot was troubled by the wickedness of Sodom, but not enough to forfeit living in it: “and if He rescued righteous Lot, oppressed by the sensual conduct of unprincipled men…” (2 Pe 2:7) It took the wrath of Adonai to remove him, not to abundant life, but bare salvation.

“Insignificance” is the meaning of the small city Zoar in which Lot requested to live, and so was his contribution to the Kingdom of Adonai compared to Avraham. Avraham viewed the valley of Sodom and saw the smoke of the cities ascending like the smoke of a furnace. Sodom's is the fate of those who choose an easier life in the midst of wickedness, which they desire more than single-minded righteousness. They do not have the sense to even be aware of righteousness walking among them that might delay the wrath of Adonai upon them.

Just as the wicked among the Israelites in the wilderness believed Moses had taken them FROM a land flowing with milk and honey to a place of wrath, so the wicked repeatedly get it wrong. Just because the comforts and luxuries of Egypt and Sodom are “like” the Garden of Eden doesn’t mean it IS Eden. “Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had arrogance, abundant food and careless ease, but she did not help the poor and needy.” (Ezek 16:49)

Likewise, the Israelites in the wilderness were given free food every morning, clothes and shoes never needed mending, and there was little to do but learn Torah. Nevertheless, many craved the foods and relative ease of farming life in Egypt (Dt 11:10) in spite of the horrors of its slavery. Perhaps this is why Zoar is described as "on the way to Egypt." It describes those who have tasted the goodness of Adonai, yet the sensualities of the world taste better, and they are still enslaved to them even after their salvation:

• "It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age and who have fallen away, to be brought back to repentance. To their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace." (He 6:5-6)

The smoke of the great furnace portends either great salvation and sealing in the Ruach HaKodesh or great wrath. There are two views of the “smoke of a great furnace.” In the first, the smoke of Mount Sinai accompanying the Presence of Adonai and His Word is a marvel to those who agree to walk in it:

• Now Mount Sinai was all in smoke because the LORD descended upon it in fire; and its smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mountain quaked violently. (Ex 19:18)

In the second, the smoke of the great furnace accompanies the wrath of Adonai upon the wicked:

• He opened the bottomless pit, and smoke went up out of the pit, like the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by the smoke of the pit. (Re 9:2)

Avraham was in no danger of the smoke of Sodom; Lot was in grave danger.

Avraham walked after Adonai and His righteousness; Lot was merely vexed by the lack of righteousness, but not enough to devote his life to pursuing righteousness.

What Lot pursued was only “like the Garden of Eden.” Its grass always looks greener than the obedience required to pursue righteousness, but in the end, it is destroyed and overturned with wrath. The last watch of the night is a time of great danger to Lots of people who are believers, yet firmly attached to the comforts of a nominally and unenthusiastic righteous life.

The last watch of the night is a last opportunity to flee such false security. It is the last opportunity to flee the people whose wicked agenda vexes the righteous Holy Spirit within. If one waits until the morning's dawn to flee, he flees with nothing. Only the deeds of the righteous can follow them into the eternal Kingdom of Messiah, for those are the only eternally true and fit deeds.

The overturn of the cities of Sodom likely took place at Passover, for Lot baked unleavened bread for the angel of wrath. Avraham and Sarah had received a message of new birth and laughter, for they were looking for the coming of travelers with whom to share a meal so they could “make souls” for the Kingdom (Ge 12:5). Lot’s concern was simply for the safety of the angels through the night watches. He was not looking to leave Sodom before the morning dawned. Perhaps the miracle is that he agreed to leave at all after the last watch of the night.

May we all view the coming Wrath of the Lamb like Avraham.

From above and far away.

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Who is this who comes from Edom,

​​With dyed garments from Botzrah,

​​This One who is glorious in His apparel,

​​Traveling in the greatness of His strength?—

​“I who speak in righteousness, mighty to save.”

​Why is Your apparel red,

​​And Your garments like one who treads in the winepress?

​“I have trodden the winepress alone,

​​And from the peoples no one was with Me.

​​For I have trodden them in My anger,

​​And trampled them in My fury;

​​Their blood is sprinkled upon My garments,

​​And I have stained all My robes.

For the day of vengeance is in My heart,

​​And the year of My redeemed has come." (Is 63:1-4)

Why would Yeshua come from Edom and Botzrah?

Out of many reasons (because of Edom’s modern identity), one Torah prophecy-template is that it retraces part of the route of the exodus from Egypt and the southern journeys to the Promised Land. Yeshua went to the wilderness to be tested in his first coming, and he overcame in forty days of testing what the Israelites took forty years to do.

The difference in the Greater Exodus is that the slaves in exile will come from many nations, not just Egypt. It is the geography of Edom that ties it all together, for it is an ancient commercial intersection of the world. In the Shabbat livestream, we'll look at maps to help decipher the prophecy, but we'll do the best we can here in the newsletter with words.

Edom and Israel present in conflict in the geography of the South. The region is separated by the north/south running Great Rift Valley in which two great tectonic plate continually rub against one another and move the earth. In his appearance on the Mount of Olives, Yeshua's feet cause a great earthquake right along this valley from Jerusalem all the way to the Red Sea in the South.

In times of Israel’s spiritual awakening, Israel/Judah controlled the South from Tamar (Ovot/Oboth) all the way to Etzion-Geber (Eilat). It is a vital trade route between East and West, North and South, from ancient times.

In times of Judah's apostasy, Edom controlled it, often in trade treaties with powers such as (first) Egypt, then Assyria, Babylon, Greece, and Rome. Their relatives are the mighty merchants the Nabateans, who controlled trade over the land of the South much as the Phoenicians controlled maritime trade.

Esau/Edom was a “man of the field,” controlled by the nefesh, or soul, the beast nature. The most cunning beast of the field is the serpent (land) or his counterpart in the water, the crocodile. These two, the serpent and beast, are in league in the Revelation, and will be judged together, the authority of the serpent wielded by the beast. For a review of these principles, see “A Concise History of the Beast” on YouTube, Workbook Four: The Scarlet Harlot and the Crimson Thread, and Workbook Two: The Seven Abominations of the Wicked Lamp.

When Yeshua comes from Edom, the perfect man has subdued both the scarlet beast and his source authority, the serpent. His march is a way of “splitting the sea” in the sight of all nations to make a way of salvation for his exiles and the nations:

• "When I have brought them again from the people, and gathered them out of their enemies' lands, and am sanctified in them in the sight of many nations…"(Ezek 39:27)

The Jewish sages parse the verses of the Exodus that describe the splitting of the waters of the Reed Sea to imply that the waters of every nation were split at exactly the same time so that the miracle could be viewed by all nations (another lesson!).

From even before the time of the Exodus, Egypt the serpent and Edom the beast collaborated in harvesting copper [nechoshet] from the South. The Hebrew word for serpent is nachash, sharing a root with copper, which is plentiful in the South. The copper serpent in the wilderness reminded the Israelites of the real disease from which they needed healing: soul sickness.

If you've seen pictures of the Arava in the South, you've noticed how similar the red rock is at Timna to Petra (Sela). The South, or Arava, is where “The King’s Highway,” the Spice Route, and other travel routes intersected. Over the centuries they connected the Far East with the ports of the Great Sea (Mediterranean) and Egypt in the West, Assyria and Babylon in the North, and the Arabian kingdoms of the South. In other words, they were coveted, conquered, and controlled in turn by:

Egypt the Crocodile Serpent

Assyria, who is not counted as a "beast" kingdom because it never conquered Jerusalem, was assimilated into the provinces of the first beast kingdom

Babylon the Lion

Medo-Persia the Bear

Greece the Leopard

Rome the Conglomerate Monster spread over the earth.

Recently, the American president expressed a desire to open an overland route from the Red Sea through Israel to the Mediterranean for trade. It was used thus when Egypt began overcharging to use the Suez a few years ago and before the Houthis choked off the sea route. The South is still an important area to world trade.

Botzrah was the capital of Edom. It is adjacent to Petra (Sela), the stronghold of the Nabateans. It is thought the Nabateans are the descendants of Nevaiot, the brother-in-law of Esau and son of Ishmael, who grew up in the Wilderness of Paran, the region of Edom.

Sela is Hebrew for “rock,” and the major city was later renamed Petra, a Greek name meaning rock. In ancient times, the ENTIRE REGION of the South from the Arabian peninsula to the Sinai peninsula was referred to as Arabia or Arabi, from the Hebrew root arav, thus, the Arava. Without knowing this, it is easy to mistake modern Saudi Arabia for the "Arabia" of English translations of the Bible.

Botzrah and Sela are very close to one another, and Seir is in the same area. Mount Seir and the Wilderness of Paran generally apply to the area south of these cities. Yeshua’s garments dyed in blood suggest he’s conquered the commercial trade of the beast kingdoms connecting the world.

Yeshua the Messiah will come to bring salvation and the redemption of “human souls” from slavery to the image of the beast whose head was in Babylon comes. He will accomplish this by trampling the nations in his wrath. Sukkot, the Feast of the Nations, is a time of both offering first fruits of the grapes as well as drinking wine to celebrate Adonai's provision. The return of Yeshua mentions grapes of wrath that will precede the peaceful days of his millennial reign in which the obedient nations will come to worship and obey him.

To represent this wrath upon the world's commercial systems, Yeshua comes "from Edom." In the encampment in the wilderness, the Southern three tribes camped under the standard of Reuven, which was the man. The lion was to the East, the eagle to the North, and the ox to the West. Revelation describes this destruction of the commercial system that trafficks in human souls:

• “And the kings of the earth, who committed acts of immorality and lived sensuously with her, will weep and lament over her when they see the smoke of her burning, standing at a distance because of the fear of her torment, saying, ‘Woe, woe, the great city, Babylon, the strong city! For in one hour your judgment has come.’
• And the merchants of the earth weep and mourn over her, because no one buys their cargoes any more cargoes of gold and silver and precious stones and pearls and fine linen and purple and silk and scarlet, and every kind of citron wood and every article of ivory and every article made from very costly wood and bronze and iron and marble, and cinnamon and spice and incense and perfume and frankincense and wine and olive oil and fine flour and wheat and cattle and sheep, and cargoes of horses and chariots and slaves and human lives. The fruit you long for has gone from you...” (Re 18:9-13)

”Human lives” is “human souls,” referring to the nefesh, the human soul enslaved to its innate sensuality: appetite, emotion, desire, and intellect...

The deception, or sorcery of the beast Edom, The Red One, is to manipulate human desire, the “fruit you long for,” into believing the cargoes are “good things,” when the truth is that they are instruments of the serpent's fruits of death. Truly good things come from the Father who makes the disciple into a kind of first fruit to be restored to the Garden, planted along the River of Life to in turn disciple the nations with their fruit and healing leaves of the “Word of Truth.”

• Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death. Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren. Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow. In the exercise of His will He brought us forth by the word of truth, so that we would be a kind of first fruits among His creatures. (Ja 1:13-18)

Yeshua’s arrival from “Edom” with his garments dyed in blood suggests that his “coming” is to destroy the deception of the beast, not just in the South of Israel geographically, but according to what the South symbolizes in the history of world trade and how it augmented the beast kingdoms all the way to its present “toes.”

In the Song of Songs, the Bride invites the Beloved to the Garden, but she does not have the strength to assist Him. As in the crossing of the Reed Sea, she must “stand still and see the Salvation,” just as the nations are standing still, watching, helpless to stop the destruction that will lead to the restoration of human life.

This suggests the template of the first Exodus [and Creation], when Israel cried out for help, then the nations witnessed salvation.

• “...For the day of vengeance was in My heart, and My year of redemption has come. I looked, and there was no one to help, and I was astonished and there was no one to uphold; so My own arm brought salvation to Me, and My wrath upheld Me.” (Is 63:4-5)

The shoresh, or Hebrew root, of “I looked,” נָבַט, is used the first three times in Genesis. First in 15:5 to Avraham: “Look at the stars, count them if you’re able, so shall the number of your descendants be.” This is the counting of fruitful descendants, the saved children of Avraham. This is a look forward to prophecy fulfilled for all Israel.

The second two times it is mentioned in the escape of Lot and his family from the destruction of Sodom (19:17,26) In v. 26, Lot’s wife “looked” back, and turned to salt. She mourned the luxuries left behind.

How attached are we to the luxuries of the world? When Yeshua comes to lead us away from the nations enslaved to commercialism, will we instead be too attached to our luxuries and conveniences to follow him home whole-heartedly?

• “Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had arrogance, abundant food and careless ease, but she did not help the poor and needy.” (Ezek 16:49)

If even those whom he's saved from Egypt and Sodom can't let go when the beast system is exposed and destroyed, no wonder Yeshua tramples in anger. In Numbers 16:13, the "Lot's wives" among the Israelites in the wilderness even complained that Moses had led them FROM a land flowing with milk and honey, not to it.

May we not be frozen in our longing for the world's riches so that we cannot desire the journey of resurrection with Yeshua. "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God." (He 10:31)

In this podcast, we will take a look at maps of the South that will illustrate the geography of the Messiah's victory over the Beast.

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THE GAMBLER

The threat of adultery appears repeatedly in the story of redemption. Sarah and Rivkah were put at risk with Pharaoh and Avimelech. By legal custom, Tamar was to have married Judah's youngest son, but Judah had delayed the marriage, so it was thought that Tamar had committed adultery when she began to show her pregnancy. Rahab was thought to be a harlot. However, each of these women proved themselves righteous, courageous, and faithful in affirming the promise of a Land, a Covenant, and a People in Israel.

Although subtler, the question of fidelity is also present in the Scroll of Esther. Esther has requested that the Jews fast and pray for three days. On the third day, associated with resurrection, she approaches the King. Perhaps she knew when she resigned herself, "If I perish, I perish," that although the risk required her voluntary surrender to that possible death, it could also become a resurrection day in a number of ways. On this third day, Queen Esther requests that the King and Haman attend a wine banquet.

The wine banquets hold two mysteries. First, wine is associated with the Feast of Sukkot, which is a time to bring the first fruits from the wine vat. Esther is positioning herself to negotiate salvation not simply for the Jews, but prophetically for the first fruits from among the nations where the Jews have been scattered. In the winepress of the King's wrath, Esther becomes a waving lulav of hadassah branches at Sukkot, waving for the four corners of the Earth where Israel is scattered.

The second mystery is found in the Hebrew grammar of Esther's invitation. In Esther 5:4, she requests, "If it please the King, let the King and Haman come today to the banquet that I have prepared for him." There is the problem. The subject is plural, "the King and Haman," yet the pronoun is singular, "him." She should have said, "a banquet I have prepared for them." 

This plants a seed of doubt in the King's mind. Is she preparing the banquet for him or Haman?[1]

The King and Haman attend the third-day wine banquet, but Esther still conceals her motive for inviting them...or is it him? Instead of giving a direct answer, Esther requests that they attend another wine banquet the following day, the fourth day. In Revelation, the message to the fourth assembly, Thyatira, marks the transition with the fourth day from "tribulation" to "great tribulation." The King knows Esther is troubled, nevertheless he is even more troubled by nightfall. He can't sleep!

What is he thinking about? Perhaps the relationship between his Queen and his second-in-command, Haman. Why would a woman kept in seclusion with her maids and eunuchs request only Haman's presence along with the King’s? How did she know Haman? The King had been the subject of assassination plots before, so what was Haman up to? Not coincidentally, this tribulation of mind keeps the King awake that fourth night, which had already begun at sundown that evening.[2] The text reads more literally than usually is translated in English. It would be better translated as, "The sleep of the King was shaken." He calls for the record books to be read.

At this point, the King hears about Mordechai's intervention on his behalf when two of his high officers plotted to kill him. At last, a loyal subject, this Jew Mordechai. And wasn't Esther his Queen the one who'd actually informed him of the plot? No wonder the King was troubled. At this opportune moment, Haman enters to request permission to hang Mordechai in advance of the decreed destruction upon the Jews. Speak of the devil!

The King tests Haman with a question, but Haman's pride prevents him from grasping the questions hidden within the question, which might be, "Haman, what are you up to? Are you trying to steal my kingdom and my queen? Second-in-command and my ring aren't enough for you?" The King asks Haman what should be done with a man the King desires to honor. Haman gives the worst possible answer, at least in terms of his personal safety. He suggests adorning the man with things the King has worn or used: a crown, a robe, and a horse.

From the King's troubled perspective, this is virtual confirmation of his suspicions. Haman wants his throne. King Achashverosh orders Haman to do those very things for Mordechai, whom Haman has come to request permission to kill. In fact, Haman had constructed an etz on the third day on which to hang Mordechai. The same Hebrew word for tree, etz, is used for “gallows.” The resurrection Spirit of Etzah, the Third Spirit of Adonai, is pushing something hidden to the surface, and the fourth day has indeed become a turning point for the king, Esther, Haman, Mordechai, the Jews, and the 127 provinces.

At the second wine banquet, the King persists in asking Queen Esther what her hidden problem is. To his horror, he finds out that Haman indeed wants to take what is his, his beloved Queen of all the provinces, the unifying symbol of his kingdom. It is not as he suspects, though, that Haman wants to kill him and possess his Queen; instead, Haman desires to kill the Queen. In a rage, the King walks into the garden, and Haman again does the worst possible thing he could do: he flings himself at Esther on her cushion.[3] When the King returns, he finds Haman in this very compromising position. Had Esther not already revealed Haman’s intent to kill her, the King may have come to a different conclusion about their relationship.

The wrath of the King is executed upon Haman and his family, and King Achashverosh gives Esther and Mordechai his signet ring and full authority to write whatever decree they can that will annul the wrath already decreed. They could not reverse his previous decree, but they could write something that would definitely make the wicked among the provinces think twice before they attacked the Jews. To make something of no effect is to make it null, but it does not mean that the original decree or vow did not exist. Its strength has simply been neutralized. With Esther and Mordechai writing with the King's authority, the People of the Covenant are preserved among the provinces to one day return to their Land. 

Some conclusions may be appropriate here. The name of Esther's fast and feast is Purim. Most assume, as the text hints, that the purim, or lots, cast by Haman against the Jews are what characterize this holiday. Sound-alike words can offer additional hints to Biblical themes and its internal commentaries. The fall feasts' central theme is coverings, which is derived from the middle feast in the fall, Yom HaKippurim. Creation Gospel Workbook Two offers a more complete explanation about the hints to coverings associated with the clouds of the Feast of Trumpets and the winged birds with feathers on the Fifth Day of Creation, but Sukkot is an obvious covered shelter of leafy branches. 

What about Yom HaKippurim, the Day of Coverings, itself? The kaphar of kippur means a covering, atonement. On Yom HaKippurim,[4] the High Priest can see the covering cherubim in the Holy of Holies when he enters in a cloud of incense, and he makes a covering of blood on the Mercy Seat of the Ark of the Covenant. On the seven-branched menorah, Yom HaKippurim is chiastic[5] to the Feast of Unleavened Bread.[6] During the Days of Unleavened Bread beginning with actual Sabbath day of Unleavened Bread, Israel fasts from all forms of leaven, but on Yom HaKippurim, Israel fasts both food and water for a day. The days of fasting that Esther proclaims for the Jews is during the days of Unleavened Bread.

Ki in Hebrew means "like, similar to." Pur is a lot, an object of chance that determines fate. The suffix im designates plural. On Yom HaKippurim, the High Priest drew lots, or purim, to designate the fate of the two goats, one L'Adonai, and one L'Azazel. The goat L’Adonai is slaughtered and its blood sprinkled on the Mercy Seat of the Covenant. L’Azazel is taken to the wilderness with all the sins of the nation and pushed over a precipice. In this sense, Yom HaKippurim is "A Day like Purim." One figurative goat is hanged, while the blood of the other is admitted into the Throne Room, the Holy of Holies, and it covers all Israel in safety. Yeshua becomes the "second-in-command" by virtue of his sacrifice. 

There are other parallels between Purim and Yom HaKippurim. On Yom HaKippurim, the High Priest must make atonement first for himself; that is, he must cover himself. Afterward he makes atonement for the people. Two specific atonements are required that day. Esther also makes two trips to the “Holy of Holies,” the King’s inner chamber of his home where one enters only by invitation. Only the King’s mercy would spare any uninvited intruder. 

This is the same principle applied to the Holy of Holies in the Temple. Only the High Priest is invited at a specific time; any other intruder faces death. Interestingly, though, the blood is applied to the Mercy Seat of the Ark of the Covenant.[7] The very name of the Covenant is Mercy, and this is exactly what Esther receives. To merit this mercy, however, Esther must shed her blood, at least figuratively. She must first acknowledge that she deserves to lose her life for approaching, which is the example of the Yom HaKippurim goat that dies “before the Lord.”

The first trip to the inner chamber results in Esther’s request for the King to save her life personally, just as the High Priest has to make personal atonement. The second trip is to petition for his help in saving the Jews against his earlier decree, which could not be rescinded. It is on the second trip to the inner chamber to touch his scepter that Esther receives the signet ring and the means to annul the evil decree against her nation among the 127 provinces.

The role of the sacrificed goat may also be pictured by Mordechai’s actions. Mordechai was elevated to second in the Kingdom, for he risked his life by refusing to bow to Haman. As a result, he was covered in the King's robes in honor and given the royal horse and crown. In a sense, Mordechai also sacrificed his own adopted daughter Hadassah by insisting that she go to the King unbidden. Scripture appears to present a virtual sacrifice as equivalent to an actual physical death of an animal. Merely the acceptance of one’s death for the sake of the Land, Covenant, or People may substitute for the actual death, which may or may not follow. Peter’s acceptance of his method of death and the reason for it supports the other examples of the patriarchs, matriarchs, heroes, and heroines of Scripture.

Queen Esther’s sacrificial role as a co-heir, "up to half the Kingdom," protected her far-flung people Israel among the nations. Esther knew that going before the King unbidden would be a walk through the valley of the shadow of death, but like the goat L'Adonai, she says, "If I perish, I perish," and she puts on the royal coverings to approach the inner chamber of the King’s house. The Ten Awesome Days of repentance between The Feast of Trumpets and the judgment of Yom HaKippurim have a parallel with Haman’s ten sons hung with him in judgment. Even the problem with rescinding the King’s decree is related to the principles of Yom HaKippurim, which brings atonement for the nation. The decree was “a public law known by the people of the King’s provinces – so transgression would be a public offense like the sin of Vashti.”[8]

The changing of garments at Yom HaKippurim demonstrates some connections to Esther. In her first visit to the bedchamber of the King, Esther wears very simple garments upon the Chief Eunuch’s advice. This wins her personal favor. The High Priest also removed his official ornamented garments when he visited the Holy of Holies on Yom Kippur. When she goes to invite the King to a banquet, Esther changes to royal robes. 

This second trip to the inner chamber seems the reverse practice of the High Priest, but a clue is given in the Book of Hebrews, which explains an additional priestly pattern, the pattern of the royal priesthood of Melchi-tzedek, which Yeshua fills. This makes sense. Esther dresses in the simple fashion of the Levitical priesthood’s entrance to the Holy of Holies on her first visit to the King, but her successive trip merits the garments of a royal priesthood. Types and shadows are concealed throughout the Scroll of Esther.

One thing we know. King Achashverosh, whose authority was challenged and insulted by a queen who refused to take her place at his side before the nations, selected a virtuous and courageous queen who would. Queen Esther became every man and woman's Queen, for her anonymity made her perfect to represent every people, no matter the social class or humble beginning. Vashti’s banishment was to ensure “every man should rule his own home and speak the language of his own people.” 

The King recognized the diversity of Sukkot fruits over which he ruled, and he needed a woman who would nurture them and give each of them rest in their own languages, a provision symbolized by the Holy Spirit on Shavuot (Acts Two). Judaism recognizes that the Torah was offered to the 70 nations at Mount Sinai on Shavuot, each in their own tongue. Shavuot is a preparation for the diversity of gifts at Sukkot. Queen Esther is a woman who embodies the Ruach HaKodesh according to the pattern of the matriarchs. The heart of her husband safely trusts in her to gather the nations. Queen Esther perfectly fulfills her husband's need to draw together his Kingdom in unity. 

[1] Fohrman, 2011, p. 44

[2] Jews reckon days from sundown to sundown, or evening to evening, the pattern of Genesis One.

[3] This links the question mark of fidelity with the adulterous woman in Proverbs who has spread coverings upon her couch.

[4] The literal name of the day is Yom HaKippurim, the Day of Coverings or Atonements

[5] See the Appendix

[6] See Creation Gospel Workbook One

[7] The “Covenant” is the Torah, the Book of the Covenant ratified between Adonai and Israel at Sinai. A copy of the Torah was put into the Ark of the Covenant as a testimony. This Ark was also called a Mercy Seat, or throne of mercy. The primary description of the Torah Covenant is mercy.

[8] Zlotowitz, 2003, p. 78

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“Behold, I will do something new, now it will spring forth; will you not be aware of it?

I will even make a roadway [derek] in the wilderness [midbar], rivers in the desert. The beasts of the field will glorify Me, the jackals and the ostriches, because I have given waters in the wilderness [midbar] and rivers in the desert, to give drink to My chosen people.” (Is 43:19–20)

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Nard and saffron, cane and cinnamon, with all trees of frankincense, myrrh, and aloes, with all the chief spices. A garden spring, a well of living waters, streaming from Lebanon. (So 4:14-15)

In this mini-series about the relationship between the Bride and Bridegroom in the Song of Songs, we’ve viewed an amazing level of prophecy of the millennium in the Song. In the journey, we’ve seen how Scripture projects the reality of the millennium: there are people who have prepared, and people who haven’t.

Last week we took a boat ride from the South up the River of Life with the “fish” from the nations. Although there are those among these nations who survived the tribulation that precedes the millennium, they weren’t completely prepared to serve the Kingdom of Heaven. They yet needed instruction on how to approach The Holy One and survive the entry into His gates in Jerusalem. Although Zechariah prophesies that they will, it is Ezekiel and John (in Revelation) who tell us how they prepare to stand before a Presence that can kill flesh-and-blood who appear in presumption before Him.

It is not as though The Holy One wants to destroy flesh-and-blood that He created to fellowship with Him. It is simply the reality of who He is relative to what He created. To stand in His Presence, He uses a variety of “space suits” so that we can draw close without harm from the intense glory. In a sense, it comes down to glory, which is beautiful.

When we acquire His glory through obedience, putting on the “space suit” that allows us to occupy that space near Him, it will only protect us insofar as we acknowledge that He is the Creator and bestower, the instructor and source of that glory. When human beings use the glory of Elohim to draw attention to themselves, diverting praise to themselves or twisting/omitting the instructions, then as a mere creation stealing the praise of Elohim, they can die. That’s just a rule of the universe, like earth’s gravity. Nothing personal.

Because the Father created us for fellowship with Him and longs for fellowship with us, then imagine how angry He is when those gifted with His Word in this world fail to teach others how to put on that space suit. Whether just a basic resurrection to eternal life or resurrection as a royal priest, Bride, and pillar in His Presence in the Temple, the Father wants to bring as many as possible as close as possible to His Presence.

Last week we took a close look at the prophecy of Song of Song 4:13, and this week, we progress to the next verse which is similar:

·     Nard and saffron, cane and cinnamon, with all trees of frankincense, myrrh, and aloes [some, balsam oil], with all the chief spices. A garden spring, a well of living waters, streaming from Lebanon. (So 4:14-15)

These verses pair the spices for the incense service of the Temple with their location: the Garden of Eden where four rivers flow. The prophetic element is that in the millennium, the Heaven and Earth once again “marry” as Elohim intended, the perfect spiritual Heaven touching the purified place of the earth. In Yeshua is this perfect picture of Heaven and earth “married.” The Land of Israel, particularly Jerusalem and Judah, will achieve an unprecedented level of holiness so that the third heaven descends:

·     “It will no longer be said to you, “Forsaken,”

                Nor to your land will it any longer be said, “Desolate”;

                 But you will be called, “My delight is in her,”

                 And your land, “Married”; for the LORD delights in you,

                 And to Him your land will be married.” (Is 62:4)

The Holy One Himself will provide the living waters from the Garden spring of Eden. This may explain how the miraculous River of Life flows from the Temple Mount, first east into the Kidron Valley, then south to the Salt Sea, the Arava wilderness, and then to the Red Sea. At that point, the purified, holy earth of the Temple and the living waters of “Lebanon” above have kissed, producing healing waters that become a type of interstate waterway for nations to come up and worship at the feasts as Zechariah prophesies (Zech 14:16-19).

Here, however, is the dilemma, and perhaps it explains why the journey begins on the waters:

“Every cooking pot in Jerusalem and in Judah will be holy to the LORD of hosts; and all who sacrifice will come and take of them and boil in them. And there will no longer be a Canaanite in the house of the LORD of hosts in that day.” (Zech 14:21)

How this ritual purity is acquired is the subject of Vayikra (Leviticus). It contains the holies of the space suit. Personal ideas of what constitutes holiness is nothing but filthy rags. The Father’s prescribed preparation is engaged with obedience. While those nations learn, they have the benefit of the cleansing water of the River of Life. Water is one of the things by which humans may be purified for service and appearance in holier places of the Presence. Fire is another.

If the household cooking pots in Jerusalem and Judah are pure enough for pilgrims to the feasts to boil their sacrifices in, then that is an incredible level of holiness! The fishermen along the River of Life and the trees of righteousness, shoots from the “Branch,” the Tree of Life, have an important job to do in preparing the noble ones among the nations to make pilgrimage to the Holy City. They are a royal priesthood:

·     But you are A CHOSEN RACE, A royal PRIESTHOOD, A HOLY NATION, A PEOPLE FOR God’s OWN POSSESSION, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light... (1 Pe 2:9)

“Excellencies” is Strong’s G703, which is “moral excellence, purity.” Its cognate in Hebrew is hod, or glory, as used in Zechariah 6:12-13:

·     Behold the man whose name is The BRANCH; and he shall grow up out of his place, and he shall build the temple of the LORD: Even he shall build the temple of the LORD; and he shall bear the glory, and shall sit and rule upon his throne; and he shall be a priest upon his throne...

Teaching the nations who approach the proper purity of preparation for the Holy City and while in the Holy City falls to Yeshua’s disciples who “fish” the River of Life for those approaching the Holy Land. They explain the moral excellence of glory. Rebellion against the Word of Adonai or even ignorance of the Word of Adonai has consequences: violence and death. There is no bold approach to the Throne of Grace without repentance in hand as a sacrifice of the personal will.

First, however, a royal priesthood much teach the fish what sin is, what obedience is, what impurity and purity are, and even the principles of Shabbat rest. Failing to live a life of moral excellence disqualifies one from the royal priesthood just as failing to wear all eight garments disqualifies a high priest from service. We teach both by example and instruction in the Word. This leads to a purification of the mind, which the rest of the body will follow. Once the mind is straight, all the limbs will be straight, for the mind is connected to the heart.

Not to teach the moral excellence of the Torah, particularly purity and Shabbat, is literally to do violence to the Torah and the One Who gave it. Adonai desires people to enter His sanctuary, and he uses the righteous, His royal priesthood to do so just as He used the Levitical priesthood to teach the twelve tribes of Israel. Instead, they taught hamas:

·     “Her priests have done violence [hamas] to My law and have profaned My holy things; they have made no distinction between the holy and the profane, and they have not taught the difference between the unclean and the clean; and they hide their eyes from My sabbaths, and I am profaned among them.” (Eze 22:26)

·     “Her prophets are reckless, treacherous men;

Her priests have profaned the sanctuary.

They have done violence to the law.” (Zeph 3:4)

חָמַס ; hamas; to be violent; by implication, to maltreat:—make bare, shake off, violate, do violence, take away violently, wrong, imagine wrongfully.

The teaching of the Word is a River of Life that flows from the holy mountain.

The Levites' cities were to be a place the tribes could immerse in the purity of the Word so that they could ascend the Holy Mountain at the appointed feasts. These are the times His Presence is the most manifest.

Melekh Shlomo’s palace was called “The House of the Forest of Lebanon.” It was located adjacent to the Temple Mount with its own special entrance to the Temple. Water will flow from the Temple Mount in the millennial kingdom. As our verse in the Song of Songs says, it flows from “Lebanon,” a euphemism for the buildings of the Temple and the royal palace, which was called “The House of the Forst of Lebanon”:

·     He built also the house of the forest of Lebanon; the length thereof was an hundred cubits, and the breadth thereof fifty cubits, and the height thereof thirty cubits, upon four rows of cedar pillars, with cedar beams upon the pillars. (1 Ki 7:2)

·     And all king Solomon's drinking vessels were of gold, and all the vessels of the house of the forest of Lebanon were of pure gold; none were of silver: it was nothing accounted of in the days of Solomon. (1 Ki 10:21)

The forty-eight assigned cities of the Levites were so that each tribe had access to Torah teachers, or “wells,” of Torah knowledge like they did in the wilderness with the Rock, Messiah. Symbolically, that is four wells of Torah per tribe, and four is symbolic of the Ruach HaKodesh (remember your Workbook One lessons?). It’s not just Torah, it was to be LIVING Torah that purifies the mind, leading to purification of the body. Likewise, there are four rivers that circle Eden.

The Hebrew word for ”brain” or “mind” is mach, or moach, which is where we get machshev, for computer: situated place for a “brain.”

מחַ = 48

•      For WHO HAS KNOWN THE MIND OF THE LORD, THAT HE WILL INSTRUCT HIM? But we have the mind of Christ. (1Co 2:16)

•      Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin. (Ro 7:25)

It was the Levites’ job to instruct the twelve tribes in the excellence of the Torah so that the twelve tribes could approach in a proper states of holiness and enjoy Him as He wanted to enjoy them. Human minds tend to rebel against wearing the space suit because it pinches our flesh! When our minds are purified and healed by the Living Water of Yeshua, the LIVING Word, we acquire Yeshua’s mind, which desires holiness and life.

If we reject the living instructions of our Creator, we do hamas, violence, to the Word of Elohim our Creator, killing and destroying, trampling and mutilating, twisting and omitting, descending deeper and deeper into a cult of death. The violence humans do to His Word, they also do to fellow human beings, for having put themselves in the place of Elohim, human beings become drunk with blood. The mind becomes a stench, a desolate field of death, not the spiced fragrance of the blessed field of Eden. Hamas stands between the thirsty and the well of Living Water. They drink death, but are never satisfied.

On the other hand, a royal priesthood instructs the nations about the purity of the Living Word. They are swimming instructors in the River of Life, assisting eager swimmers to heal their minds while they learn. When they attain Jerusalem for their fragrant appearance before the Holy One in HaMakom, The Place, that space suit will fit just fine!

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If this is your first newsletter, you’ve jumped into the last of a four-part series that began with The Gift Horse, Watch the Smoke, and Wetter than Water. Click on the links to start at the beginning.

In last week’s teaching, we concluded with these mysterious statements concerning the striking of the Rock Messiah in the wilderness:

·     “Tell Aaron and his sons to be careful with the holy gifts of the sons of Israel, which they dedicate to Me, so as not to profane My holy name; I am the LORD.” (Le 22:2)

·     “’...for in the wilderness of Zin, during the strife of the congregation, you rebelled against My command to treat Me as holy before their eyes at the water.’ These are the waters of Meribah of Kadesh in the wilderness of Zin.” (Nu 27:14)

The water, the text says, “came forth abundantly, and the congregation and their beasts drank.” (Nu 20:11) The English translation of “abundantly” is from the Hebrew rav [rabim H7227] which has several meanings. Among its first uses in Scripture, we have context of a quarrel, which emphasizes that it was not only the people who were quarreling, but the water, too. Messiah had a beef with the situation, and he demonstrated it with how he yielded the waters:

·     Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. (Ge 6:5)

·     In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on the same day all the fountains of the great deep burst open, and the floodgates of the sky were opened. (Ge 7:11)

·     And the land could not sustain them while dwelling together, for their possessions were so great that they were not able to remain together. (Ge 13:6)

The first two examples above are of The Holy One’s quarrel with mankind, and the third is of the quarrel between the shepherds of Avraham and Lot. If Messiah’s reaction to being struck by Moses and Aaron was quarrelsome water, it sounds as if it wasn’t a gently flowing stream! It was a real gusher.

From the sentence imposed on Moses and Aaron, the implication is that the quarrel was with their actions in striking instead of speaking. Striking instead of teaching holiness.

But what was the reason Messiah withheld water after Miriam’s death? Was he, too, joining with them in mourning? Was he giving the royal priesthood an opportunity to rise to a more intimate level with him? For them to understand that the Word in their mouths also had power to restore the plants, heal, and sanctify in the Bridegroom’s Name?

Perhaps Messiah wanted the Israelites to speak to him about restoring their holy gifts by the stream, yet they were conditioned to look to their leadership.

The text says only that “the people drank.” That wasn’t their first concern, remember? It was the miraculous plants and the purifying stream of water for a royal priesthood. They mentioned drinking water for themselves and their beasts only last. The natural earthly realm was literally the least of their worries. Let’s tie this in with the River of Life in the millennium:

·     “In that day the Branch of the LORD will be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the earth will be the pride and the adornment of the survivors of Israel.” (Is 4:5)

The Branch of YHVH is Messiah Yeshua, the Rock in the wilderness. Because of the Branch and miraculous water, miraculous Edenic plants grew on the banks of the stream: orchards, spices, and vineyards on a heavenly timetable, not earthly. If not overnight, then within a month of the camp’s settlement.

Israel is prophetic of the world to come. She is uniting realms that have been disconnected since the fall from the Garden. In the wilderness, they came very close to Eden as demonstrated by the manna, ever-wear garments and sandals, and healing (their feet did not swell; all were healed at Mt. Sinai, for everyone stood, saw, heard, and said).

Israel is very close to the Garden kingdom, but they still don't touch, for the Bride is being adorned, preparing for spiritual Jerusalem above to marry earthly Jerusalem below. A royal priesthood is learning how to manage living successfully-which would mean in holy obedience-in both realms. She's being adorned for her husband so that these realms may finally touch, a marriage consummated by dwelling continuously in the holy Presence. The adornment of this Bride, Isaiah prophesied, will be the “fruit of the earth.” Let’s explore that.

This camp in the wilderness with miraculous vegetation growing beside the streams is prophetic of the millennium. A miraculous, healing stream will emerge from the Temple grounds, and it will be a healing River of Life that waters the land of the South. In fact, it will water the land all the way back to Miriam's burial place in the Arava desert.

Here are hints to this new state of healing and resurrection in the millennium:

The wilderness and the desert will be glad,

And the Arabah will rejoice and blossom;

Like the crocus. It will blossom profusely

And rejoice with rejoicing and shout of joy...

Then the eyes of the blind will be opened

And the ears of the deaf will be unstopped.

Then the lame will leap like a deer,

And the tongue of the mute will shout for joy.

For waters will break forth in the wilderness

And streams in the Arabah. (Is 35:1-6)

Let’s read Ezekiel 47, taking time to explain his millennial vision:

·     Then he brought me back to the door of the house; and behold, water was flowing from under the threshold of the house toward the east, for the house faced east. And the water was flowing down from under, from the right side of the house, from south of the altar. 2 He brought me out by way of the north gate and led me around on the outside to the outer gate by way of the gate that faces east. And behold, water was trickling from the south side.

If you stand on the Mount of Olives looking out over the Kidron Valley, you see the Lion's Gate, aka the Eastern gate, The Golden Gate. That gate went out to the east. Water will flow down from under from the right side of the House, from the south of the altar. So water will flow toward the east, going out in that Kidron valley, which might explain what are they going to do with all those graves.

It sounds like the old graveyard might be underwater after the earthquake. The watercourse will go east, then south. Typically, pilgrims would ascend from the south side. That's where the Huldah Gates are, and there was a pathway up to them and steps. If you went back down the path toward the south, you would end up in the city of David.

·     3 When the man went out toward the east with a line in his hand, he measured a thousand cubits, and he led me through the water, water reaching the ankles. 4 Again he measured a thousand and led me through the water, water reaching the knees. Again he measured a thousand and led me through the water, water reaching the loins. 5 Again he measured a thousand; and it was a river that I could not ford, for the water had risen, enough water to swim in, a river that could not be forded. 

The water won’t flow like it did when the Rock was struck. Instead, it gradually increases in depth until it becomes a river that cannot be crossed on foot. This is what the tradition is about the streams that encircled the tribes’ encampments in the wilderness. The water was deep enough to swim in.

·     6 He said to me, “Son of man, have you seen this?” Then he brought me back to the bank of the river. 7 Now when I had returned, behold, on the bank of the river there were very many trees on the one side and on the other. 8 Then he said to me, “These waters go out toward the eastern region and go down into the Arabah; then they go toward the sea, being made to flow into the sea, and the waters of the sea become fresh. 9 It will come about that every living creature which swarms in every place where the river goes, will live. And there will be very many fish, for these waters go there and the others become fresh; so everything will live where the river goes. 

That's where Miriam's buried, the Tzin wilderness of the Arava. That watercourse will flow through what is called the Dead Sea or the Salt Sea. It will no longer be dead, but hold waters of life and healing. There will be many fish, which Yeshua promised his disciples would catch in their nets. Fish are people, the nations.

·     10 And it will come about that fishermen will stand beside it; from Engedi to Eneglaim there will be a place for the spreading of nets. Their fish will be according to their kinds, like the fish of the Great Sea, very many. 

There will be many kinds of fish, many kinds of people who “swim” to the River of Life for discipleship. They will be discipled by the disciples of Yeshua, his royal priesthood.

·     11 But its swamps and marshes will not become fresh; they will be left for salt. 

Every sacrifice, especially those of thanksgiving and peace, should be offered with salt!

·     12 By the river on its bank, on one side and on the other, will grow all kinds of trees for food. Their leaves will not wither and their fruit will not fail. They will bear every month because their water flows from the sanctuary, and their fruit will be for food and their leaves for healing.”

Trees on both sides of the River ring a bell! We've read about it in John’s Revelation (Re 22:2). While John describes it as THE Tree of Life, Ezekiel sees it as “all trees.” Which is correct? Yes!

These miraculous, resurrected plants are “shoots” of the Tree of Life, the Living Word, Yeshua. “In that day the Branch of the LORD will be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the earth will be the pride and the adornment of the survivors of Israel.” There is healing in these plants because they are not normal plants. Their fruits and leaves will heal and disciple the nations who travel to the Holy City by this southern route in the River of Life.

The leaves of those righteous trees growing by the River of Life from the Holy House will not wither, and their fruit will not fail. That's miraculous. It’s the kiss of Heaven on earth. This is the fulfillment of the prophecy of the Rock in the wilderness. When the streams from the well of Miriam went out, it turned everything fresh.

The trees would grow with incredible speed. Within a month's time, they bloom and fruit because their water flows from the sanctuary of the House, from the Rock of Ages.

The royal priesthood is going to be able to snag these fish. As it said, they're going to be able to throw their nets up on the banks where the fruit and leaves are growing. This is a good kind of fishing, because you want the multitude of peoples to return in obedience.

These trees become the holistic doctors in the millennium. Each tribe represented a month out of the year, so these tribes, these miraculous trees, will be able to minister to the nations, feeding them with the miraculous food of the Word, and their shoots, even their leaves, will be for healing.

The nations will be healed from their stupidity concerning Who created them and what pleases Him. The fishermen and trees make ignorant people wise and understanding in the ways of the Creator.

These trees are not like natural trees that take months to produce mature fruit after the leaves appear. It doesn't sound like they were subject to the Three/Four-Year plan of the natural tree. A natural fruit tree planted in the Land is counted as uncircumcised for three years, and the fourth year it's holy to Adonai. In the fifth year, you can eat of its fruit. (Le 19:23-25)

Because these are miraculous trees, their fruit can be eaten within a month after they bear. Why? These are established trees! They're not new trees. They didn’t just spring up after the resurrection. These were planted before the resurrection of the dead. They're matured spiritual, earthly trees, and they're prepared to go to work in the millennium, benefiting those who eat from their teaching.

Immediately they can heal with the power of Yeshua, the Living Word.

Immediately they can teach those fish on the banks of the River.

With the help of these fishermen, these trees of righteousness, the nations can prepare themselves to ascend to Jerusalem, the Holy City, to worship the Holy One of Israel. This is the calling of the Royal Priesthood and the Bride of Messiah Yeshua.

Then the eyes of the blind will be opened

And the ears of the deaf will be unstopped.

Then the lame will leap like a deer,

And the tongue of the mute will shout for joy.

For waters will break forth in the wilderness

And streams in the Arabah.

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The section of the Song of Songs we've been working with is

Your shoots

are an orchard of pomegranates

with choice fruits,

henna with nard plants. (So 4:13)

This orchard of pomegranates is linked to the Torah that Moses instructed the Israelites in the wilderness. The pips of the pomegranates represent the individual commandments, or mitzvot. The Torah was given to Israel as an eternal covenant to be maintained generation after generation.

The orchard of pomegranates is also tied to the miraculous well in the wilderness, which traditional is referred to as the well of Miriam. The well is associated with her leadership because when she died in the Tzin wilderness, the Rock quit yielding water. The rock was Yeshua, a gift from the heavenlies. Why was Yeshua so sensitive to her death that he stopped the flow of Heavenly water to Israel?

Remember our principle that we’ve been learning: when we respond in the natural realm to the Bridegroom, and we give Him gifts in the natural realm, He responds and gives the Bride a similar gift, but sourced from the spiritual realm. It's something miraculous.

What we offer is not miraculous unless maybe it's a miracle we would give it because of the transformation that he's done in us. That would make us generous people, like Abraham and Sarah, who “made souls.” They were not stingy and contributed to the building of a congregation.

In order for light to increase in the earth, assemblies need to grow to be that light, to build the congregation. This is how we make the Bridegroom’s Name famous, and he in turn promises to make His bride famous with His splendor:

• “’Then your fame went forth among the nations on account of your beauty, for it was perfect because of My splendor which I bestowed on you,’ declares the Lord GOD.” (Ezekiel 16:14)

In this gift transaction, we wonder why the Bride was gifted with the Well of Miriam? The manna (Torah) was in the merit of Moses, the covering cloud in the merit of Aaron’s grace, for he ran to offer the healing incense during the plague.

The well, however, was in the merit of Miriam. You can figure this one out!

Miriam guarded Moses’ journey in the Nile, risked her life in approaching Pharaoh’s daughter at the river, and led the Israelite women in praise after the miraculous sea crossing, singing the Song of the Sea. She celebrated the overthrowing of the “horse and his rider,” not only the death of Pharaoh and his charioteers, but the death “rider” that John describes in Revelation. Yeshua prevails over death by providing a way of salvation through the sea. Women are often associated with wells of water, and therefore, Miriam is associated with that miraculous well streaming water from the Rock Messiah.

It was thought that Messiah would come with the miracles of Moses, Aaron, and Miriam. Yeshua identified himself as the bread of heaven, the manna, and then he miraculously multiplied bread. This recalled the miracles of Moses, the faithful shepherd. Moses led the people out like a shepherd to feed them. He was the natural shepherd. Then Heaven responded and fed the sheep with spiritual food, manna.

Aaron ran to make intercession with natural incense and stood between the people and the plague with the cloud of smoke to heal the plague. So this cloud of protection was a spiritual gift for Israel. This cloud continued with them in the wilderness as a kind of a memorial to that heart Aaron had. The spiritual gift perfecting the earthly gift. Yeshua in turn came healing and was acknowledged by the cloud on multiple occasions as recorded in the Gospels.

But how did Yeshua come with the sign of Miriam, the first woman to praise and worship when Israel came through the sea? He came from the Galilee! Jewish tradition says that before he died, Moses sank the miraculous Rock in the bottom of the Galilee. Although many were puzzled by a teacher from the Galilee, he was born in Beit-Lechem, the House of Bread. His teaching was also water, the Rock from the wilderness journey. Three leaders, three signs, one Messiah!

The Rock would flow with pure water once the Israelites encamped. It would form multiple routes with its stream so that it routed by the Levitical camp for the preparation of sacrifices and the purifications, and then it routed around each tribe’s territorial encampment, encircling it so they didn’t have to travel potentially miles to obtain their water each day for cooking, washing, and drinking.

It is said the water was deep enough to swim across. This water started flowing in their new encampments quickly and miraculously, not over a long period of time. Likewise, Jonah's gourd vine grew up over his sukkah overnight. Aaron’s rod budded overnight. Adonai caused them to grow. Likewise, it's thought that vegetation would spring up on the banks of these streams in the wilderness.

Overnight, trees would grow orchards and there would be the spices for the Mishkan services, even vineyards to supply the wine libations in the Mishkan.

In that sense, the Bridegroom shows us we shouldn’t begrudge what we give to the assembly like it's coming out of our pocket. Consider it a miracle in your wilderness. He put it there.

The Israelites didn't have to plant vineyards or trade with outside nations for wine and grain for libations and offerings. The Bridegroom supplied his own sacrifices to the Bride, so to speak. He supplied the spices for the incense service and trees for the anointing oil.

The Bridegroom supplied them with orchards of fruits, if not overnight, then likely no more than a month for the fruit to mature. John prophesied of this with a wilderness insight that the Jewish people would understand based on how they saw the encampment in the wilderness and how they saw this Rock Messiah that followed the Israelites in the wilderness. (Next week's teaching)

The Bridegroom gave His gift back to the people from Miriam’s sacrificed faithfulness to Moses and praise for the miracle of the water; He perpetuated the miracle of the parting salvation seawater with even more miraculous water activity, the Rock that purified a royal priesthood for holy service.

• “Then the sons of Israel, the whole congregation, came to the wilderness of Zin in the first month; and the people stayed at Kadesh. Now Miriam died there and was buried there. There was no water for the congregation, and they assembled themselves against Moses and Aaron.” (Nu 20:1)

When the Jewish mind reads, “Now Miriam died there and was buried there. There was no water for the congregation,” they see two connected thoughts.

When Miriam died, the water stopped. They assembled themselves against Moses and Aaron because the water stopped because Miriam died.

• “The people thus contended with Moses, and spoke, saying, If only we had perished when our brothers perished before the Lord. why, then, have you brought the Lord's assembly into this wilderness for us and our beasts to die here? Why have you made us come up from Egypt to bring us to this wretched place? It is not a place of grain, or figs, or vines, or pomegranates, nor is there water to drink.” (Nu 20:2-5)

At this point in their journey, what sticks out like a sore thumb is the complaint. “It is not a place of grain, or figs, or vines, or pomegranates...”  

We understand that they're complaining about water, but why in the same breath...FIRST...are they complaining about lack of grain, figs, vines, and pomegranates?  Many Israelites are young enough that they never farmed natural land. They never sowed barley or wheat. They never picked a natural fig, or a natural grape, or a natural pomegranate. They've been out of Egypt that long. So why, all of a sudden, are they complaining about the lack of grain, the figs, the vines, and the pomegranates?

Miriam dies.

The miraculous water dries up.

Now the grain for sacrifices would wither; the figs and the pomegranate trees for first fruits would die, and so would the vines for libations.

In this particular part of the wilderness, the Arava, and specifically the Tzin wilderness, it is a seabed. It's been undersea twice in the world's history. In a seabed, there's salt. The sand is salty. In fact, if you go down to Miriam’s Spring today, you will see this crusted salt over the place where there has been moisture. What was left was the crystallized salt sitting on top of the sand. You can literally pick it up. It's like sun-baked sugar.

When you plant a tree there, you must irrigate it unless it's a natural tree of the Arava, like the acacia or the salt bush. Even for the date tree to grow, there must be some source of fresh water close to the surface to push the salt away from the roots. Fresh water has to keep flowing. If it doesn't, the salt from the sand will encroach into the roots of the plant and kill it.

So it takes a continuous spring, a continuous source of fresh water to drive that salt content away from the root system of the plant. So if Miriam dies and the water dries up, this is exactly what's going to happen in the Tzin wilderness.

These plants were semi-heaven, semi-earth, and they're no longer receiving the miraculous water which grew them speedily with miraculous qualities.  

So below is a picture of Miriam's Spring in the Tzin wilderness. This would not have been Miriam's Well, but to this day there is a fresh water spring that flows through the location, perhaps to mark the place as a memorial in the wilderness. You can see, yes, there's greenery growing around this natural stream because it's fresh water year round, but if you venture away only a few feet, you may as well be standing on the surface of the moon. This gives you an idea, at least, of how that miraculous water would have flowed out of the rock. The salty earth even supplied the salt for those sacrifices, especially the grain offering!

• “You shall salt your every meal-offering with salt; you may not discontinue the salt of your God’s covenant from upon your meal-offering-on all your offerings shall you offer salt.” (Le 2:13)

We know that the plants were not the same when they grew up around the streams from Miriam's Well, and Paul even talks about it in 1st Corinthians. He wrote that it was important for them to know. Corinthians had no background in this story, but Paul wanted them to. This was a Jewish understanding of Torah they needed to be aware of:

• “For I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea; and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea; and all ate the same spiritual food; and all drank the same spiritual drink, for they were drinking from a spiritual rock which followed them; and the rock was Christ.” (1 Co 10:1-4)

According to Isaiah’s prophecy, the covering cloud in the millennium, that eternal gift to the Bride, will have the same qualities as did the pillar of cloud in the wilderness:

• In that day the Branch of the LORD will be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the earth will be the pride and the adornment of the survivors of Israel. It will come about that he who is left in Zion and remains in Jerusalem will be called holy—everyone who is recorded for life in Jerusalem. When the Lord has washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion and purged the bloodshed of Jerusalem from her midst, by the spirit of judgment and the spirit of burning, then the LORD will create over the whole area of Mount Zion and over her assemblies a cloud by day, even smoke, and the brightness of a flaming fire by night; for over all the glory will be a canopy. There will be a shelter to give shade from the heat by day, and refuge and protection from the storm and the rain. (Is 4:5-6)

Remember, the Israelites, a royal priesthood, were camped at “Kadesh” (one of at least three locations by the same name), a proto-prophecy of what was to come when “he who is left in Zion and remains in Jerusalem will be called holy-everyone who is recorded for life in Jerusalem.” The royal priesthood was rehearsing for this prophetic role that ultimately would be fulfilled in Jerusalem.

Paul says a cloud hovered over them as well as the Mishkan, signifying His Presence. They were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea. He's connecting those things, for under that cloud, miraculous things happened. Isaiah says miraculous things will happen again under that cloud.

They passed through the sea. Why would Paul mention that? The well was in the merit of Miriam, who broke out in praise and worship at the Song of the Sea. She offered her natural gift of the Song of the Sea. She guarded baby Moses. Then the Bridegroom rewards the people with this miraculous streaming rock, Messiah. He protects them as a Bridegroom covering the Bride under the cloud.

All were immersed into Moses in the cloud and in the sea and all ate the same spiritual food right here.

Paul’s telling us in a simpler way what we already learned about the merit of Moses, Aaron and Miriam. The cloud was in the merit of Aaron. The spiritual food was in the merit of Moses. The miraculous water was in the merit of Miriam. Paul then states, “They all drank the same spiritual drink.” These three miracles were connected.

Because of the Presence of the cloud and the miraculous water of Messiah, the other supernatural food (than the manna), the grain, figs, vines, and pomegranates grew. The miracles were three, but one. Because we drink from this same Rock, eat the same spiritual food, and remain in His Presence, we produce more spiritual fruit! We maintain a state of kadesh in the current wilderness of the peoples, holiness separate from the world.

Speaking of holiness, here’s one more detail: did you notice the order of these challenges to Moses and Aaron?

• “Why have you made us come up from Egypt to bring us to this wretched place? It is not a place of grain, or figs, or vines, or pomegranates, nor is there water to drink.”

The FIRST concern of the Bride, a royal priesthood, described by King Solomon in Song of Songs 4 as “an orchard of pomegranates with choice fruits, henna with nard plants,” was the orchards that grew by the stream, not drinking water!

Only with fresh, living water could a royal priesthood maintain their “holies,” the many purifications described in Vayikra (Leviticus).

It was not only the Levitical priesthood called to the holies. The royal priesthood to the nations had to maintain household purities to mark several life events. This was so that they could enter into the more intense dwelling of the Presence in the Mishkan to offer their sacrifices and present their gifts of spices, first fruits, grain offerings, and lighting or anointing oil. They needed living water to immerse themselves, and they needed living water grow their gifts for the Mishkan, the grain, figs, vines, and pomegranates as well as the incense spices.

With these insights, it is easier to understand why the Bridegroom was more upset with Moses and Aaron than the Israelites. Their complaint was at a much higher level than just drinking water. The royal priesthood wanted more than the waters of salvation; they wanted holiness for service. They wanted Mashiach, to soak in his holy gifts, and they wanted him now!

Scripture hints at the problem:

• “Tell Aaron and his sons to be careful with the holy gifts of the sons of Israel, which they dedicate to Me, so as not to profane My holy name; I am the LORD.” (Le 22:2)
• “...for in the wilderness of Zin, during the strife of the congregation, you rebelled against My command to treat Me as holy before their eyes at the water.” These are the waters of Meribah of Kadesh in the wilderness of Zin. (Nu 27:14)

Next week, we’ll connect these wilderness miracles to Ezekiel and John’s visions of the millennium where they see both fruitful trees and THE Tree of Life flowing down through the Arava. We get a more focused insight as to how the nations of the world will come up to Jerusalem at the feasts, which seems impossible because of the prophesied level of holiness there. 

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In The Gift Horse newsletter, we located the spiritual gifts the Bridegroom gave to Israel as a result of her gifts to build the Mishkan. Two main points emerged:

·     The Bridegroom’s spiritual gift is a re-gifting. Having received the Bride’s gift into the Heavenlies, He completes it in spiritual realms, and returns it to her completed in splendid beauty. For that matter, the Bride re-gifted as well, for the earth was created by the Bridegroom and her resources belong to Him.

·     The bridegroom doubles his gifts. If she gives this much, he gives that much doubled, or even more, because it’s not just a doubling. It's an eternal bounty. It's way more than a double portion. It's a forever portion.

The forever portion is mentioned by the Bridegroom in Is 4:2-6. It will occur when “The Lord will wash away the filth from the daughters of Zion and purge the bloodshed of Jerusalem from her midst by the spirit of judgment and the spirit of burning.” Jerusalem and the Temple Mount will be maintained in a state of perpetual holiness so that her covering of glory gift is never lost, nor does it decay.

So how will the Bridegroom remove those who aren't fit for this most holy place?

I read a news article that stated since the war began on October 7th, 82,700 citizens have left Israel. People have gone to other nations. They just didn't want to be there with the war going on. It wasn't worth fighting for. He's washing away some unbelief and godless motivation. He's washing it off of us as well in the nations where we're exiled. Judgment and burning has and will expose our own relationship with The Holy One of Israel.

He's purging bloodshed even though we're right in the middle of heavy bloodshed. Sometimes to purge something, it takes more of it in order to remove it. Let any unrepentance go up in smoke. According to so many of the prophecies of Scripture, filthiness becomes more exposed and bloodshed increases before we see the filth washed away and removed. When this process is complete, there will be those who are recorded for life in Jerusalem, not simply visitation.

The nations will be recorded for life in their assigned coastlands. They'll have visitation rights, especially at the feasts. They'll want to go up. They'll want to be instructed and know how to go up to experience His Presence at those appointed times. But there will be a Bride who is not required to return to her nation because she is recorded for life in Jerusalem. She will have an inheritance in the land. She is a permanent citizen by the gift of the Bridegroom. The eternal gift passage in Isaiah says,

·     Then at that time the Lord will create over the whole area of Mount Zion and over her assemblies...

Assemblies. That's what we emphasize all the time, Shabbat. The moedim. This is why we observe them, to rehearse living under the holy gift.

·     ...over her assemblies a cloud by day, even smoke and the brightness of a flaming fire by night, for over all the glory will be a canopy and [like a wedding chuppah] there will be a shelter to give shade from the heat by day, and refuge and protection from the storm and the rain.

This is the eternal gift that the Bridegroom gives to the Bride. She has more than eternal protection from the elements of the natural earth; she has eternal privileges in His Presence, for the cloud represents His hovering, covering Presence. She won't have to go out from it anymore. She might be dispatched with a mission to the nations, but it is entirely possible that an individual so designated would never leave the Holy City. The land itself, according to Ezekiel, will extend from Egypt all the way up to the Euphrates.

The Land will be stretched out to accommodate the population of the obedient, protecting them from the natural elements. The cloud of His Presence may extend over that entire full territory of Israel, not the limited area that defines it today. Since the cloud protects even from the natural elements of wind, fire, water, and storm, those who farm the Land will enjoy it as the Garden of Eden descended, kissing the earth with the spiritual gift perfecting the natural resources.

Let’s return to another prophecy of the Bride’s garments of glory:

·     In that day, the Branch of the LORD will be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the earth will be the pride and the adornment of the survivors of Israel.

There are different kinds of fruit. One kind is that from the natural earth, but these fruits will be so glorious because they are Edenic fruits just like the spies saw when they prepared to cross into the Land. They didn’t believe they could live in that state of holiness, for Moses had asked them if they saw a “tree.”* Well, they saw lots of trees! Why one tree?

What about the Tree of Life that Moses saw on the mountain when he saw the perfect pattern?

It is from THE tree that all kinds of good fruit trees grow. The original tree, the Branch!

On either side of the river was the tree of life, 

bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. (Re 22:2)

What Ezekiel described as many fruit trees, John sees as THE Tree. The Word of Elohim.

The ten evil spies did not believe that Israel, the Bride, could ever live in such a holy place according to the Tree of Life, the Word. Caleb and Joshua knew they could, and they survived, just like Isaiah prophesies of the “survivors” (4:2) of Israel who will live and cross over with the believing assembly at the appointed time.

There was a Mishkan (tabernacle) where the Bridegroom’s Presence dwelled between the cheruvim, who protected the entrance to the Garden and the Tree of Life, but His extended Presence hovered over the entire camp in a cloud. As the tribes are assigned to their places, if this cloud extends over all their dwellings, they never go out from His Presence. They never really have to go out from the Temple, in a sense, because His Presence that defines it will hover in such a dramatic way, like Isaiah described in his beautiful turn of phrase for the eternal gift that the Bridegroom will give the bride.

 How important it is not to give or attend begrudgingly into the assembly! Everything we have, everything we are, belongs to Him. In fact, Yeshua said nobody can even come to him unless the Father draws him. The fact that we even found THE Tree of Life, the Torah, is not to our credit! Torah is a gift for the holy assembly of the Bridegroom’s appointed times, the Bride.

The Father drew us to the Torah. It's up to us what we do with it, but He drew us there, so no one can say the Torah is his or her own original work of righteousness. No, indeed. The Torah first dwelled with the Father, but now that it's a gift in our possession, we must let Him dwell in us with the continuing cycle of the Torah gifting transaction. It’s an eternal relationship. We must never forget the origin of the gift, and when we give gifts of obedience, sacrifice, thanks, tithes, or first fruits to Him, it's because He first gave to us.

Don’t just walk away when the smoke rises from your gifts you’ve placed on the altar of obedience. Watch the smoke rise. See your gift touching the spiritual realm just above the earth. See the enormous fruits your gift will transform into when you give with a willing heart...when you give because you want to know Yeshua and simply be an extension tree of righteousness from him, the Tree of Life.

Yeshua taught a rich young man that the Bridegroom does not desire humankind to simply check off commandment boxes. Selling everything to be with Yeshua on this earth would be like becoming a living prayer. The twelve disciples did this, not a random number. They prophesied of the twelve fruit trees that bear every month in the millennium because they are in relationship with THE Tree. The righteous Branch.

The Bridegroom uses mitzvot and prayer to draw us into the eternal gift transactions of growing, abiding holiness. The mitzvot help us to remain in close relationship with Him. Don’t just dump off an act of obedience. Don't just mumble a blessing so you can eat or the Shma so you can sleep.

Linger. At least a few moments.

Watch the smoke.

*Numbers 13:20 is often mistranslated. The Hebrew text etz is singular, not plural.

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This week we will do more work with the gift exchange between the bride and bridegroom. These exchanges occur from the time between their betrothal at Mt. Sinai and when the Bride is drawn into the Cloud of His Presence at the resurrection. To review from last week, the Bride sent gifts to the Groom to build a place for His Presence to dwell. In return, the Groom gifted Betzalel and Oholiav with the Divine ruach to transform those gifts into the Mishkan (Tabernacle). The Bride brought the Bridegroom thirteen items as gifts for the building of the Mishkan:

Gold

Silver

Copper

Turquoise wool

Purple wool

Scarlet wool

Linen

Goat hair

Red-dyed ram skins

Tachash skins

Acacia wood

Shoham stones

Stones for the settings

This list does not include items that were depletable, such as olive oil and spices for anointment. Then the Bridegroom gave her similar gifts, each mirroring one of her gifts to Him for the preparation of a Mishkan to make a place for His Presence to dwell with her:

• “I also clothed you with embroidered cloth and put sandals of porpoise skin on your feet; and I wrapped you with fine linen and covered you with silk. I adorned you with ornaments, put bracelets on your hands and a necklace around your neck. I also put a ring in your nostril, earrings in your ears and a beautiful crown on your head. Thus you were adorned with gold and silver, and your dress was of fine linen, silk and embroidered cloth. You ate fine flour, honey and oil; so you were exceedingly beautiful and advanced to royalty. Then your fame went forth among the nations on account of your beauty, for it was perfect because of My splendor which I bestowed on you,” declares the Lord GOD. (Ezekiel 16:10-14)

Enumerated for easier reading:

Embroidered cloth

Tachash (porpoise or badger) sandals

Fine linen (priesthood)

Silk ("cloud of glory”)

Ornaments

Bracelets (tablets of Ten Words)

Necklace (words of Torah bound around the neck/heart)

Nose ring (justice)

Earrings (Shma)

Crown of beauty (Divine Presence Is 60:19)

Gold (purity of Torah)

Silver (redemption)

Fame (of the Groom's Name)

Again, the pattern is that the Bride brings earthly gifts, which the Bridegroom matches with spiritual gifts. The Bride contributes earthly resources, and the Groom mirrors them with Heavenly resources.

If she understands that that are two realms, and she understands He is Creator and she is created, she realizes the gifts weren't hers at all. It was because of Adonai that the Hebrews plundered the Egyptians. He redesignated the wealth of the Egyptians to the Hebrews. The gifts Israel gave were His. He created them. It's all His.

Adonai puts wealth in our pockets, so we can't think when we contribute something to the congregation that it's coming out of our pockets. It's coming out of His creation. He even gives the ability to earn that money or that gift. Without His giving the ability to earn, we could bring no gift. Lots of people on this earth do not have the ability to earn anything at all. They have disabilities. Some can only earn a little. Simply to be born with the ability to go out and earn, labor, and collect that paycheck is a gift from Heaven.

We are brought up to believe we earn our paychecks, but they all originate in His Creation, and Elohim chose to make us able-bodied and healthy so we could give back to Him. He lets you put it in your pocket as if it's yours. But we can’t be too sassy because He created both the Bride and the earth that yields its resources to her. That's hard to acknowledge when we associate reward with the work that we do.

Yes, you contributed. You contributed your earthly natural resources to that paycheck, and you contributed some of that treasure back to Him. This made it holy. Designated. Just like the Bride. She is holy to the Groom. Designated to Him alone. The Groom rewarded you with the spiritual resources so that its status changed. It’s no longer secular, mundane, but a holy offering or tithe. The earth and its fulness belong to Elohim, yet He wants His unique creation, human beings, to take from that earth and offer a fine gift to Him. By passing the resource through the human being, it is elevated to holy status as the gift completes the circle back to the Creator.

Some believers, for whatever reason, choose not to give gifts to their Creator, or they give only sparingly...even though they have enough to do so, like Kain. Whatever the reason, they are limiting what the Groom will give them. The pattern is that He responds with a similar spiritual gift to the natural gift the Bride sends Him. Worse yet, there are non-workers. They have the ability to earn, they are believers, yet they have a pattern of not working at all or being such a lousy worker that they ensure they cannot hold a job to provide for their families, much less give holy gifts to the Creator. While the stingy believer withholds what he has, the non-worker refuses to even earn anything that could lead to the willing heart decision to give.

The Bridegroom wants us fully involved in the gift transaction, contributing to the welcoming of His presence. When we contribute earthly resources, we draw down His presence. He responds with similar gifts from the spiritual realm.

The future temple is the way that the Bridegroom imagined His creation. Every creation starts with an imagination, and so He imagined a creation that would be a fusion of earth and spirit, a perfect fusion that would be willingly obedient. Not spiritual beings, not more angels, but rather, messengers of obedience that would also respond from the earthly side of them. He would respond again with the spiritual, and it would be a marriage of realms.

Isaiah's list of spiritual gifts to the Bride is an example of how the bridegroom in this interim sends gifts to the bride. She also sends gifts to him, and it heightens the anticipation. You get to know the other person sometimes by the gift. If somebody gives you a gift who's never given you a gift before, you might be a little anxious because you don't really know what kind of gift they're going to think is a gift compared to what you think a gift is. I knew this sweet little old lady years ago, and she would go to thrift sales and bring me the moldiest smelling used clothes when she cleaned her closet. To her, it was the greatest gift of all, and I had to respond as if it was the greatest gift of all, because I understood the heart that was behind it.

There's some trepidation when someone we don’t know well says, “I brought you this gift,” and we have no idea what's going to be in the package when we open it! It will tell you a lot about the person, though. When we open the gifts of the Bridegroom, and when He opens our gifts, it tells us a lot about each other. We're learning the nature and the character, the likes and the dislikes of one another in this interim period.

There's times when I love to open these spiritual gifts because they're awesome. They're splendorous. They're wondrous. I wouldn't have even imagined to ask for the gift because I didn't even know it existed until He gave it to me.

And then there's other times the Groom gives a gift, and I have some reservations, because, it's like a gift horse. If you look that gift horse in the mouth, you know that with this gift is going to come greater responsibility, greater demands, greater tests, greater trials. And you know that's the reason it's a gift is because those tests and trials are going to take you to another level of holiness, not because He’s unloaded some worn out old nag on you and called it a gift.

There's going to be a price to pay for accepting this gift, but who would refuse a spiritual gift? We're supposed to earnestly covet them. That's a thing we're allowed to covet, but they do sometimes come with a price when we open them. The bridegroom's spiritual gifts are designed to increase our holiness because this fusion of heaven and earth called the New Jerusalem will be a completely holy place. Many people will visit from the nations; they will come up and visit at the feasts, but they go home.

Those who are recorded for life in Jerusalem will be called holy:

• In that day the Branch of the LORD will be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the earth will be the pride and the adornment of the survivors of Israel. It will come about that he who is left in Zion and remains in Jerusalem will be called holy—everyone who is recorded for life in Jerusalem. When the Lord has washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion and purged the bloodshed of Jerusalem from her midst, by the spirit of judgment and the spirit of burning, then the LORD will create over the whole area of Mount Zion and over her assemblies a cloud by day, even smoke, and the brightness of a flaming fire by night; for over all the glory will be a canopy. There will be a shelter to give shade from the heat by day, and refuge and protection from the storm and the rain. (Is 4:2-6)

There will be people recorded for life, but life somewhere else.  

The Bride is recorded for life in Jerusalem, because, remember, there's no rebellion in her. She has completely embraced the pomegranates (mitzvot) of the Bridegroom, the customary gift of the Bridegroom to the Bride while she awaits his coming. She has completely embraced His will, and there is no vestige or shred of rebellion left in her that would cause her to violate His will in this extremely holy place. If you violate His will in this extremely holy place, we have the pattern in Genesis. You get kicked out.

You can be recorded for life somewhere else, but not in the most holy place, where there must be 100% obedience and submission. “We will do, and we will hear” is the agreement of the Bride to the Bridegroom’s conditions of the marriage. Through the power of the Ruach HaKodesh, Yeshua is “grooming” the Bride to conform her will to his and the Father’s will.

This gift horse is no nag, but it can be a challenge to ride because it constantly transforms our earthly gifts into holy gifts of willing obedience. Accepting that gift horse is the only way to complete the circle of personal holiness required for residence in New Jerusalem, a place where natural and spiritual have a perfectly harmonious marriage.

• In that day there will be inscribed on the bells of the horses, “HOLY TO THE LORD.” And the cooking pots in the LORD'S house will be like the bowls before the altar. (Zech 14:20)

As she prepares, dedicating her earthly work to Him, allowing Him to turn it into a sacred offering, the Bride transforms more and more into the image of the Creator.

Just as He imagined.

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In Scripture, the head often represents the authority, the will of the person. When we dedicate our heads to Yeshua, we submit our will to him. Because he submitted his will to the Father, he has bounty in his hand. That bounty consists of the Bride, those who respond to the Father, who drew them to Yeshua. They have a marriage covenant with Heaven as described by King Solomon in the Song of all Songs:

Your shoots are an

orchard of pomegranates with choice fruits,

henna with nard plants. (So 4:13)

It was customary for the bridegroom to send pomegranates as gifts to the bride in the interim between the betrothal and the actual ceremony and consummation of the marriage. These are gifts of the Bridegroom to the Bride to “wear" until he comes. It is the way for the Bride to learn the nature of her Groom until they physically dwell together. When she learns who he is, his will, what pleases and displeases him, she adjusts her own attitude and behavior to reflect those desires. She prepares for him just as he prepares for her.

Ultimately, Yeshua is preparing a place for the Bride "in my Father's House." Because no one can dwell in the Father's House in rebellion, the Bridegroom is preparing the bountiful Bride to dwell in the Presence of the Almighty's House. As she walks in the Father's will, and therefore Yeshua's will, the Living Word, she builds the reputation of the King of Kings. She proclaims His Name on earth by her deeds, which are His deeds. She re-introduces mankind to their Creator and Lover of their Souls.

The Good Name built by the pomegranates, whose pips (seeds) represent the 613 commandments, is pictured by the ancient marriage customs. Although betrothed and technically married, the couple lives apart until the final stage of the marriage, kiddushin. Only then will they dwell together. In the meantime, though, the bride is considered already married, forbidden to all others, and she wears the name of the bridegroom. This gift of a good name reflects unity with the Bridegroom, who by His “pomegranates” has set apart the Bride from all other nations and gods who represent an adultery for her:

• “And what one nation on the earth is like Your people Israel, whom God went to redeem for Himself as a people and to make a name for Himself, and to do a great thing for You and awesome things for Your land, before Your people whom You have redeemed for Yourself from Egypt, from nations and their gods?” (2 Sa 7:23)
• “So keep and do them, for that is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples who will hear all these statutes and say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.’” (Dt 4:6)

The Mishkan (Tabernacle in the Wilderness) is a template of the Famous Name gift exchange between Bride and Bridegroom. The Bride brought the Bridegroom thirteen items as gifts for the building of the Mishkan:

Gold

Silver

Copper

Turquoise wool

Purple wool

Scarlet wool

Linen

Goat hair

Red-dyed ram skins

Tachash skins

Acacia wood

Shoham stones

Stones for the settings

This list does not include items that were depletable, such as olive oil and spices for anointment. Then the Bridegroom gave her similar gifts, each mirroring one of her gifts to Him for the preparation of a Mishkan to make a place for His Presence to dwell with her:

• “I also clothed you with embroidered cloth and put sandals of porpoise skin on your feet; and I wrapped you with fine linen and covered you with silk. I adorned you with ornaments, put bracelets on your hands and a necklace around your neck. I also put a ring in your nostril, earrings in your ears and a beautiful crown on your head. Thus you were adorned with gold and silver, and your dress was of fine linen, silk and embroidered cloth. You ate fine flour, honey and oil; so you were exceedingly beautiful and advanced to royalty. Then your fame went forth among the nations on account of your beauty, for it was perfect because of My splendor which I bestowed on you,” declares the Lord GOD. (Ezekiel 16:10-14)

Enumerated for easier reading:

Embroidered cloth

Tachash (porpoise or badger) sandals

Fine linen (priesthood)

Silk ("cloud of glory”)

Ornaments

Bracelets (tablets of Ten Words)

Necklace (words of Torah bound around the neck/heart)

Nose ring (justice)

Earrings (Shma)

Crown of beauty (Divine Presence Is 60:19)

Gold (purity of Torah)

Silver (redemption)

Fame (of the Groom's Name)

The Bride brought earthly gifts, which the Bridegroom matched with spiritual gifts.

The next building block is understanding that the Bridegroom doubles the gifts of the Bride. In fact, the principle that the Queen of Sheba brought Melekh Shlomo a huge quantity of spices (1 Ki 10:10) which could be measured, for it was earthly riches, but which he exceeded so far in his gifts back to her that they had no measure and could only be described as “royal bounty.” These represent spiritual gifts. What is in one's hand is what he/she controls and represents his/her bounty or wealth.

Bounty = כְּיַד ke-yad, “hand”

It is the practice of the bridegroom to double the bride’s dowry. If she brings 13 gifts to the Mishkan, then he gives 26. Here is an example of a negative application of the principle:

• “Comfort, O comfort My people,’ says your God. ‘Speak kindly to Jerusalem; and call out to her that her warfare has ended, that her iniquity has been removed, that she has received of the LORD’S hand double for all her sins.’” (Is 40:1-2)

If the Bride gives her Bridegroom sins, he obliges and doubles the consequences of those sins. Not a double-portion gift she wants!

Although only 13 good gifts are listed in Ezekiel, it is thought that those gifts will be doubled in the future, the millennial reign of the Prince of Peace, and in the World to Come, it will be royal bounty without measure, for it will be an eternal royal Mishkan (without measure):

• "The one who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God, and he will not go out from it anymore; and I will write on him the name of My God, and the name of the city of My God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from My God, and My new name." (Re 3:12)

The Bridegroom is preparing a place for overcomers. They overcome for the sake of His Name, not to make themselves famous. They are the "shoots" of the pomegranate orchard, full of its pips, which represent the commandments. The shoot is from the same material as the tree. The Hebrew word for shoots is shalakh, "sent ones," as in apostles and messengers. It can also mean an arrow, which hits the mark once sent. "Torah" itself is from yara, to shoot an arrow.

Once sent, a pip produces a new pomegranate tree, not weeds. They keep and live those mitzvah-pips, and because they overcome in walking in them, their reputation is like Yeshua's description of his own mission:

• Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work.” (Jn 4:34)
• “I can do nothing on My own initiative. As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is just, because I do not seek My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.” (Jn 5:30)
• “For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.” Jn (6:38)
• “This is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day.” (Jn 6:39)
• “As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats Me, he also will live because of Me.” (Jn 6:57)
• “He who sees Me sees the One who sent Me.” (Jn 12:45)

Because we perform the will of the Bridegroom, who gifted us his pomegranates, we proclaim his Good Name even before the resurrection. In submitting our will to the Bridegroom's will, we are assured he will conclude our marriage contract made at Sinai when we said, and say every year at Shavuot, "We will do and we will hear."

When he meets us and draws us into the Cloud of his Presence to dwell with him, he will raise us from the dead (1 Th 4:15-18). At that time, we will be able to see the bounty on our heads. It will be more than double bounty...it will be the eternal bounty of the riches of His Presence with us. So let's re-read the reward that has been placed on our heads:

• "The one who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God, and he will not go out from it anymore; and I will write on him the name of My God, and the name of the city of My God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from My God, and My new name." (Re 3:12)

How is this better than the Mishkan in the wilderness? The Mishkan was a movable tent for His Presence on earth. The Temple is the Mikdash, a permanent, holy dwelling for kiddushin, or the "holy consummation" of the marriage. Mikdash, or Temple, holds the Hebrew root kadash, for holiness. Those who bear the Name on their heads are the holy ones.

A pillar in Hebrew, amud, means "something permanent, enduring, immovable." What's so incredible is that in the future Temple, it is a merging of the Ruach-built Mikdash above fused with a completely pure building from what He created below, natural and spiritual in perfect harmony as was intended from the Creation. As in the first Temple, in which the two main pillars had names (Boaz and Yachin), so the Bride of Messiah will have the Bridegroom's new name. She will be bountifully full of pips, ministering healing to the nations with her own shoots and leaves.

The good news? Yeshua has given us the Living Word, a bountiful supply of pips on which to feed and from which to produce more good fruits and healing leaves while we await his coming. The four riders of the apocalypse will be a welcome sight to the Pips. There is indeed a great reward on their heads.

We are not the hippie generation that held empty promises of peace and love. We are the enduring Pippy Generation!

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The verse in the Song lumps all the choice fruits in there together. We're much more familiar with an orchard of pomegranates, but other good fruits might be planted with purpose. A henna plant would be planted with purpose in order to harvest the dye out of it. A nard plant would be planted with purpose in order to harvest this very valuable aromatic. All three products that are mentioned in this orchard of "shoots" are things that are not random.They are planted with purpose because the produce from them and the benefit derived from them is extremely valuable.

The orchard planting requires a lot of effort, patience, and planning, but perhaps there was one early decision that determined whether the orchard would even be planted. There are some opportunities that are going to be for us like Jacob's glimpse into the gateway to Heaven. We're going to realize a unique opportunity Adonai drops into our laps. We're going to say, "How awesome is this place?"

But there's really only one chance. It's one of those things where you have to be quick. So many opportunities out there aren't time dependent, but every now and then, the Father puts something before you that is so awesome. You know it's awesome when you encounter it. And you know there's a danger that if you keep going through life, and you don't deal with that thing as fast as you should, it will be an opportunity lost. And this is what Yeshua says in Matthew. He says,

• “The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in the field, which a man found and hid again; and from joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking fine pearls, and upon finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.” (Mt 13:43-46)

What these two parables have in common, other than a great treasure, is that it cost the buyers everything they had to obtain that great treasure. They really only had one opportunity. If either of those men had delayed, if they had not wanted to risk selling everything for that treasure, there would have been no great return. The question of the treasure is, "Do you really want to start back from scratch?"

You have to build from scratch, even though it's a great treasure. You have to leave first things behind with their security. Paul had to do it. He took three years apart to re-think everything he knew in light of the revelation of Yeshua in the Torah.

In order to realize the potential of the great treasure, that once-in-a-lifetime revelation, there should be no delay. Had the first man delayed, somebody else could have bought the field. He realizes that when he sees this treasure, it will require everything he owns in order to go back and buy it. Maybe he already had a house. Maybe he already had two fine cars. Maybe he already had the furniture his wife liked. Maybe he had a swimming pool. The house and neighborhood and boat or club membership may be everything that he wanted… and developed through great care and sacrifice.

But now he realizes that he must relinquish everything he has accumulated to obtain that treasure. And then he'll have to figure out how to invest it because he's just sold the security that he had.

And then in the second parable, the merchant sells pearls, so it's certain that he already has a pocket full of fine pearls. But then he finds that one pearl. And he will have to sell every pearl he has in order to buy that one. In either case, if they delay, somebody else could buy that field. Somebody else could buy that pearl. They did not have plenty of time. They couldn't say, "Well, let me just start selling off a few things, cutting back here or there." No, both of them had to immediately go out and find buyers. Typically, when you try to sell something quickly, you take a price far below its value, but they were willing to do that in order to obtain this one thing of great value.

So the pressure of the parable is if they had delayed at all, they might have missed the opportunity of a lifetime. And that's the thing. Life is time.

Our life is time.

How we spend our time. What we purchase with our time. Time is precious. We don't have a lot of it, most of us. Our generation is structured that way.

Time is so valuable because we know that if we lose it, it is irretrievable. It's not that every single moment we need to be worried that, oh my goodness, I've just lost time. I'm going to weep and gnash my teeth in the long run because I didn't get this and that done. Yeshua's saying, there's going to be a once in a lifetime opportunity for a believer. You have to know when that moment is.

I think for a lot of us, we know when that moment was. We realized at some point that studying Torah wasn't just doing Jewish stuff. It wasn't dressing up in Jewish things. It wasn't an interesting little Sunday School study. We realized this His Word, and it is life. Life most abundantly.

But if you do it, it will cost you everything. If you don't do it, you probably missed that once in a lifetime opportunity.

Now, can you come back later? Just like Jacob who came back later to pay the tithe? Yes. But… to do it with haste was the once in a lifetime opportunity. Time really does backfill like sand. There are lots of things in our lives that we'll wait for later. There's some things in life that we can fix with a repentance do-over. But Yeshua's saying some things won't be like that. Don't be surprised if you get a once in a lifetime opportunity to see if you're willing to give up everything you have in order to develop the more valuable new treasure.

We must not postpone our spiritual commitments, for each moment is a treasure. Repentance can be a great treasure, an opportunity that if missed, might result in a hard heart. Repentance is also a pearl of great price. The ability to repent can be a once in a lifetime treasure because it can affect your eternity. Somebody who delays may find out that the sands of time really can backfill that. They can become very hard, very resistant as time goes on. The opportunity to repent is a pearl of great price. Will that repentance cost everything we've accumulated? It might. If all we've accumulated is the garbage of the world, then it's going to cost all of that worthless stuff we convinced ourselves had some value in it. We should happy that such a pile of worthless things can be sold in order to obtain eternal wear.

For us, finding Yeshua in the Torah is a treasure hidden for nearly the last 2000 years.

Each generation is asked to sell everything. Some are asked to make a different path than their families walk. Make a different path than our coworkers walk. Make a different path than our neighbors walk. Make a different path than our old church walks. We have to invest everything in that once in a lifetime window into heaven.

It might be the last window of its kind. We're in an awesome place. Yeshua is offering this precious jewel that we can wear in eternity. Other things that we thought were precious, they're not really eternity wear. Maternity wear is important, but eternity wear everyone should be acquire. We may have to give up other clothes in the closet for eternity wear. It's worth doing it quickly, though.

Do you remember getting on the monkey bars at school? You swung off on the first rung, and you had momentum. As long as you had momentum, you could go all the way across the monkey bars. But if you weren't willing to let go of the security of the last rung, and you hung there for a second with one hand, it was hard to catch the next one. You might have missed it. Then you just hung there for a while before dropping to the ground.

When we're looking at these precious jewels of opportunity, see how important momentum is! The pips of the pomegranates symbolize the mitzvot. The Israelites received those at Mount Sinai when they left Egypt. In that sense, at Mount Sinai, Adonai planted an orchard. He planted that orchard in a very orderly way. The Israelites were camped according to their tribes. According to groups of tribes. Clans. Families. Perimeter of the Levites. The priests. There was an orderly service in the Mishkan. They were prescribed very precisely how things were to be set up every single time it was set up or torn down to move. When they set it back up, everything was orderly, just like a well-planned orchard.

The pomegranates in this pomegranate orchard are a nation who hold these mitzvot. The pips, or the little pieces of fruit in the pomegranate, are thought to generally come out to 613, representing the total number of the commandments. And so it was and is a unique opportunity, the opportunity of a lifetime.

He planted us, the pomegranate orchard, in the wilderness of the peoples. From Adonai come mitzvot commandments to the talmidim (students). Camping there, learning, learning, learning from Moses. Learning, learning, learning from Yeshua. And eventually Israel will be this mature orchard of pomegranates because they're a royal priesthood as well.

Once they were taught, the disciples became shliachim, or "sent ones." They were able to reconcile the nations to Elohim, their creator. The "shoots" of the pomegranates comes from the Hebrew verb shalach, "sent." We were not planted just to be one little beautiful camp of pomegranate trees. Instead, this fully-invested camp of pomegranate trees brings forth fruit and even healing leaves that shoot out to the world. Our fragrance of good deeds is to be shared with the nations. Yeshua is the root from which we shoot into the world if we cultivate our planting.

We never want to be consumed with regret when we realize that we lost an opportunity because we didn't recognize the value of the treasure of time. We don't want to regret being too fearful to give up what we had in order to grasp the eternal treasure that is hidden inside this world.

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Here in Egyptalon, it's a language issue. The Hebrew language. One day, the tables will turn:

• “For at that time I will change the speech of the peoples to a pure speech, that all of them may call upon the name of the LORD and serve him with one accord.” (Zephaniah 3:9)

This echoes the three principles of the fall moedim, which are a step of sorting the sealed righteous from the intermediates from the wicked. Prayer to purify, repentance to seal, charity to the suffering to prove the heart change and willingness to serve the Kingdom.

The first principle, prayer, is a practice of purifying the speech, measuring one’s own prayer against the standard of the Word.

Those sealed with the Name of YHVH are one as He is One. They do not bear the many names of individual idols, but they are a unified, accurate reflection of His image as a nation apart. In a sense, because we tend to impose our face over the face of Elohim (“no other gods in front of me”), the world sees a distorted representation of His Name in us, especially when we assemble all our individual gods that we sometimes choose to place before obedience to YHVH. Too often, we are not a representation of Him, but of our mixed obedience and unreliable loyalty to His Oneness. In that sense, it is also a hearing issue: “Hear, O Israel, YHVH our Elohim, YHVH is One.”

At the end of days, “The LORD shall be King over all the world, on that day the LORD will be One and His Name one.” (Ze 14:9)

There will be no misrepresentation of the Holy Name in that day. Because the names, or reputations of people will reflect the holiness of the Word, His true reputation will be known by all the living.

The blasphemous names of the Great Harlot in Revelation may be a reference to traditional thought about how even in slavery in Egypt, Israel maintained a vital connection to the Promise of the Fathers: their names in exile. The Israelites’ Hebrew names, uncorrupted with Egyptian names, set them apart, even the tribes of Joseph, Ephraim and Menashe. They retained a “pure speech,” Hebrew, even though many among them descended into idolatry. 

They were still a nation apart because of their literal names, but a name is also reputation. Their sexual purity retained the identity of the nation through the generations. Only when the greater part of the nation maintained sexual morality could they retain their identity with their family, clan, tribe, and nation. These two identifiers, speech and sexual morality, set them apart in Egypt.

James, who addresses the “twelve tribes scattered abroad” places emphasis on Godly speech in order to keep one’s Bridal garments unstained, the Bridal Bridle:

• “If anyone thinks himself to be religious, and yet does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this man’s religion is worthless. Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.” (Ja 1:25-27)

James emphasizes three aspects of the bridal garments as the three pillars of the fall moedim:

1. Controlling the tongue by keeping the waters pure, also a prayer practice
2. Exercising practical holiness by alleviating the suffering of those in distress, charity
3. Sealing the fountain with repentance, which aids #1 by not allowing new pollutants to fall in.

• See how great a forest is set aflame by such a small fire! And the tongue is a fire, the very world of iniquity; the tongue is set among our members as that which defiles the entire body, and sets on fire the course of our life, and is set on fire by hell. For every species of beasts and birds, of reptiles and creatures of the sea, is tamed and has been tamed by the human race. But no one can tame the tongue; it is a restless evil and full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the likeness of God; from the same mouth come both blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be this way. Does a fountain send out from the same opening both fresh and bitter water? Can a fig tree, my brethren, produce olives, or a vine produce figs? 

Nor can salt water produce fresh. (Ja 3:5-12)

In a play-on words, James warns against both sins of the tongue and sexual immorality, for the “sealed fountain” is thought to refer sometimes metaphorically to the holy marriage bed, each spouse sealing the fountain from outside persons: husbands sealing their fountains from all but their wives, and wives sealing their cisterns from all but their husbands.

So apart from the easy understanding, which is that our speech should be free of cursing, scorn, and gossip, and we should maintain holy marriage beds, how else can we understand the language of a Hebrew?

“A garden locked is my sister, my bride,

A rock garden locked, a spring sealed up.” (So 4:12)

The tongue, as James pointed out, is like a fountain, a spring. Israel is referred to as a

·     Locked garden

·     A locked rock garden

·     A sealed spring

It’s pretty easy to figure out. The Bride of Messiah is being restored to the Garden of Eden. It is a locked garden, protected by cheruvim with fiery swords; it is a locked rock garden, the palace of King Messiah, the representation of the Rock of Ages; it is a sealed [as with a signet] spring, watered by the rivers of Eden sourced from the Upper Garden, flowing from the very Throne of Adonai. It is not approachable in a state of sin, let alone inhabitable.

The first mention of gal/galeed is the heap of stones that witnessed to the uncrossable barrier of the Promised Land to Laban and other idolators who did not repent and make the journey with Jacob’s family:

• “’Behold this heap and behold the pillar which I have set between you and me. This heap is a witness, and the pillar is a witness, that I will not pass by this heap to you for harm, and you will not pass by this heap and this pillar to me, for harm. The God of Abraham and the God of Nahor, the God of their father, judge between us.’ So Jacob swore by the fear of his father Isaac. Then Jacob offered a sacrifice on the mountain, and called his kinsmen to the meal; and they ate the meal and spent the night on the mountain. Early in the morning Laban arose, and kissed his sons and his daughters and blessed them. Then Laban departed and returned to his place.” (Ge 31:51-55)

It was the last meal Jacob and his family were to have with the Laban, the unrepentant idolator.

Israel is to be a locked garden, a stone of witness. Having preserved her identity, pure speech and marital fidelity in the exile, she returns to the Land of Promise given to Avraham. They set a barrier beyond which neither can cross without Heavenly authorization, a seal of approval from the One Who plants the Garden.

Israel’s wilderness journey was semi-supernatural: garments that didn’t wear out, shoes that didn’t wear out, and daily bread and fresh water. It was their preparation to cross into the realm of the Garden in the Promised Land. Alas, the Golden Calf and the Evil Spies delayed the crossing of the Hebrews, an identity that means those who have crossed over. It weeded out those of impure sexual habits, including idolatry, and those whose tongues had not been purified in the journey. What the Hebrews did retain after they finally finished the journey and crossed over was their Hebrew language.

Their language and the marriage bed were two important “preservatives” of the Hebrews in Egypt. These two practices preserved their recognition and witness of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as forefathers, both through descendancy and language. These two things should characterize Israel as they await the Greater Exodus in the Wilderness of Egypt, the Wilderness of the Peoples (Ezek 20:35-36), which gives them a double exile.

While Egypt was one exile, Babylon took the Jews to another, rooted in the confusion of the languages earlier at Bavel. It occurred because humankind wanted to make a name for themselves, not to build the Name of The Holy One. One. One. Not the many confused names, but ONE. One Word. This is difficult to us, for we suffer in a double exile, slavery in a land of idols as well as a confused world of many blasphemous names.

Through Yeshua, however, Adonai has provided a way even for the non-native Israelite to be identified in the wilderness of exile both through language and descendancy.

·     “Abraham’s seed and heirs according to the Promise.” (Ga 3:29)  We are therefore bound to protect the sanctity of the marriage bed and to shun sexual immorality in our homes, for we are descendants of Avraham by faith.

·     Our pure “Hebrew” speech. Torah.

The Torah is the language we embrace and speak in the “Wilderness of Egypt and the peoples.” While we speak many languages, Adonai is returning us to His pure language, Hebrew. It begins by accepting His whole Word, His true representation, in whatever language we can understand it. This begins our journey back to the pure language. Don’t put more emphasis on learning Hebrew than learning and practicing what it says!

I love learning Hebrew, but in this dual exile of Egyptylon, we must begin with learning Torah in our own language. Along the way, we will pick up different levels of skill. Some will learn words like Shabbat, shalom, todah, and those associated with the feast days. Others will become fluent in Biblical or modern Hebrew. What matters is learning in obeying! This is our one clean, daily source of our pure speech.

Remember, two things will characterize, or unify, the Bride in exile: pure speech and sexual morality.

The Torah is the “language” in exile, but sexual morality must still be practiced as Sarah and Joseph in Egypt. “Do not even eat” with sexually immoral believers because it is conscious idolatry:

• “Do not be idolaters, as some of them were; as it is written, THE PEOPLE SAT DOWN TO EAT AND DRINK AND STOOD UP TO PLAY.” “But actually, I wrote to you not to associate with any so-called brother if he is an immoral person, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a swindler—not even to eat with such a one.” (1 Co 5:1-13)

Licentiousness characterizes those who serve the god of this world, not the Holy ONE of Israel. When it is time for the Greater Exodus, those of pure speech and holy vessels will exit their exiles to enter the locked Garden.

Until then, we must lovingly but firmly turn the tables on those who would enter our believing communities practicing sexual immorality. We must not invite them to our Shabbat or feast tables if they know the Word and intentionally transgress it. It is a departure both from pure speech and respect for the Elohim of Avraham, Isaac, and Jacob when such sin is deliberately committed without a desire to repent and taking steps to do so.

We are a heap of stones, a witness to the locked garden.

What if they don’t know? Teach them!

Start with the Big Ten. In the Big Ten, the observance of Shabbat is presented along with not committing adultery. Upon the commandments prohibiting adultery and idolatry, other commandments concerning sexual morality hang. They can be taught in kindness.

And when we address disobedience, we should do so in such a manner that the one being excused from the table feels as if we are on his/her side, pulling for his or her success, confident of a desire to change.

They should feel as though if they make this big decision, we would be the first person they would come to for help and guidance. Our table is open and ready when they return.

We should be a safe place to fall so it is easier for the disobedient brother or sister to learn how to stand as true Hebrews. When a fallen brother or sister returns, that table turns full circle.

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Have you ever written a book? Or thought you might? It seems like a good idea until you start trying to put the words on the page. Or laptop. Everyone has the material to write a book, but not everyone will take the time to write it.

The truth is that every single human being has written a book, is still in the process of writing it, or will write it when they are born. The biographies of our lives are transcribed in Heaven.

• And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books, according to their deeds. (Re 20:12)

So there are books of our lives. Why so many? Perhaps we are also judged according to the places our lives intersected other lives in their books. And then there is THE book, The Book of Life. This is the standard by which every life will be judged. It is the Law of the Land and the Law of Heaven. The Word of Adonai.

The things written in the book are the deeds of each individual. What you write is your “name,” or reputation, based on your deeds and attitudes. In Hebrew naming, the name chosen for a child represents the many righteous deeds that the parents hope will characterize his or her biography. The Greek word for “written” is grapho:

Strong’s Definitions 

γράφω gráphō, to "grave", especially to write; to describe.

Outline of Biblical Usage 

I.to write, with reference to the form of the letters

1. to delineate (or form) letters on a tablet, parchment, paper, or other material

II.to write, with reference to the contents of the writing

1. to express in written characters
2. to commit to writing (things not to be forgotten), write down, record
3. used of those things which stand written in the sacred books (of the OT)
4. to write to one, i.e. by writing (in a written epistle) to give information, directions

So congratulations, you’re an author!

Your book will be judged by the Author of Life Who wrote THE Book of Life, our instructions. He wrote the basics of life, gave us THE Book, and then breathed life into us so we could start writing.

As we grew and learned His Book, we began to write, first instinctively, then consciously, our book intersecting with thousands, maybe millions, of other biographies. Imagine the size of Abraham and Sarah’s books at this point. What you write can certainly affect the biographies of those who are born after you!

While the Torah instructs us in the precepts, each person may creatively live them, making the biography uniquely his or hers. Imagine how the Father takes joy when we find a beautiful or inspired way to write that precept into our own biography.

When we write such beautiful things in our book, we are beautifying our garments as a Bride-to-be awaiting the arrival of her husband. That’s not nearly as scary as the second resurrection, which is reserved for those who were not gathered into the cloud at the first resurrection.

In our weekly Zoom classes, we have been examining the twenty-four garments of the Bride as listed in Isaiah Three. Although Isaiah is chastising Israel for using those garments for the harlotry of idolatry, the judgment prophesied gives insight into how those twenty-four garments should be used to prepare for the Bridegroom’s coming.

• “Around the throne were twenty-four thrones; and upon the thrones I saw twenty-four elders sitting, clothed in white garments, and golden crowns on their heads.” (Re 4:4)

Everything is double on Shabbat. Double manna. Double joy. Double peace. Guard and remember. In celebrating Shabbat, the Bride experiences a taste of Heaven on earth, a peaceful millennium and firstborn double portion under the rule of Messiah when “the day that is all Shabbat” is administrated by the twelve tribes of Israel from their assigned gates of New Jerusalem. By putting on the twenty-four garments of the Bride, Israel signifies the “double” principle of the millennial Kingdom of Messiah.

To illustrate the garment preparation for the Kingdom of Messiah, this week we focused on garment Number Twenty-three, gilyonim, or “robes.”

23. robes [gilyonim] [hand mirrors] גִּלָּיוֹן  a tablet for writing (as bare); by analogy, a mirror:—glass, roll.

How interesting is it that one garment can connote such different things:

Hand mirrors?

A writing tablet?

A scroll (roll)?

A glass?

Each of these items is reflective. How do we see ourselves? James picks up the mirror-garment as one of the essentials for the Bride, explaining how it works:

• “But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror; for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was. But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man will be blessed in what he does.” (Ja 1:22-25)