The Mythologicon

Age of Legend: Beowulf and the Ibn Fadlan Report

2015-06-13T01:28:00.001-07:00

IN THE TENTH CENTURY A.D. AN ARAB DIPLOMAT travels up to the Volga to establish ties with the Bulgars. Little did he know that his mission of peace was to make an unexpected turn into a world of terror and danger that even the fiercest plunderers of the frozen north would dread to face.

The book is Eaters of the Dead (Ballantine Books: New York, 1991) by the late great Michael Crichton (October 23, 1942–November 4, 2008), a translation of a text penned around 922 A.D. by an Arab diplomat by the name of Ahman Ibn Fadlan, an official of the Caliph's court who fell from royal favor after meddling with a nobleman's wife. To appease the nobleman, the Caliph sent Ibn Fadlan on an assignment to establish ties with the Bulgars up in the largely unexplored recesses of the frozen north, of which the only person expecting Ibn Fadlan to return from was...Ibn Fadlan.

©Christel Gerstenberg/CORBIS

Ibn Fadlan did return and no longer just a diplomat, but a warrior as well. But the best gift he brought down from the north was a journal of daily details he kept on updating as best he could from the beginning of his journey. It was an account of Viking ways, beliefs, customs in addition to the key events, places and decisions he needed to cover in his report for the Caliph. Yet his mission was not among the Vikings but to the Bulgars, and we do not know how the Caliph received it. But no matter how the report fared, the Ibn Fadlan report went down in history as the first ever eyewitness account of the Vikings, a people who were then unknown and feared as the most bloodthirsty warriors to emerge from the mists of the north.

Ibn Fadlan was a diplomat as easily seen in the manner he documented his journal. But while he held on to his dignity as a representative of Baghdad, the City of Peace, there were instances when he could not withhold his outrage over matters of the Northmen manners and customs which he found appalling and reprehensible. But this was not always the case; for the most part, he maintained the tone of a news reporter and held his facts under the strict acumen of a level-headed dispassioned observer who in addition, stayed out of the way.

LEFT: Omar Shariff and Antonio Banderas as Ibn Fadlan in the 1999 Touchtone Pictures film The 13th Warrior, an adaptation of Michael Crichton's Eaters of the Dead.

And there was nothing more he wanted than to stay out of the way. In the book. Ibn Fadlan freely confessed how much he had no stomach for battle. But yet he found himself in battle and much blood splattered around him. What was he doing in the middle of all this? Well, in the first place he shouldn't have gone along with those Vikings.

Here's what happened: For a year, Ibn Fadlan was with a company of Arab officials that led him up to Turkey. When they reached the more rugged part of the country, the group changed as some officials left while Turkish guides took their place. Upon approaching the Volga River, Ibn Fadlan's core group was supposed to be taken up the river by a contingent of Vikings till they reach the Kingdom of the Bulgars, around 600 miles east of what is now modern Moscow. For some reason, the Vikings denied Ibn Fadlan's his group their freedom to continue with the mission, even to the point of knife-point (1). Instead, all of them would continue up the Volga, farther northward, into a land called Venden, ruled by a king named Rothgar who was a close relative of the leader of the Viking company.

RIGHT PICTURE SOURCE: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com

The Viking squad looked up to a tall, young, and very strong chieftain by the name of Buliwyf. Ibn Fadlan described him of having "the bearing of a leader" (2). Having to behold the Northman the first time was overwhelming for the Middle Eastern diplomat. He wrote:

"Never did I see a people so gigantic: they are as tall as palm trees, and florid and ruddy in complexion" (3).

And it was not difficult for him to picked up what these great beings held in high esteem: "The custom of the Northmen revers the life of war. Verily, these huge men fight continually, they are never at peace, neither among themselves nor among different tribes of their kind. They sing songs of their warfare and bravery, and believe that the death of a warrior is the highest honor" (3).

It was therefore an amazing sight for Ibn Fadlan to have witnessed the evidence why the Northmen chose Buliwyf as their leader. And not only was Buliwyf a chieftain; he was about to become king. Ibn Fadlan arrived at a crucial time when the tribe's existing king was dying of a worsening illness of which none believed was there any recovery. In a span of a few days, the king was dead. But instead of Buliwyf immediately taking over the throne, the assurance of the kingship was somewhat derailed by the lack of appropriate guidelines and protocol on leadership succession in the event an incumbent king dies of sickness and not of falling in battle. Furthermore, Buliwyf was not the only candidate for supremacy.

For an entire week, therefore, Buliwyf and his contender were forces to sit out the dilemma until the tribal council debated and decided on the matter. During this period, destiny stepped in: a ship from a distant kingdom docked in their harbor, delivering a distressing report.

From the mountainous region of Venden, a mesenger sailed to appeal for Buliwyf's help. His uncle, the king named Rothgar, had incurred the curse of an ageless terror that attacked in the night, even under the cover of a black mist. In Viking tongue these were called the "wendol," or "mist monsters." The very idea of these creatures silenced the Northmen, including the great Buliwyf himself. According to their custom, there were two things one did not do in regards to the monsters: utter its name and launch out into the mist wherever it appears. Ibn Fadlan, a highly educated Arab nobility during the height of the Muslim civilization, could not comprehend at first what Nordic superstition was there for them to fear a mist. It took several explanations and later on a first-hand encounter with these beings that made him understand.

A scene from the 1999 Touchtone Pictures' film The 13th Warrior.

The nature of the request obligated Buliwyf had to abandon every previous plan and commitment and sail swiftly to his kin's aid. In meeting this threat head on, Buliwyf had to form a supernatural force of thirteen warrriors, himself included, along with a foreigner: one who did not necessarily have any fighting skills but spiritually fundamental to the group nonetheless. This is where the reluctant Ibn Fadlan comes in. His vigorous, vehement protests against him being a part of this team, even pointing out his mission was to the Bulgars and that it was these Vikings' job to take him to his intended destination, either fell on deaf ears or got flushed down in ridicule. Adding insult to injury, he was only allowed a glimpse of his supposed glorious destination as his Viking friends sailed their ship past the city until it diminished and disappeared in the distance.

The Vikings and Writing. We know Vikings utilized writing in practical everyday matters like cataloging business items as they were also traders, aside from their popular reputation of terrific warriors and pirates. Historically, Vikings associated some magic to writing. It is no surprise to us today that the Viking runes are associated with magic, clairvoyance, and foretelling the future. They were etched on a weapon for several purposes: to indicate the name of its owner; to endow the device with magical power and give its wielder strength in battle. Vikings also scratched runes on special rocks to remember dead family and friends. This may have been the concern which came over Buliwyf's lieutenant Ecthgow when he saw his name being scratched on the ground by Ibn Fadlan:

"Now Ecthgow, the lieutenant or captain of Buliwyf, and a warrior less merry than the others, a stern man, spoke to me through the interpreter, Herger. Herger said, 'Ecthgow wishes to know if you can draw the sound of his name.' I said I could, and I took up the stick, and began to draw in the dirt. At once Ecthgow leapt up, flung away the stick, and stamped out my writing, He spoke angry words. Herger said to me, 'Ecthgow does not wish you to draw his name at any time, and this you must promise. Here I was perplexed, and I saw that Ecthgow was angry with me in the extreme. So also were the others staring at me with concern and anger. I promised to Herger that I would not draw the name of Ecthgow, or of any of the others. At this they were all relieved'' (4).

"Do you work for my brother?" Remember this scene in the movie Stardust? Decisions were made based on some runic symbols being tossed in the air.

Generally, Vikings did not write much but committed a lot to oral tradition, including poems and stories short and long like Beowulf. This may be because they did not have paper, parchment, or materials of the like, but instead needed to scratch or chisel their runes on wood or stone. On the matter of the spirituality of the written symbols, Vikings regarded their runes as a gift from their chief god Odin, which is why they treated their native symbols with great respect. But while Ibn Fadlan's symbols were not runes, they were nonetheless dedicated to a deity —"Praise be to God" (5)—which was enough for Buliwyf and his gang to revere, explaining the silent amazement they maintained while gazing at the Arabic symbols.

A page of the original Ibn Fadlan manuscript.

The Ibn Fadlan Influence

Ibn Fadlan outlined Buliwyf's adventure with the journey to King Rothgar's country as the first part; the battle with the mist monsters as the second; the thirteen's infiltration of the monsters' lair to assassinate the matriarch, the third; and fourth, their clash with the "glowworm," or the full force of a furious wendol army.

The Ibn Fadlan report was accomplished around 926 A.D. after a three-year adventure with Buliwyf and his Northmen warriors. The Arab ambassador never accomplished fulfilled his mission to the Bulgars, as far as Eaters of the Dead is concerned, and whatever happened to his report—how the Caliph received it—is never known, though it went on to become the earliest known eyewitness account of Viking life and society (6).

Through time the manuscript had fallen into the hands of some careful owners that treated it as treasure. Among these was a thirteenth-century Arab named Yakut ibn-Abdallah who used the facts in the report to complete a geographical lexicon he was putting together. This indicates that the manuscript did survive upheavals through time.

But not intact. Physically, portions have either been gutted by the elements of time and much of its content corrupted by the activities of those whom the story had later inspired. Not all later owners afforded the manuscript with the same regard as ibn-Abdallah did. The centuries saw translations and commentaries attempted by authors who saw value of the Ibn Fadlan report. There were also versions which were too inaccurate to be called translations, but were never intended to replace the original. This is not uncommon. A reader may want to reach out to other readers with his own version of a story he found inspiring. So instead of referring them the original text, he takes a creative step and present an edition in which his own revisions have already been applied. Crichton makes a brief and sweeping summary of these fabrications; in so doing, he hints on the extent of the popularity Ibn Fadlan's tale had gone.

ABOVE: A 13th century Arab illustration from a manuscript depicting a merchant's sailing dhow. Sultanate of Oman, 1994.

According to Crichton's summary of the manuscript, fragments of it and of other versions, even of those "of dubious origin" (7) have been discovered all over Europe with the earliest dating back to 1047 A.D. One notable composition goes back to the sixteenth century, written in Latin, and contains the material about the Oguz Turks and passages relating the battle with the wendol. It has been claimed that the translation was derived directly from an Arabic text (7). Another text which allegedly contains Ibn Fadlan's relationship with the Caliph was found in a monastery situated northeast of Thessalonica, Greece. The date of writing remains uncertain but was penned in Medieval Latin (7).

Crichton seemed to have lamented on the lack of scholarly concern of past experts to consider what treasure they had in the Ibn Fadlan report which eventually led to its partial disintegration. On the other hand, we should also not readily devalue the documents that came after the original, wielding their inaccuracies. In a way we can understand that these were acclamation for the inspiration delivered by the original as it passed from owner to owner, from one place to another. These are undoubtedly a manifestation of the influence of the Ibn Fadlan manuscript, its account copied into a mold that altered the complexion and merged with a new author's creative opinion of what should have been.

While Yakut ibn-Abdallah looked to the Ibn Fadlan report as a source of information for his geographical lexicon, one Anglo-Saxon manuscript seemed to have taken great interest in the prowess of Buliwyf. This particular piece of writing contained most of the names, places, and events, that appeared in the original, yet rearranged into what later became one of greatest heroic epics ever written.

Beowulf

The Anglo-Saxon manuscript does not make mention of any author from the deserts of the Middle East but experts trace its style from a sophisticated man of letters writing for a courtly audience. It does not speak of a foreign thirteenth warrior or any spiritual group of warriors but a passage mentions the hero sailing to Rothgar's kingdom in a company of fifteen. It does not speak any tribe of monsters that attack in the mist, but affirms one rampaging brute and its mother that had slaughtered Rothgar's bravest. And though the names Rothgar, Hygelac, Wulfgar, Ecgtheow, and the Hurot Hall all appear in this scripture, "Buliwyf" does not.

The name of the hero of this story is Beowulf and he had been summoned by his uncle, King Rothgar, to contain a menace called by many titles in the scriptures—the Fiend of Hell, that grim Hobgoblin, the greedy one, the fierce one, that skulking Shade of Death, this Foe of mankind, Stalker lone by night, the hugest of night horrors—but ultimately goes by the name Grendel. As in the Ibn Fadlan story, this monster was lured by the revelry in the Hurot Hall massacring thirty of Rothgar's mightiest Danes. The great mead hall was shut down after that night, boarded up tight as with all the other houses in the kingdom by nightfall. But this was about to end with the arrival of Beowulf.

Exactly as with Buliwyf, Beowulf orders the reopening of the Hurot Hall and the revival of festivities to taunt Grendel into facing him in the same place where many worthy warriors faced their unholy death. It was not a foreign trek for Grendel and the monster thought it would be like before when lesser flesh faced his psychotic rampage and were slain. But it was not like before for defying him this night was the strongest of the strong, a man who was blessed by the gods themselves. In Ibn Fadlan's report, the gory encounter left behind an arm of one of the wendol raiders; it was no different in the story of Beowulf where Grendel retreats severely beaten and his left arm, torn from the shoulder, in the possession of Beowulf. The monster staggers back to his lair where he shortly dies of his injuries.

SOURCE: students.ou.edu

LEFT:"Upon Cain's kin the Eternal avenged Abel's blood. Cain got no mirth from murder; God banished him from good, afar from man, for sin's sake. Thence, woke the monster-brood, Ettins, elves, and ogres, and giants, too, that warred so long with God, who paid them at last their fit reward" (BEOWULF, First Part, I:90–95).

Rothgar and his Danes found this a matter to celebrate. For Buliwyf, it was a situation more ominous than before. The wendols they faced were but an experimental force which for the first time was sent back reeling after a bloody clash. The Vikings were sure of a second bigger wendol attack that would shortly come after and of which would surely destroy them all (8). Buliwyf and his men knew that their only recourse to save the kingdom would be a preemptive attack on the lair of the wendol. So notwithstanding fatigue and weakness resulting from the recent skirmish, Buliwyf and his commandos immediately set out on horseback to take the battle to the enemy.

This was not how Beowulf saw the situation. A great triumphal banquet was set for him with songs sung of his prowess and great treasure lavished for his reward. But when the festive thunder had ended and all had retired, a terrible reprisal yet greater than before stormed into the Hurot Hall and butchered the valiant Danes of Rothgar and Beowulf's Geats. None, not even Beowulf, had foreseen the vengeful fury of Grendel's mother, and not this soon. Now it was vengeance for vengeance, and Beowulf set his courage towards the snake-infested lair of the monster.

To augment his god-given strength and ensure the death of the monster, Beowulf was handed a magical sword which bore the name Runding. In Ibn Fadlan's account, Runding was known as "the power of the ancients, the power of the giants" (9), a power he was entitled to wield being a chieftain. But it was also represented as a sword and with it he took with him and used it till his final battle with the wendol (10).

LEFT: The scramasax, a Viking sword with runic inscriptions on its blade for god-blest results.

Beowulf soon descends into the den of the monster and successfully slays the menace. Buliwyf likewise, considerably debilitating the enemy force but emerges from the lair mortally wounded from his battle with the mother. He did finish her off in a duel, but not without a price: "A silver pin, such as a pin for hair, was buried in his stomach: the same pin trembled with each heartbeat. Buliwyf plucked it forth, and there was a gush of blood. Yet he did not sink to his knees mortally wounded, but rather he stood and gave the order to leave the cave" (11). By the time the Viking commandos reached the safety of their exit, Buliwyf crumpled to the ground. His lieutenant Ecthgow took charge of him till they made it home to Rothgar's kingdom (12).

The adventure of Buliwyf and his brave Viking fighters took place in a span of a few months. There were three battles with the wendols each spaced a few hours. The imminence of the final battle came "an hour before dawn" (13), when the full force of the wendol army came in a trail of torch fire that looked like a "glowworm dragon" (14), as Herger, Ibn Fadlan's interpreter, described it. In the Beowulf story, it took fifty years after Beowulf had become king of the Geats when the threat of a glowworm descends on his kingdom.

Unlike the glowworm dragon faced by Buliwyf, Beowulf faced a real dragon. The shadow of this dragon emerges after a thief steals a precious jeweled goblet from its treasure cache. The loss enrages the firebreather and takes it out on the hapless homes and properties of Beowulf's kingdom. Beowulf, daring and bold as ever but now weighed down with many years, raises his sword against the dragon and bring his defiance straight to its lair. Accompanied by his army of Geats and his right-hand man Wiglaf, he storms the dragon's lair and slays it at the cost, however, of his own life. It proved to be Beowulf's final battle. To Wiglaf's embarrassment, he witnessed how what were supposed to be fearless Geat warriors scamper and flee from the dragon. Only Wiglaf came to the aid of the single-minded Beowulf when he rushed and was mortally wounded by the mighty beast. After the terrific battle, only Wiglaf and a wounded dying Beowulf stood victorious. Beowulf confides to Wiglaf of his final requests: that a tower be built in his name at the edge of the sea and the dragon's treasure be buried beside it. Wiglaf lights Beowulf's funeral pyre, collects his ashes in the end and stores it in the tower that bears his name.

Source: http://coolvibe.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Warrior_Soul.jpg

Buliwyf met his end in his battle with the glowworm but not without dispelling its danger forever. His body suffered many blows, Ibn Fadlan describes: "His body was hacked by blades of a dozen adversaries, his visage and form was soaked in his own still-warm blood" (15). His men stayed brave and loyal to him till the end. Out of a party of thirteen valiant men, only four remained. Among those who bolted and scurried like a coward in the sight of all was Rothgar's son, Wiglif (15). King Rothgar himself was abashed at the craven action of his son. This Ibn Fadlan noted including the shame that overwhelmed Rothgar when he himself had not joined the battle, a choice unbecoming of a Viking king though "he was a very old man" (15). When Buliwyf's body was carried into his presence, Rothgar was faced with his own shame. War was what the Viking was made for, and it was the death in battle that glorified his name forever (16). For Buliwyf, Ibn Fadlan had this to say:

"Buliwyf, pale as the mist itself, garbed in white and bound in his wounds, stood erect upon the land of the kingdom of Rothgar. And on his shoulders sat two black ravens, one to each side; and at this sight the Northmen screamed of his coming, and they raised their weapons into the air and howled for the battle. Now Buliwyf never spoke, nor did he look to one side or another; nor did he give sign of recognition to any man but he walked with measured pace forward, beyond the line of the fortification, and there he awaited the onslaught of the wendol. The ravens flew off, and he gripped his sword Runding, and met the attack" (17).

Ibn Fadlan described Buliwyf in the way any Northman could conceive their chief Viking god Odin.

Despite the variations shared by the Beowulf story and the Ibn Fadlan report, it is easy to award the Beowulf story as one of the several offspring of Ibn Fadlan's work. However, such an appraisal will not go unchallenged. It is basically understood that before the version of the Beowulf story we know today was penned in the tenth century A.D. , an earlier composition of it was made two hundred years before, around the eighth century A.D. (18). The writer was believed to be an Anglo-Saxon poet and a Christian, and may have even been a monk. As far as the records go, this was the first time the Beowulf saga saw paper and ink. As far as the Beowulf tradition goes, however, experts believe that the epic had already been heavily circulating in Scandinavia as part of oral tradition over a hundred years before it hit Anglo-Saxon paper and ink! Estimates today favor the Beowulf story to have been composed in the sixth century A.D. after the death of the actual Hygelac, king of the Geats in 523 A.D., known in the legend to be Beowulf's lord and uncle (19). Hrothgar, the story's king of the Danes, is another character based on historical fact dated back to the sixth century A.D. and so is the inspiration for his famous mead hall, Hurot, discovered on recent 2013 excavations in Denmark (20).

Evidences, therefore, go as far as the sixth century. Around this period, Scandinavian denizens, mainly the Danes, were migrating over to Great Britain. It was a new land for Beowulf to conquer. But two hundred years later, a Christian monk in this new land turned the tables on Beowulf and infused the tale with Christian associations for its new Christianized audience, among whom were the very people who brought the epic into British shores. Another two hundred years later, around the time of Ibn Fadlan, a second edition of Beowulf was accomplished in the same Christian tradition as the first one. If the Ibn Fadlan report is not the second edition of the famous legend, would it have been possible that Ibn Fadlan was instead influenced by the Beowulf tale?

What we can be sure of is that Michael Crichton's novel Eaters of the Dead is an off-shoot of the Beowulf tale. In December 1992, Crichton wrote this statement in closing to the book's afterword: "When Eaters of the Dead was first published, this playful version of Beowulf received a rather irritable reception from reviewers, as if I had desecrated a monument. But Beowulf scholars all seem to enjoy it, and many have written to say so" (21).

LEFT: The death mask of Agamemnon (c.1550 to 1500 B.C.), discovered in Mycenae in 1876 by Heinrich Schliemann, the German archaeologist who discovered evidence of the Mycenean Civilization (1600 to 1100 B.C.) and the historic Trojan War (twelfth, thirteenth, or fourteenth centuries B.C.).

In the said portion of the book, Crichton explained that he derived his inspiration for the book out of a "dare" (22) when a friend classified Beowulf as one of today's "great bores" (22), an important literary accomplishment of Western civilization but has now fallen from its ancient appeal to be willingly read by the present generation. He even believed that it was possible that elements of the famous Anglo-Saxon legend were based on facts as were those of the Trojan War, the Minoan Age of Crete, and the route of Odysseus. So in the manner of how the mentioned tales turned out to be in real life, Crichton decided to peel away the fantastic in Beowulf and translate it into credible images of what he believed ancient eyes would have perceived as a Grendel monster, its mother, and a dragon.

As part of his recreation, Crichton had also designed his tale to be a first-hand account of an outsider since part of his objective was to reveal the factual core of the Beowulf legend. A narrative arranged in the form of a traveler's journal therefore conveyed the perfect mood for his details. And he knew just the guy to carry out this task: one factual Arab diplomat who lived in the tenth century A.D. and traveled into the mists of the North to live with the Russian Volgan Vikings known as the Rus. Crichton and Ibn Fadlan were old college buddies, if you know what I mean, and after many years, the first one got in contact with the latter by gathering the English-translated fragments of the Arab's report Crichton could find. From these, he formed the launch pad from where Ibn Fadlan would be hauled into a fantastic mission involving mist monsters and mighty masters of the deep uncharted eighth-century North.

The Vikings

The Ibn Fadlan report broke ground as among the earliest eye-witness accounts of the Northmen way of life and culture. His description of the Vikings is quite different from those made by the European clergy of the Dark Ages who experienced the terror that the Northmen immersed the continent in. Factually, the Arab diplomat did travel north to the Volga as mentioned in Eaters of the Dead and encountered the Vikings of that region, properly called the Rus. The name "Rus," however, does not appear in the pages of Crichton's book, and not even the word "Viking" made it to refer to all the florid and ruddy giants of the frozen climes.

On page 65 of Eaters of the Dead, Ibn Fadlan took note that the term wyking came from the native word for "river" which is wyk.

The word Crichton chose to blur the distinction among all regional Vikings was the very generic "Northmen."

The most popular and so far the most enduring concept of the Viking is the Viking warrior. Rampaging, swift, gigantic, formidable. He tore his way into Dark Age Europe armed with his skeggøx and scramasax, killing skillfully whether warrior, soldier, gentry, or nobility—any one who had the ability to rebuild what they came to lay waste.

History now looks at the Viking invasions as among the most dangerous and destructive in Europe. they came in boats shaped like birds of prey, each carrying sixty warriors that quickly deploy and plunder and kill and leave a quickly as they came. These boats of both sail and oar stated from lands which could not support an extensive agriculture, so it was but natural for its inhabitants to taker to the sea and cultivate the watery resources. By the ninth century A.D., they were masters of the icy seas and of every river that led inland, and their boats proved instrumental in spreading the threat of invasion and piracy.

One main characteristic of Dark Age Europe was bad roads, an aspect that actually worked well for the boat-riding Vikings who could silently and swiftly row close to a target without being detected until sixty Northmen warriors have pounced for the attack. And the attacks were surprisingly well-planned, well-orchestrated, in that in a matter of moments, a village would have been raped, ravaged, divested and razed to the ground. Because of bad roads and even the absence thereof, any reinforcement responding for the village would have arrived too late and the Northmen long vanished via the river. In numerous occasions, the raiders no longer needed to stand and fight the approaching army as they could save themselves for another day's raiding by effectively escaping by their boats.

Yet also in the greater seas, they looked at vast distances in terms of opportunities rather than ominous horizons of sea monsters or the edge of the world, superstitious concepts that imprisoned the European brain of the Dark Ages. The Viking spirit led to the discovery of lands across the seas, like the Faroes, Iceland, Greenland, and Newfoundland in Canada.

©Corbis

The Viking's mastery of the water made them the fastest, most mobile fighters on earth. There was a time when almost all the cities of Western Europe succumbed to their terror. Not even the Christian churches were spared from their voracious attacks, the Vikings knowing that these places held the largest quantity of movable wealth.

Wealth. For centuries, Northmen raids were bent on plundering wealth, and if there was one thing that could stop their devastation, it was wealth. The European nobles later knew this and so to save their kingdoms from further costly destruction, they resorted to a business-like arrangement that bought off the raiders and sent them off into other directions.

This policy worked so well for Europe that it actually caused economic recovery in the region as the destruction ground to a minimum. The Northman's adeptness for war, for instance, found its market with the Byzantine empire that frequently hired them as mercenaries and royal bodyguards. Because of their integration into main European affairs, a surprising talent of the Northman surfaced to finally bring the continent into a new age of economic recovery.

A scene from the animated movie The Secret of Kells (2009) depicting the horrors of the Northmen invasion. In the story, the wall a town worked so hard to build was not able to withstand the sudden attack of the Vikings.

Never had it been realized, even to us today, that the Vikings were outstanding government administrators. Probably the image of the berserking warrior had hidden the fact that there are lands that they claimed in the Mediterranean that rose to economic prominence because of the Northman's skill on bureaucratic affairs.

LEFT: Rollo Rognvaldsson, also known as "Rolf the Ganger" of Norway, "Marching Rolf" or "Rollo the Dane." Seized northern France in 911 A.D. and became its first duke. The territory which he wrested from Frankish king Charles the Simple became the best organized regions of France.

The Normans. Due to the lack of further resources to plunder, a Viking named Rollo (Hrolf) in 911 A.D. took possession of part of northern France and offered his allegiance to the Frankish king Charles the Simple in exchange to live peaceably on his kingdom. The king received Rollo and his descendants, and with the latter accepting Christianity, the state of Normandy was born: the first territory ever granted to the Northmen. After Normandy was granted its terms to exist, it quickly became one of the best organized parts of France. The Normans, as they were consequently called, used to their advantage institutions in the region which the Franks were not able to effectively use, when they were a part of Charlemagne's empire back in the eighth and ninth centuries. A century and a half later, in 1066, a young duke named William crossed the English Channel and in a single day conquered England, armed with nothing but a claim that he was promised the succession to the English throne. He was, of course, also accompanied by an infantry of 7,000 and a cavalry of 2.000. William, now called "the Conqueror," was crowned king of England on Christmas Day of that same year and placed his compact kingdom under absolute domination.

©Corbis

William the Conqueror may have held England in a grip of iron, but the culture he brought into the land failed to completely win over the English. Or was it the Norman's intention to bury the English way of life? What is apparent is that from the time of the Norman occupation, two cultures existed side by side on English land. The English political structure continued to exist albeit under the autocracy of William I; the English king was still head of the English lords; and the English lords continued to administer their shires though the taxes gained in their territories and their warriors now belonged to the land's Conqueror. Even the English language flourish during this time as it entered its new age. The Middle English period was marked by the deterioration of the Old English form and when new, French, words were added. Many Old English words became obsolete and forgotten. Words like hlaf (bread), earfoþ (work), guma (man), maþelian (to talk), sceawian (to see or look at), or hycgan (to plan) disappeared, while wine was assigned a new meaning but its original designation as "friend or lord" can only be vaguely detected at the end of such names as Godwin and Baldwin (23). There are words that held on and are still used by us today—like "stong," "water," and "be"; and eald (old), brodor (brother), hus (house), nett (net), riht (right) had merely gained new spellings (24). The reason for the survival is attributed to the typical tolerance a conquering people would hold for a subservient nation: the Normans just found no value in encouraging the English masses to adopt their "finer brand of civilization."

During the eighty-eight years of Norman occupation, the rich spoke French while the poor spoke English. According to language historians, this is seen on how poultry and livestock names were retained in English use —like, "pig" (picg), "chicken" (cicen), "cow" (cu), "sheep" (sceap or scep), and "fish" (fisc)—while the delectable cuisine they became were given the French translations—like, "pork" (porc), "poulet" (as in bouillon de poulet for "chicken broth"), "beef" (buef), "mutton" (moton), "poisson" (as in de filets de poissons for "fish fillets"). The meal time terms also were transformed into French, words we use to this day like "lunch" and "dinner." Breakfast, however, was a meal given less importance in Europe during the Middle Ages and was even associated with the sin of gluttony in that it manifested the undisciplined drive of eating too soon. The French counterpart is déjeuneur, the meaning of which tended to shift towards "lunch." Like many "benevolent" conquerors in history, some matters which they believed were important to their subjects were left for the subjects to enjoy; and this is why "breakfast" made it to modern English while déjeuneur did not.

SOURCE: https://nicksirotich.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/mviking-web.jpg

The Normans allowed some aspects of the native English political system to exist, mainly to prop up their imported style of government; but in many ways, both contributed to each other's further development. And as it has become evident, the Vikings, who later became the Normans, adapted to and revolutionized the regions they have conquered by using the resources and institutions native in those very places.

Until William the Conqueror took possession of England, the nation had no standing army. Its soldiers were lent to the king by their lords in times of national crisis and then sent home when the threat had been averted. In fact, the king honored the sending-home part of the deal that it became severely difficult to keep the soldiers from returning home in times of special occasions, like harvest, as such was the situation when the invading William I landed on English shores. The victorious Norman duke, thereafter, declared himself absolute suzerain of the land and decreed that all knights and soldiers as his vassals, owing him military service.

It was not difficult for William I to restructure the English government at that time as it already possessed a form of feudalism as the one practiced in continental Europe. The country was already divided into "shires" (which later became counties), administered by the bishop, the earl, or the thane, and a shire-reeve, or sherrif, an appointee of the king to oversee the king's interest in the shire, like tax collection and presiding over the shire court in cases which came under his jurisdiction. All William I had to do was to position himself over all the thanes of the land, allow the thanes to keep their shires so long as they vowed allegiance to him, and grant the common lands to his Norman barons. Under his rule, the thanes and the Norman nobles became his direct vassals, vassals who had the right to let out the land again to subvassals who provided knight and military service (25).

William I carefully studied the elements of the English culture that he believed would help him function as absolute feudal lord as well as profitably enrich himself. As England learned feudalism from him, it was here where the Conqueror learned about the concept of the tenancy in socage in which a vassal was provided alternative ways to serve his master for land tenure other than military service. Examples of these were paying a fixed monetary amount, paying rent, or agricultural dividends. Serjeanty was another arrangement where the vassal became the king's armor-bearer, following his master to battle bearing the royal shield or suit of armor (26).

One other type was rare but was opened for the clergy since the Normans once obligated the Church to render military service for its estates. Soon, however, an arrangement was approved allowing service for priests or clergymen to say Masses, pray, give alms, or any service suited to their calling. It was called frankalmoign.

Sicilian Normans. As indicated earlier, the Normans, being Viking descendants, continued the tradition of utilizing the resources native to the lands they conquer to administer effectively and efficiently. It was no different when they captured the island of Sicily immediately after they ousted the Byzantine power from central and southern Italy. The year was 1071 and the power of the Muslim Empire was waning. The Normans, amazed at the eastern splendor of the Arabs offered cooperation with the island's former ministers to restore the grandeur of Sicily's layered culture. By 1130, the island became a culture jewel gathering scholars, scientists, artists, poets from every corner of the Mediterranean. Here, Arab Muslims, Jews, Byzantine Greeks, and Latin Normans flocked to form a single nation bound by toleration, justice, equality, and love of learning, giving Sicily the banner of the most civilized country in the western world. In prosperity it rivaled they Byzantine Empire that for centuries was hailed as the most powerful economy in Medieval Europe.

A noble-looking portrait of Robert de Hauteville, a.k.a. Guiscard, who was, in fact, once a bandit in Italy before he won the trust of the Pope in 1059 to protect the Holy See. In 1047, this impoverished Norman knight, seeking fortune, arrived at the Lombard-controlled region of central-southern Italy called Langobardia. His daring and cunning drew him the attention of Pope Nicholas II who invested him to be the Duke of Apulia and Calabria and become a nemesis to the Byzantine Empire. He led the attack on Sicily in 1061 and captured it ten years later, starting with the city of Messina and then on Palermo (27).

The Varangians and the Rus. Lastly, the very people whom Ibn Fadlan encountered were as bent on trade as they were on plunder. These were the eastern Vikings who plied the rivers of Russia and eastern Europe carrying their trade among the Slavs, the Byzantine Greeks, the Turks, and other Asiatic tribes that were pushing north-westward into Europe.

In the ninth century, the Vikings from Sweden sailed east, a logical direction for them to raid, where immediate settlements of Finns, Slavs, Russians, and other Baltic people were frequent victims plundered for their amber and fur. These goods were then taken down the great Russian rivers, the Volga especially, and traded with the Byzantine Greeks of Constantinople. During this period, the only hope of wealth was carving a trade path to Constantinople, an aspiration many businessmen have tried and failed because of the marauding activities of the Vikings, Magyars, and Muslims. But with the trading headed by the eastern Vikings, the enterprise along the Black and Caspian seas and up the Russian rivers vibrated with the promise of revenues as it attracted other cities along the route it plied.

ABOVE: The legendary Rurik who led his Varangian group to occupy Ladoga and later Novgorod. According to the Russian Primary Chronicle, compiled in 1113, Rurik entered Novgorod after its Slavic and other tribal population, which had previously ousted its former Nordic overlords, invited him and his group to restore law and order as no accord could be reached by the native leaders of the city.

It also attracted plunderers like Magyars, Avars, and Slavs to challenge aborning trade ventures in the regions above the Black Sea. In a determined resolve to enroot Viking interest in the region, these Scandinavians warrior-traders swore oaths to each other vowing mutual assistance and defense. It was a trust faithfully carried out among themselves by which they would be instantly known for: Varangians, where the Norse word war referred to an "oath sworn in fidelity," and thereby resulting to waering, or "one who has taken an oath of allegiance" (28).

As with their relatives who sailed west, these Varangians made their presence felt in the east with the same terror and ferocity than was unmistakably Viking. They carried their love for war, plunder, carnage, piracy, and business to Finland, the Baltic countries, Russia, and the Balkan domain above the Byzantine Empire. Part of these Varangian population established themselves in Russia and built the city of Novgorod in 850 A.D. also wresting Kiev from the Slavic tribes to later become the capital of a strong Viking state in Russia. By 859, they were exacting taxes from the Finnish and Slavic tribes and in 862 they take over the village of Staraya Ladoga in Russia from its Finnish and Slavic founders, later to become an important trading post in Eastern Europe. The Slavs, whose population outnumbered all other peoples in Eastern Europe, referred to the Nordic Kievan nobility as the Rus, distinguishing them above the common Varangian Viking who visited Kiev to trade, to offer loyalty and service as warrior, or hire a contingent of warrior Rus (29).

Rus etymological studies also have it that the word came from Ruotsi, the Finnish term for the Swedish country itself. The latter is derived allegedly from the Old Swedish rother, a maritime root word associated with rowing and ships that develops into rothskalar, meaning "rowers" or "seamen" (30).

By the ninth century, the Volga was an established trade route made possible by the Varangians. Through this channel, not only did Constantinople's wealth issue to and fro, but also conveyed the fierce reputation of both Varangian and Rus as formidable fighters. Constantinople did not just receive rumors from the north to know about this information as there were sporadic Varangian Rus attacks that attempted to crack Byzantine defenses as early as 860 up to 1043. In other words, while the Vikings were trading with them on one side, there was serious pounding on the other. There were even agreements between them wherein Kievan princes were given into marriage with Byzantine princesses. And this was one way Rus Varangians were introduced into the Byzantine Army as the elite contingent known as the Varangian Guard.

By associating themselves with the Byzantines, another legend emerged out of the Viking saga: The Varangians learned that the Eastern Roman Empire contracted foreign mercenaries ranging from Arabs to Lombards, Turks to Normans, Armenians to Hungarians, including tribes of the vast Slavic population. But it was not through this arrangement that would shape the mythical Varangian Guard. It was going to be out of the converging currents generated by the dilemmas separately experienced by Constantinople and Kiev during the tenth century.

In Kiev, a prince named Vladimir Sviatoslavich (ruled 980–1015) was forced to escape to Sweden when a usurping brother began executing his plan to seize the throne by taking down his contenders. With the help of a cousin, who was then no one else but the king of Norway, Vladimir returned to Kiev with a Viking army strong enough to take down a city—like Kiev—and get him on the seat of power. On his way, he captures and fortifies the cities of Polotsk and Smolensk through which he facilitates the recapture of the Rus capital and slays his murdering sibling. This is where the trouble begins. After all the excitement and the screams of battle, Vladimir's Viking kin, the ones he and his cousin rallied into a ship that left Sweden to stage a coup d'etat, well, they were expecting their money—which the new king, Vladimir the Great, still had none to give. Imagine the look on their faces as they gazed at the new landscape, dreaming of a new life in this strange new land, and suddenly hearing that the prince they installed needed more time to come up with the promise. The time he actually took amounted to ten years. We could only imagine the pain in his ass with the trouble stirred in his kingdom by a great number of unpaid plunderers!

Meanwhile, behind the protecting walls of Byzantine walls, Emperor Basil II, was also having issues. His government was beset with uprisings by abusive landowners in his kingdom, ignited by two of his wealthiest military lords. It was their goal to take the Imperial power and reduce Basil to a nominal role. The Emperor knew no one to trust; except that a Rus king up north who successfully headed a campaign to capture the royal Crimean base of the Chersonesos in 988. Immediately, Basil offered an alliance with this northern king named Vladimir Sviatoslavich. The Byzantine king was quickly supplied with six thousand Varangian troops, the very same restless, troublemaking Vikings he took from Sweden.

Yet out of these Swedes was born the first generation of the Byzantine Varangian Guard that served as the Imperial bodyguard and elite fighting regiment of the Byzantine army (Frank Westenfelder, "The Varangian Guard: The Vikings in Byzantium). These warriors were handsomely compensated and greatly honored. In times of battle, there were only sent out at the most critical situations when only at these instances was the wonder and terror worked to turn the tide into Byzantine's favor. It was reported that the Varangians, in the thick of battle, underwent a trance-like rampage that seemed to make them impervious to pain, as if the deepest gashes of wounds or massive loss of blood meant for nothing. It was, of course, a description of the Viking berserker's rage.

The Varangians proved to be fiercely loyal, but only to the office of emperor and not to the individual who dons the title. On another matter, not only were they awesome in the battlefield, their brutality was unspeakable. In one account, Varangians were described to have chased down a fleeing army and then hacked them to pieces with glee. During times of peace, they were known to function as keepers of the peace in the empire. And in times of the Emperor's death, they were allowed ransack his treasury and carry away as much as they could.

Icelandic Northmen. Far to the north, there were Vikings who found no need to descend to warmer waters. Frigid though was the climate these Northmen continued to endure, their lives were ignited with the fire of letters and religion that around the period of the eleventh to the fourteenth centuries was penned the greatest of all Viking literatures: the Edda.

For the first time, there was a chance for the non-Northman to look into the mind of the Viking, why he feared no death, why he looked at war the way he did, how he viewed death and the hereafter, and how much death was a part of the Northman culture. The books of the Edda were accomplished around the time when the Christian Church managed European politics. It was as if a reminder for ages to come of a culture on its way out as its children were embracing the way of the Cross and proving to be its faithful followers.

From plunderers to nation-builders, from pillagers to faithful confidants, we can see how the Vikings changed Europe for bad and for good; we have also seen how Europe changed them. In time, many of them embraced Christianity and were assimilated into the countries they conquered, seeing that they reasonably adapted to the resources available in the regions they occupied. END.

Endnotes:

(1) Michael Crichton, Eaters of the Dead (Ballantine Books: New York, 1991). p.35.
(2)   Ibid. p.33.
(3)   Ibid., p,31.
(4)   Ibid., pp.54–55.
(5)   Ibid., p.54.
(6) Ibid., p.1.
(7)   Ibid., p.2.
(8) Ibid., p.121.
(9)   Ibid., p.60.
(10) Ibid., p.164.
(11) Ibid., p.157.
(12) Ibid., p.158.
(13) Ibid., p.163.
(14) Ibid., p.121.
(15) Ibid., p.165.
(16) Ibid., p.33.
(17) Ibid., p.164.
(18) Beowulf (http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/beowulf/context.html), ©2015 SparkNotes LLC, All Rights Reserved.
(19) Jan Purnis, Historical Legend in Beowulf, Copyright ©2000 .(http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~cpercy/courses/1001Purnis.htm)
(20) Hugo Gye, "Secrets of Beowulf Revealed: Relics discovered at Danish feasting hall which featured in Britain's oldest epic poem" MailOnline News, 26 August 2013 (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2402079/Secrets-Beowulf-revealed-Relics-discovered-Danish-feasting-hall-featured-Britains-oldest-epic-poem.html).
(21) Eaters of the Dead, p.80.
(22) Ibid., p.52.
(23) Old English Core Vocabulary, http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~cr30/vocabulary/
(24) Your Dictionary, Copyright © 1996-2015 LoveToKnow, Corp., http://reference.yourdictionary.com/dictionaries/old-english-words-and-modern-meanings.html.
(25) Stewart C. Easton, The Heritage of the Past: From the Earliest Times to the Close of the Middle Ages (Holt, Rinehart and Winston: New York, December 1961) page 717.
(26) Ibid., p.720.
(27) http://interamericaninstitute.org/norman_sicily.htm
(28) Arkadii Zhukovsky, Varangians, Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine (http://www.encyclopediaofukraine.com/display.asp?linkpath=pages%5CV%5CA%5CVarangians.htm), ©2001 All Rights Reserved. Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies.)
(29) Frank Westenfelder, "The Varangian Guard: The Vikings in Byzantium," Soldiers of Misfortune: The History of Merenaries (http://www.soldiers-of-misfortune.com/history/varangian-guard.htm). Copyright 2011.
(30) Christie Ward/Gunnvôr silfrahárr, "Vikings in the East: Rus and Varangians," The Viking Answer Lady (http://www.vikinganswerlady.com/varangians.shtml), Updated 6/13/2015. Copyright 2015.

Additional Reference:

Online Etymology Dictionary (http://www.etymonline.com), Copyright ©2001-2015 Douglas Harper.

The Messiah's Desert Man

2015-03-06T20:38:00.002-08:00

Heroes of the Bible follow one pattern: the Messiah. Those who preceded the Messiah became the living example of what He would be like, what types of decisions He would make, how He'd react to situations. The more a hero diligently lived a life patterned after the Messiah's by studying, obeying, researching, and meditating on the Holy Scriptures—never claiming himself as the Messiah—the more God supported him with everything necessary to install and fortify him in a position of leadership.

Heroes pointed people to the Messiah, to God, and not to themselves. John the Baptist, the Messiah's cousin, himself being a major force that prepared the hearts of Judea for the Messiah's earthly ministry, donned the description written by the prophet Isaiah about the "voice of one calling in the desert, 'Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him'" (Matthew 3:3). He brandished the same hate for the hypocrisy of the ruling religious leaders just as the Messiah would, preached repentance and baptism just as the Messiah later would, but he never cornered the people's hearts for himself. Instead, when asked whether he was the Messiah—

©Corbis

"But after me will come one who is more powerful than I, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire" (Luke 3:16–18).

And then one day, he finally saw Jesus coming toward him to be baptized. He raises his voice for all the people to hear him say, "Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! This is the one I meant when I said, 'A man who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me. I myself did not know him, but the reason I came baptizing with water was that he might be revealed to Israel" (John 1:29–31).

He baptizes Jesus in the Jordan and as his cousin was coming out of the water, he witnesses the Spirit of God descending upon Jesus like a dove. In verse 34, John testifies, "I have seen and I testify that this is the Son of God." The next day, at the same spot, upon again seeing Jesus, John declares to his two disciples, "Look, the Lamb of God" (verse 35), prompting the students with him to pursue Jesus. One of these was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother (verse 40).

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John the Baptist was the perfect model of a hero who never claimed glory for himself; he understood his place in the scheme of things, where his role begins and up to where it ends. He beautifully explains this in John 3:27 to 30:

"A man can receive only what is given him from heaven. You yourselves can testify that I said, 'I am not the Christ but am sent ahead of him.' The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends to the bridegroom waits and listens for him, and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom's voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete. He must become greater; I must become less."

©Philippe Lissac/Godong/Corbis

For some reason we think of John the Baptist as a minor character in the New Testament, notwithstanding the fact that Jesus spoke highly of him, notwithstanding the Biblical evidence that "people went out to him from Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole region of the Jordan," confessing their sins and getting baptized by him by the Jordan River (Matthew 3:6). There were a great number of religious leaders coming to him (verse 7), asking whether he was Elijah, the Prophet, or the Christ himself (John 1:20–21, 25–26). This desert prophet did not just cause quite a stir; he was the first sign of living water bubbling up in a dry and parched spiritual landscape for those who hoped for Israel's deliverance, which turned out to be "all Judea and the whole region of the Jordan"! Furthermore, not only did he rock the spiritual realm; even Herod the tetrarch of Judea feared him—"feared...and protected him" (Mark 6:20), in fact—and "liked to listen to him" (Ibid.), though the prophet's words puzzled him. Keep in mind that before John the Baptist, the spiritual atmosphere of Israel was devoid of prophets for about four hundred years after Malachi. The Jews were hungry for a word from the LORD. It was then no wonder why the people of Israel came flocking to John the day he came prophesying in the power of the Holy Spirit with the words, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near" (Matthew 3:2).

"Forerunner" does not mean "sidekick," yet sidekick is almost how many of us regard John the Baptist. The Messiah Himself called him "the Elijah who was to come" (Matthew 11:14), but we find no one calling Elijah a sidekick, not even his apprentice Elisha who later inherited two hundred percent of Elijah's anointing.

This may be what Jesus meant when He spoke about lighting a lamp and putting it in a stand to give light to everyone in the house (Matthew 5:15). When He delivered this teaching, He called His believers "the light of the world" (verse 14), agents of spiritual righteousness who cannot be hidden, who were made to shine before others for good deeds to be seen and that the heavenly Father be glorified (verse 16). Back in the Old Testament days, especially in desperate times after people had abandoned faith in God, a lowly shepherd boy who lifts his eyes to the heavens and beseeches the Most High for a day uneventful will serve as a strip of flame to re-ignite a nation darkened with sin into fiery revival. END.

The City of Lot

2014-09-20T07:19:00.000-07:00

We commonly consider the conclusion of Lot's life as a dead end. For some reason, his plans of staying in Zoar changed, making him flee and settle for the hills. Genesis 19:30 in the New International Version explains that "he was afraid to stay in Zoar." Zoar was a little town that shared the economy and military of the more powerful cities in the fertile plain which included Sodom and Gomorrah. Nowhere in the Bible does it state that it led a more righteous lifestyle than its neighbors; this would be an immediate assumption following the fact Zoar was spared from the annihilation. But let us not forget that it was through the request of Lot, in verses 20–22, that Zoar was untouched.

And concerning the matter of its name, verse 22 states that the reason why it was called Zoar was because of its smaller density as compared to the others in the region. It is indicative that Lot, Abraham, and those with them from across the Tigris and Euphrates merely labeled the town "Zoar" among themselves. The king nor the residents of the city were not going to call their little town "small," are you kidding? Genesis 14:2 and 8 called it Bela. If you think of it as a name of a damsel in the latest vampire movie blockbuster, think again. In Hebrew, it means "destruction." It has the idea of being devoured or swallowed by a rapacious beast. It is very ironic that it escaped what its very name suggested when God bathed its region with fire.

Lot may have apparently grown comfortable with this life he invested in Sodom and thought that he could just continue normal life as soon as the sun rose over Zoar. The narrative in the Bible does not say, but probably some aspect of Zoar told him that choosing to live in this small town was a mistake. Or maybe something in Lot changed on the day the angels rescued him and his family from the destruction. Lot arrived at the gates of Zoar and there was no information as to how he was received. But something distasteful was present within its enclosure and Lot reconsidered where the angels had originally offered for his refuge (verse 17). And there he lives out the rest of his days.

The Bible does not say Lot lost his mind. Choosing a life far away from Zoar, the living vestige of Sodom's corruption, does not make the man of God a lunatic (maybe in the eyes of the Zoarites). The Bible does not tell us that Lot, at this point, lived his life as a drunk, wasting his life away. The presence of wine in their earthen home was, in fact, a sign that he and his daughters had moved on. Remember that when the flight from Sodom took place, Lot and his family took off empty-handed. Genesis 19:15 did not say, "Hurry! Take what you can or you will be swept away when the city is punished."

Lot may have realized the height from where he had fallen. In this cave, his heart was peeled of its calloused layers remembering once again how his spirit was "distressed" and "tormented" by the filthy lives and the lawless deeds that flooded and besieged his righteous life (2 Peter 2:7–8). Lot may have been at a point of repentance this time, a final opportunity to live right, minus the trappings of riches, however.

Lot was no stranger to wealth. He has experienced its accumulation from his days with Abraham, lived in it, was clothed with it, making him resplendent in the eyes of the affluent population of the fertile plains. The commerce of the plains maintained his status as a rich man, in exchange, however, to a turbulent spirit that affected his family, starting with his daughters. Genesis 19:14 tells us that his daughters were married to Sodomite men. How Lot had allowed his daughters to be given to Sodomite husbands can be explained through his desire of being accepted in the Sodomite society. Some studies tell us that these "sons-in-law" were among the men who pressed at Lot's door demanding the surrender of his two visitors, as suggested in the phrase "all of the men" appearing on verse 4—

"Before they had gone to bed, all the men from every part of the city of Sodom—both young and old—surrounded the house" (New International Version).

The New American Standard Bible says it this way. "Before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, surrounded the house, both young and old, all the people from every quarter" (emphasis mine).

The good ol' King James is not so much different and retains the "all the people from every quarter" ending phrase. Many of the most reliable translations do not relinquish the "all" in this verse. The New Century Version, however, says this: "Before bedtime, men both young and old and from every part of Sodom surrounded Lot’s house"

The riot at Lot's threshold that night plainly shows the utter disrespect the people of Sodom had for Lot. Lot was a man of position in the city. Genesis 19:1 says that "he was sitting in the gateway of the city," indicating, according to Bible scholars, that he was a judge or a member of the city council. Being then an official, Lot had considerable knowledge of the city's laws; he then understood many of the people's customs, their temperament, what they needed, what they wanted, what appeased them. So when he offered his daughters in place of the visitors the Sodomites wanted to rape, he was reaching for what the people would customarily understand as, "if you don't respect me, respect my visitors!"

Throughout the Bible, ancient hospitality is vividly documented and through this we understand the high estimation provided by a host to his visitor. Yet offering one's daughters to a sex-crazed crowd for the sake of a couple of welcomed strangers is downright heinous even in the time of Lot. According to the Jewish Midrash, ancient custom holds a good place for a father laying his life in defense of his wife and children, but never offering the latter group in defense of the father [1]. This act of Lot against his daughters has put his name in a very bad light as a man compromised of his principles and a hypocrite.

Lot's Noble Cause.

In the ninth verse, a noteworthy statement was made by the local men that may have scratched Lot's pride which later led to his leading a reclusive life:

“This fellow came here as a foreigner, and now he wants to play the judge!"

Lot came into Sodom in great wealth; it was one of the elements that gained him popularity in this prosperous city. Apparently, Lot's affluence caught the attention of the city's royalty and nobility and drew him into their elite association thereby showing the way to a political position as a councilor. Of course, Lot's star rose higher when Sodom learned of his relation to Abraham, who also drew popularity to himself—inadvertently—when he launched a daring raid against the four kings of the east (Genesis 14:12). The deep gratitude Sodom felt for Abraham for restoring their fortunes and independence cemented Lot's seat over the city's political affairs.

It turned out, however, that Lot's accession to power was not unadulterated with grumbling and resentment. According to the ninth verse, it was over the matter of his being a foreigner.Throughout the period the people of Sodom silently resented Lot's involvement in their political affairs, considering him as a meddling alien who incidentally comes from the same region as the four kings of the east who had enslaved them for twelve years (Genesis 14:4).

It must have been heartbreaking for Lot once he heard his constituents bellow out this sentiment. Yes, they were momentarily out of their minds, but out of all the facts about him that could be said, his being a foreigner was singled out. All the years of dedicating his life in promoting the welfare of the city, wasted. Their words may have caused Lot to grieve his decision to give his daughters in marriage to Sodomite men in hopes that he, his children, and his children's children will be treated as equals in the society he chose to be one with. The term he used to address the men, in 19:7 was "my friends" (19:7); the New American Standard Bible puts it, "my brothers."

It is debatable whether Lot chose to be in Sodom from the time he cast his eyes on the plain, but records show that he did gravitate towards Sodom. In Genesis 13:12 it says that though he lived among the cities of the plain, it was specifically "near Sodom" where he pitched his tent. It took time for him to finally decide to settle in any one city in the plain but he finally chose Sodom (14:12), probably because his proximity gave Sodom the best vista in beholding his great wealth, and by this time, still being under the control of the kings of the east, Sodom may have needed the added support of this stranger by financing a movement for political independence. Suddenly, Lot had a purpose, a noble mission: to be an instrument of freedom for the shackled and the oppressed.

His role in this movement may have made him a target of abduction for the four kings of the east (verse 12). Probably, Kedorlaomer and his allies saw the same thing the rebel kings of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboiim, and Zoar did, which explains why not only Lot was carried away but also his possessions. The eastern kings could have succeeded in compelling Lot to be among their financiers if not for Abraham's daring attack that successfully subdued the eastern alliance and the safe rescue of his nephew and the return of his possessions (Genesis 14:16). Abraham too had his own alliance (14:13), which meant that he would be a great addition to the rebel armies. And the only like the rebel kings had to Abraham was his nephew, Lot. So in an attempt to draw Abraham's confidence, Sodom's king had to pamper Lot with anything he wanted.

Today, there are studies claiming that Lot was no mere councilor who sat in a body of his peers. In an article entitled, The Wasted Years, for example, its author Ray C. Stedman claimed that Lot was the chief magistrate of Sodom, which is closely equivalent to today's mayor [2]. We can also consider that Lot was given this position. In the years after the triumph of the Sodom-led revolt for independence, Lot adopted a fatherly objective to watch over the city. He may have felt a belongingness to the city, an embrace that came by his office, like in a parent to a child. The truth, however. was that Lot did not belong in Sodom, though he was working on it up to the day he was dragged out of the city.

The City of Lot.

Choosing to stay and commit himself for the welfare of Sodom was a mistake of Lot. It was a mistake of serious consequences that swept away his wife, the wealth he worked for even the wealth God took care of, his plans, his dreams. All because he gradually lost sight of the path God had for him from the time he parted ways with his uncle.


		© Murat Bergi/National Geographic Society/Corbis

From the time Lot hit the road with the choice to head for the plains, the Bible makes no mention of him seeking God's direction. Apparently, he had a plan and he was determined to stick with it. He may have planned it for the short term to stay in the plains and take advantage of the commerce vibrating in the region then move in to one of the cities. Fast-track his business, why not? There was no bad thing in this (if he indeed planned it). He had herds and cattle that strangled the growth of Abraham's prosperity. If Abraham was rich, Lot was just as rich! At this point, the difference he had with Abraham was that his uncle was promised a nation, he was not. So why not be a part of one of the cities of the plain or establish a city himself—which may have been a good purpose he had why he chose to settle outside the cities in the first place!

For as long as I could remember, Lot has been put in a bad light for casting his face to the plains. But as far as the Scriptures are concerned, Abraham offered the options to Lot and there was no ill feelings between the two except for how the strife born between their herdsmen. The story in Genesis 13:1–13 targets no suspicions at Lot for choosing the fertile plains. Abraham opened the opportunity for Lot to decide first. Furthermore, according to Genesis 13:9, after Lot has made his choice Abraham committed to take the direction his nephew would leave out. The preferences were simple, either left or right:

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"Is not the whole land before you? Let's part company. If you go to the left, I'll go to the right; if you go to the right, I'll go to the left" (Genesis 13:9),

Has it been possible then for Abraham to have chosen the lush green plains near Sodom if Lot ever considered setting out toward the west? Yes, but, knowing Abraham, he could have settled elsewhere, like far from Sodom or Gomorrah. It would have been hard for Abraham not to be attracted to the fertile region east of the Jordan, which was "well watered, like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt" (13:10). The question then should be would have it been possible for Lot not to have gravitated toward this wonderful valley and instead head west where there was less? Remember that Lot was loved by Abraham; he knew that one day God would make good His promise of making his uncle into a great nation. Lot did not have this promise and it was up to him to carve out his future for his seed, ideally with God's help.

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But there is more to Abraham's offer to Lot than merely to part ways. By this time, it is obvious that God was pleased with both Abraham and Lot. This can be seen in the way He prospered them. Too great was the prosperity, in fact, that the continuous growth was beginning to strangle each other's ability to advance further. Frequent quarreling between their employees began to ensue as they crisscrossed grazing areas. This distressed Abraham. Being a faithful steward of the blessings of God, it was his responsibility to see that nothing on his end would plug up the continuous flow of Divine prosperity which manifested God's delight toward him and Lot.

Abraham valued the delight of the Lord; and he understood the importance of the wealth God was piling up in his life. His care for the prosperity of God was an act of his strong faith in the promise of God that He would make him into a great nation one day. It was a proof of his faith. Logically, Abraham understood that if God would make him into a great nation, he'd need a humongous budget to bequeath to his descendants. So in essence, Abraham was already saving up for his children and his children's children, as later explained to us by Proverbs 13:22. And God was pitching in for the finances; Abraham was managing the resources as they came.

Lot was getting blessed too. How he and Abraham wished he was a part of the Promised Nation. We can imagine how the two stayed up late staring at the stars talking about what this nation would be like—the harvest, the seasons, the homes, the families, the laws, the festivals, their future. Abraham would wonder, if he were to live 400 years longer, what it would be like to enter a house of stone once again and watch the years go by in a land he belonged in and that belonged to him. Lot captured these dreams and thrilled him, applying the scenarios to himself as Abraham portrayed. But the dream was not given to him; it was a promise given to Abraham. So though Lot shared with the excitement, he was merely a spectator to his uncle's show. But the promise had something for Lot: that God will bless those who bless Abraham and his descendants (Genesis 12:3).

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Then one day, when they were both so rich, Abraham says to Lot: "Is not the whole land before you? Let's part company. If you go to the left, I'll go to the right; if you go to the right, I'll go to the left" (13:9).

The situation with their properties was a delicate one. Both relatives wanting to keep their companionship intact, yet both were also faithful to the Lord and wanted His blessings flowing to them strong and free as ever. Abraham then took a bold step: a step that sacrificed his companionship with the one whom he has treated as his own son; a step that he would repeat in dealing with his concubine Hagar and her son, Ishmael. In essence, Abraham was protecting two things: his relationship with Lot and the fulfillment of the promise of God.

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According to Abraham himself, the separation he proposed would keep their friendship from disintegrating completely—"So Abram said to Lot, 'Let's not have any quarreling between you and me...for we are brothers" (Genesis 13:8). Separation: it will be Abraham's solution to strife. It was a solution he will never enjoy but would catapult him to the most important milestones of his life.

Abraham's story is pillared with separation. In Genesis 11:31, his father Terah takes him, along with Lot, and Sarah to leave Ur of the Chaldeans for Haran across the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers. In the Twelfth Chapter of Genesis, Abraham obeys God to leave Haran to settle in Canaan. In the Thirteenth Chapter, Lot leaves Abraham. In the Sixteenth, Hagar escapes Sarah's maltreatment, but returns in obedience to the counsel of the angel of the Lord. In the Twenty-First, he sends away Hagar and Ishmael for good. Yet for every breakaway that occurred, God Himself was present to comfort and assure of a blessing from His hand.

Abraham was not the only one encouraged with a promise, but even his concubine Hagar, for each time she took off, the angel of the Lord, this pre-incarnation of the Messiah, personally appeared to comfort her with a prophecy:

On the first occasion, He told her: "Go back to your mistress and submit to her.... I will so increase your descendants that they will be too numerous to count" (Genesis 16:9,10).

And on her final departure, this time with her son Ishmael, the seed of God's assurance: "Lift the boy up and take him by the hand, for I will make him into a great nation" (21:18).

For Lot, however, we find no promises. Why? Was it because God knew Lot was going to be alright in the fertile plains, where He was prophetically confident he would head for? Until this time, God's representative of His presence in Lot's life was Abraham. The time he left Abraham's protection, opened a new phase in his relationship with the Lord: it was supposed to be a time of experiencing God's presence for himself, in the same way as Abraham encountered God in 12:1 and later with Jacob in 28:12 to 22. Yet there was nothing for Lot; all he had were Abraham's tales of God's promise and dreams of what would it be like when the Divine prophecies unfold.

We never find Lot having any experience with God when he marched down to the plains; we do not find anything remarkable during his days with Abraham, except for the blessings he was gaining then. Did Lot attribute his growing wealth to the Lord at all? We do have reason to believe he did, after all God considered him "a righteous man" (2 Peter 2:7); in fact, when Abraham was pleading for Sodom, God understood that they were talking about sparing Lot. God's not stupid, and so was Abraham. Then one day, two visitors came to Sodom, and there Lot's personal encounter with God unfolds. The theme: God's mercy (Genesis 19:17).

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In spite of his good intentions for the city, Lot's was being corrupted in his righteousness during his days in Sodom. The everyday interaction, the stimuli of sin that flooded the city, even when he barred his attention, as best he could, from these, the strings of temptation and compromise were tirelessly, vigorously at work in his soul until he found himself approving many of their ways—all the more, since he was in a position to enforce and interpret Sodomic law, a dispenser of the city's own brand of ungodly justice. One day, he was betrothing his daughters to a couple of local suitors. It did not stop there. When the mob came pounding at his door, he was offering his daughters to appease its carnal frenzy. According to some versions of the story, Lot had four daughters: two he had given up to marriage, while the other two he had betrothed, all, to sons of Sodom. This then will explain the detail in Genesis 19:14 why he had "sons-in-law, who were pledged to marry his daughters." [1]. The online documentation in the Jewish Women's Archive on the study on Lot's daughters claimed that only the two unmarried siblings escaped with their father, while the two married ones stayed behind with their Sodomite husbands and were thus swept away in the destruction.

In the end, it was Lot and his two daughters in a cave away from the city of Zoar. Maybe Lot did not want another chance for destruction to overtake him; he had already escaped two—the first was with King Kedorlaomer, the second was the burning of Sodom and the plain region. Plus, was the fact that the city he wanted to restart life in was named, as we studied earlier in the article, Bela, meaning "destruction" by being devoured alive. He must have shuddered to think of himself and his daughters in this situation. The mental images may have been viciously haunting his sleep or every time a vacant gap momentarily comes between thoughts: the sight of men breaking down the door of his home and tearing him and his daughters as a wild beast mangles its prey.

And the prosperity Lot had in Sodom and even before he entered the city was all gone in the calamity. But they moved on as they had wine. Until this point, there is no indication in the Bible that he ever lost his riches. Lot was wise in dealing with his riches. He was faithful with his family as there is no detail of him getting a concubine, or squandering even a bit of it with prostitutes, though he might have been getting there, if the fall of the city took a little longer or never occurred at all. If we were to see his attitude towards his money, he can fit as the first or the second servant in Jesus' parable of the talents (Matthew 25:15–16, 20–22). In the story, we can construe that it will please God a lot if we made good use of His money and make it grow, in a good way, of course. (Well, here's where practicality gets in: if you don't know the first thing in investing your money, then don't! Otherwise, you'll be guilty of squandering His blessings because you've been presumptuous!) It is true now as it has been true back then.

©David Lees/Corbis

Lot was a changed man. He may have watched his life more carefully this time, more sternly in dealing with the influences penetrating his domain. His daughters may have respected him more, feared him more. Whatever liberties and rebelliousness they had before were all burned away in Sodom. But what cannot be taken away from them was the urgency they felt about the future. In Ecclesiastes 3:11 it says that God has "set eternity in the human heart." This is what makes us wake up one day and ponder about the rest of our lives, what a child wants to be when he grows up, what his life is gonna be if he follows a certain decision, or even wonder where the years of our life had gone so fast. In Genesis 19:32, Lot's older daughter spoke to her sister about preserving the family line. Just like any other woman then and now, she wanted to live out the rest of her days in the way she was meant to be: a mother a nurturer, a grandmother. Yet not only did she want more for her future but she wanted more for her family. There was only one problem: she was under the power of her father, a father who to them had no regard for this matter.

In reading the story of Lot, I have always thought of his daughters as promiscuous, rebellious brats who got whatever they wanted, including getting married to those men in Sodom. Maybe through constant nagging, prodding, they pestered their father to concede to this fancy of theirs. In later studies, however, observing how Lot easily volunteered his daughters to be abused by the mad mob made me realize that the culture and society back then was nothing like I have ever understood it to be. where a father considered their daughters, and possibly even his wife, as virtually properties to do whatever he wished of them, whether to give them away to whomever he wanted or have them restricted to domestic servitude. Lot did not consult his daughters privately regarding this; and observing what had happened to the Levite's concubine in Judges 19:25, it looks like Lot was truly determined to make true his offer should the have crowd said okay.

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It was either they were afraid of their father or they saw no way to violate the existing culture regarding this matter. It may have been that daughters never spoke to their father regarding this matter but simply waited to be given away to a man whose parents had finished arranging the betrothal. The story of how Rebekah was chosen to be Isaac's wife is a vivid illustration of how marriages were arranged in the ancient days (Genesis 24). In this scope, we now understand how the betrothal of the daughters to the Sodomite men reflected the corruption that was overtaking Lot's righteousness at the time.

There was no doubt that the daughters waited. And waited. Many years have already passed since the monumental destruction of the city they called home and they felt that time was running out on all three of them.

"Our father is old, and there is no man around here to lie with us, as is the custom of all over the earth" (19:31).

Yet culture is like a law in that it provides the opportunities to work around its do's and don'ts; it is how culture grows and adapts to its users and the times. Like her father, the older daughter was clever:

"Let's get our father to drink wine and then lie with him and preserve our family line through our father" (19:32).

Things happened which should not have. This is why Jesus said through a teaching on prayer, "your will be done on earth as it is in heaven" (Matthew 6:10). It may surprise some to us to know that God's will is not completely enforced here on earth unlike in heaven. In heaven, there is only one Person who wills and that's God. On earth, there are a lot who will and freely at that, all moving for or clashing against each other. One day, the earth will be one under Jesus, when the New Jerusalem will descend on a new earth, where God will dwell with men "and live with them," where He will "wipe every tear from their eyes" and make all things new (Revelation 21:3,4). Until then, there will be plans consummated aside from those of what God has designed.

In somewhat the same way as Abraham thought he was helping God fulfill His promise of him having a son through the cultural norm of impregnating Hagar, his barren wife's maidservant, Lot's daughters found a workaround to hurdle the limitation of their situation and be back in sync with "the custom of all over the earth." But instead of looking at this scenario as an evidence of God's distance from the post-Sodom phase of Lot's life, we can see it as an opportunity for God to move in the next generation of his house and finally drive His message that He has remembered the one whom Abraham loved.

Both daughters got pregnant by their father. Surprisingly, throughout the list of unlawful sexual relations listed in Leviticus 18, I find such relations between a father and his daughter absent. Singled out are intercourse with between son and mother, brother and sister, uncle and niece, nephew and aunt, father and his son's wife, a man and his sister-in-law, man and a woman and her daughter, and so on. There is nothing mentioned regarding a father and his daughter except for an implication in the sixth verse which begins the list: "No one is to approach any close relative to have sexual relations. I am the Lord."

Yet in the same mercy God had for Lot when He rescued him and his family out of Sodom, he showed his daughters and their sons his love by giving them what Lot may have longed for when he stepped out of Abraham's care. In Genesis 19:37, it says that the older daughter gave birth to a son whom she named Moab, which meant "from father." The younger one also had a son whom she named Ben-Ammi, meaning "son of my people." These two survived the rough life of the mountains and grew strong families who headed into regions east across the Jordan.

The house of Moab chose a region called Ar, populated by an immense race of giants. Deuteronomy described these natives as "a people strong and numerous and as tall as the Anakites" (2:10). To the Israelites who later came with Moses from Egypt, the Anakites were a fearsome race of giants they called the Rephaites, probably related to the Nephilim of the Noachic age. In Moabite tongue, they were called the Emites; and "like the Anakites, they too were considered Rephaites" (verse 11). And with the Moabite sword, the Emites were either decimated or driven away. God later told the Israelites who later approached Ar of Moab on their way to Canaan, "Do not harass the Moabites or provoke them to war, for I will not give you any part of their land. I have given Ar to the descendants of Lot as a possession" (verse 9).

In the same manner, Ben-Ammi was to face giants inhabiting the region he was destined to possess. The region northeast above the Dead Sea dwelt "a people strong and numerious and as tall as the Anakites" (verse 21) Ben-Ammi called the Zamzummites, or the "murmurers," probably because of the manner by which they spoke, or because they were good battle tacticians out of all natives of the vast district. Yet the hand of God in action was shown to Ben-Ammi, father of the Ammonites, the day they appeared at the border of the Zamzummites. It is recorded that "the Lord" Himself "destroyed [the Zamzummites] from before the Ammonites who drove them out and settled in their place" (Ibid).

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God did the same favor for the children of Israel later on. And though it is a known fact that both Moabites and Ammonites were a constant thorn to God's Chosen People, out of one of them would emerge Ruth, a woman of great virtue, to be honored as the grandmother of Israel's greatest king and an ancestor of the Messiah.

Many believe that Lot's life was a dead end. Yet God in His love for him brought his children and their children out of the cave and into opportunities greater than being a part of a city or even building one. And though God though His foreknowledge knew that Lot's descendants would later become a thorn to Israel, He nontheless established them as mighty nations and willingly opened for them the opportunity to be blessed if they but bless the Israelites, the people He chose for Himself.

Additional reference:

[1] Kadari, Tamar. "Lot's Daughters: Midrash and Aggadah." Jewish Women's Archive: Sharing Stories, Inspiring Change. (http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/lots-daughters-midrash-and-aggadah).

[2] Stedman, Ray C. "The Wasted Years." (http://www.ldolphin.org/3667.html). Copyright ©2007.

The Day the Rocks Cried Out

2014-05-13T19:56:00.001-07:00

©Lebrecht Music & Arts/Corbis

In light of the destruction of Jerusalem in the hands of the Romans can we also glean the main truth to Jesus’ ever-famous verse quoted today almost solely in the context of the importance of praising God. The verse is Luke 19:40, which takes place moments after His triumphal entry in Jerusalem when “the whole crowd of [His] disciples began joyfully to praise God in loud voices for all the miracles they had seen” (verse 37). In verse 39, however, “some”—not all—of the Pharisees in the crowd hated it—hated what? The singing? The singers? The songs? Why the disciples were singing at all? Let us remember that this is the very Jerusalem that stood clueless on the night its King was born, when the wise men from the East came marching down its streets straight to Herod’s palace doors. Now for the second time, Jerusalem is once again clueless that its very King, whose birth they never knew came to pass some thirty years ago, is now marching down its streets on a colt of a donkey—a detail, again, prophesied in the Scriptures (Zechariah 9:9), which should have struck them like lightning in an evening sky if the God’s Spirit-breathed Scriptures still mattered to them. But no. Though “a very large crowd” rejoiced at Jesus’ entry in the City of David, Matthew 21:10 says that “the whole city was stirred and asked, ’Who is this?’” In answering this question, the eleventh verse provides that it was “the crowds” that “answered, ‘This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee.’” This perspective by Matthew’s gospel, coupled with the account in the gospel of Luke, then gives us an understanding that this “very large crowd” in the first one, which “spread their cloaks on the road… cut branches from trees and spread them on the road… went ahead of him [Jesus] and those that followed [and] shouted, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David!’ ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’ [and] ‘Hosanna in the highest!’ (Matt. 21:7–9),” was “the whole crowd of disciples” who were magnifying Jesus as He was on His way down the road that led to the Mount of Olives (Luke 19:37). The idea, therefore, that the entire city of Jerusalem burst into blessed elation when Jesus strode into its gates is completely out of the question. Instead, it was thrown into turmoil and its people agitated out of their daily business. And their question “Who is this?” had nothing of the wonderment exclaimed by such an inquiry as, “Who is that masked man?” or even in the statement, “Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s…!”

Then some Pharisees which were swept into the crowd out of curiosity began to draw out whatever armaments they had in stock to examine the cause of this ruckus, as to who this one is “who comes in the name of the Lord,” this one who has gathered for Himself a mighty throng of disciples to surround Him, to come before and after Him through the Holy City. And as they squeezed through the marching group of disciples to make it to Jesus, they had this demand: “Teacher, rebuke your followers for saying things like that” (Luke 19:39)!

These Pharisees should have been listening when Jesus slapped them with a prophetic rebuttal. But then again, judging by Him relating praising to the rocks, it seemed like He was on a parable mode, a mode that clearly conveys the intentions of His teachings to His believers but at the same time enshrouding them to those who chose not to believe, like these Pharisees. Jesus did explain to His disciples the spiritual fact of looking but not really seeing and hearing but not really understanding (Matthew 13:13). It is a principle based on the words of the Lord through the Prophet Isaiah:

“When you hear what I say, you will not understand. When you see what I do, you will not comprehend” (Matthew 13:14–15, New Living Translation).

And then He explains why: “For the hearts of these people are hardened, and their ears cannot hear, and they have closed their eyes—so their eyes cannot see, and their ears cannot hear, and their hearts cannot understand, and they cannot turn to me and let me hear them” (Matthew 13:15, New Living Translation).

It is interesting to note that when this principle came to Isaiah in a vision it was in the context of the destruction of the Kingdom of Judah by the Babylonians. It foretold of the irrevocable destruction of the nation because of the hardened state of the people’s conscience. It was no different centuries later after the remnant from the Babylonian captivity returned to Palestine and rebuild the Israelite culture in but a shard of a formerly vast Davidic/Solomonic kingdom. Here, Isaiah referred to the destruction of this very generation that Jesus visited, the remnant that survived the Babylonian exile:

"If even a tenth—a remnant—survive, it will be invaded again and burned” (Isaiah 6:13, New Living Translation).

Jesus prophesied that “the rocks will cry out” when the singing ceases. Was He really talking about praising? How do stones cry out, how do they sing? When it’s sitting there in the Middle Eastern midday heat, can it suddenly bounce up and down and start singing, “O, when the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream…”? What sound does a lump of hardened earth make? When it’s just sitting there, it’ll make you look stupid if you tell it to sing. But when you hurl it and it hits something as hard or harder than it, you hear something audible. What if you got a more massive lump of solid dirt then let it tumble down a slope? I believe you can imagine the sound it will make from the time it gets rolling down its path, crushing anything that crosses it, until it comes to a shattering halt. Ah, now we’re getting somewhere!

Jesus was talking about the destruction of Jerusalem, the tragedy that would occur some forty years after He had gone up to heaven. A time when songs will cease but in their stead the screams of death will be heard. It would be the fulfillment of a more detailed prophetic warning from which Jesus wanted all Israel to be spared:

The account of this prophecy in Matthew 24:16–21 gives this scenario: “…let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. Let no one on the roof of his house go down to take anything out of the house. Let no one in the field go back to get his cloak. How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers! Pray that your flight will not take place in winter or on the Sabbath. For then there will be great distress, unequaled now—and never to be equaled again.”

The act that sparked that fatefully led to the collapse of Jerusalem came one Passover when Roman procurator Florus seized the vestments of the high priest and violated with obscenities the most sacred observance of the Jews and plundered seventeen gold talents (around $350,000) of Temple money (Max I. Dimont, pp.105–106). In May 66 A.D., Jewish Zealots, backed by a solidarity of Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, and even Jewish Christians who chose to remain in Jerusalem, massacred a Roman legion stationed in the outskirts Jerusalem. The nation, Jews from every belief, every city, every village, immediately exploded into open rebellion against the Romans. Israel that time came so close to winning the war that Rome was forced to use the full weight of its ruthless military to contain the fury of this postage-stamp-sized nation. Aside from redeeming her pride, which was a great and pressing matter for the mighty empire, one other critical reason why Rome wanted the Jews suppressed was that a Jewish victory will electrify the entire Roman Empire with the spirit of revolt. For the first year, the only way it seemed, judging by the approach Rome took to recapture Palestine, was to meet the Jews with merciless slaughter in open combat. It will be this costly mistake that Rome will continue to make protracting the Jewish insurrection into a four-year campaign.

It will not be on the second year, under General Vespasian, when the Romans would make any progress. In 68 A.D., the general penetrated Galilee and slowly fought his way into Judea. While Judea had fallen into his hands, Jerusalem was enclosed in a powerful defense that made a mockery of the numerous assaults Vespasian attempted to make. The general acknowledged the futility of the attacks and sat down to resort to a siege in the estimation that starving the population in Jerusalem will force a surrender. The siege stood for two years around the city failing to extract the surrender Vespasian had anticipated. Thus was fulfilled the prophecy Jesus spoke of in Luke 21:20: “When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, you will know that its desolation is near” (NIV).

In the same prophecy, Jesus lamented on the desperation in Jerusalem during the siege—“Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, let those in the city get out, and let those in the country not enter the city"(verses 21 to 22 NIV)—because in actuality no one could get in or out of a siege. A siege is designed to cut off all vital supply going into a city. In Jerusalem people were dying of starvation and pestilence; fleeing was met with death, either from the Roman snipers outside or the Zealots inside who maintained a tight grip not only on the city’s external defense, but also over the city’s population for fear of infiltrators, like those who would sue for peace and surrender to the Romans. At this point, Zealot Jerusalem would maintain a defiant stand against Rome to the end.

Vespasian, however, would not be there to witness the end in that at 69 A.D., the following year, the Roman Senate offered him the throne. He then leaves matters to his son Titus. By this time the mass of Roman legions around Jerusalem had swelled to 80,000 to match—or mismatch—an armed Jewish force of a little less than 24,000 weakened by hunger and plague (Dimont, p.109). Pestered with impetuosity and hungry for action after one more year, Jewish taunts being thrown from the ramparts of the besieged city finally hurl the Roman armies swooping down into Jerusalem. Hundreds of battering rams drawn by the gates of Jerusalem, 70,000 foot soldiers and 10,000 (Ibid, p.110) in the cavalry crashed into the city. Jerusalem was bathed with the blood of its defenders slaughtered; its women were raped, their infants thrown into the fire. The Temple came to its fiery end. It was the day that horrified Jesus to tears that even on His way to be crucified, under the pain of open torture wounds and severe weight of the cross on His back, He still found a surge of strength to warn the “daughters of Jerusalem” not to “weep for me; weep for yourselves and for your children. For the time will come when you will say, ‘Blessed are the barren women, the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed’” (Luke 23:28 to 29, NIV). In the aftermath, history estimates a total of 600,000 of Jerusalem’s defenders and inhabitants were slain (Ibid, p.111).

After Jesus spoke of what would happen to Jerusalem on the day appointed, He ended with a great encouragement. He turns His disciples’ attention to the fig tree, the fig tree being one of the symbols of Israel then says, “I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened” (Luke 21:32, NIV).

When Jesus came to Israel, He could well be pictured like a Noah inviting people to His virtual ark, wanting people to “escape all that is about to happen, and that you may be able to stand before the Son of Man” (verse 36, NIV).

From the times more ancient, the earth was a symbol of death, a symbol of corruption. Adam was born out of the earth, he was just a lump of dirt until God blew the Holy Spirit into his nostrils so that he comes alive. Unfortunately the role of the earth did not end there in the life of Adam. When he sinned, he virtually condemned all humanity—him first—into an existence of corruption until all flesh sank back to the earth: “For you were made from dust, and to dust you will return” (Genesis 3:19, NLT).

Even the serpent that led Adam and Eve into sinning against God was sentenced to live its life close to the earth, close to death. Without any limbs to lift its soft belly clear off the earth, all its affairs will be endlessly bothered with the bitter taste of the earth—death—till the day it rejoins the dust and dies. In this light, Adam lived no different from the serpent. While the latter was doomed to “eat dust” all the days of its life (Genesis 3:14), the first one was compelled to till the ground so he can raise the produce from the dirt for sustenance and live. Adam drew from a corrupt ground to feed his corrupt body, for a corrupt body can never partake of the holiness of Eden, the Garden of God. For this reason, Eden was taken away from Adam and his wife.

Because of its basic association to death, God sternly forbade any image to be fashioned out of the earth or out of any of its produce like wood or metal. He allowed man, however, to take advantage of the other benefits he can draw out of the earth, like baking the earth to form bricks to build monumental structures which was what man used in erecting the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11:1 to 9. Using this newfound technology, man ventured to form an idol in the form of a tower “that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves” (verse 4), a slap to the face of God. With the very symbol of death rising up from the ground, like that finger. Thousands of years later in the time of Jesus, the remnant whom God restored from Babylonian judgment were once again giving Him the finger: unbelieving, hypocritical, death-plotting Pharisees; robbers headquartering themselves in the Temple of God; a High Priest who had nothing to do with Aaron, David, or anyone holy; and a people who knew not the time of the Lord’s visitation. And the hallmark of this culture was a vast shiny white-walled edifice known as Herod’s Temple, a restored version of Solomon’s Temple finished in 516 B.C. Then one day, a group of Galileans started marveling at the great and skillfully hewn lumps of hardened earth that made up the walls of the Temple complex. Jesus, their Master, took this opportunity to confide a secret plan to “completely demolish” all the buildings they were gazing upon in awe (Matthew 24:1, NLT) and “not one stone will be left on top of another,” not one beautifully adorning stone would be spared (Luke 21:5, NIV). Aside from the immediate fact that Jesus was referring to the destruction of Jerusalem that would take place forty years after His ascension, this meant that death and corruption, down to their very symbols, were about to lose their grip on mankind.

Additional reference:

Max I. Dimont, Jews, God and History (Mentor: New York, 1994).

Hardliners and Mutations of a Simple Gospel

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Jesus hid many things from His enemies in that there came a point when He found the need to protect from them His teachings meant to nurture His Word in the heart of His believers. While those who honored His teachings held on to His Word with child-like faith, Jesus made sure the birds of the air find no success in devouring His seed (Matthew 13:4). He surrounded His teachings with a spiritual cloud undecipherable by faithless understanding. To our days, our appreciation of the parable stems from its illustrative power to drive important spiritual points. An interesting detail on parables, however, is that they were effective only when Jesus used them; in contrast, under the employ of other teachers, parables were nothing much than pictures on a narrative. The effectivity of a parable did not depend on how Jesus masterfully crafted and positioned these literary gems but on how He used them to accomplish two objectives: to drive the Truth of God into the hearts of the believers, immune from the adulteration of the Pharisees and experts of the Law; and to insulate the teachings from the latter’s understanding who are capable of intercepting to corrupt it or steal it away. Remember that when Jesus explained the use of parables in His teachings, He mentioned about how unwanted elements could endanger the seed of His teachings from gaining stability in a believer’s life. And out of all the unwanted elements He mentioned in Matthew 13, Jesus spent considerable amount of time citing His detractors, those who willfully rejected His Words and tirelessly searched for something to trap Him with, those slanderers whom He meant confined in the blindness they in reality chose to dwell—

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“The disciples came to him and asked, ‘Why do you speak to the people in parables?’ He replied, ‘The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them. This is why I speak to them in parables: Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand. In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah: You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving. For this people’s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them. But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear. For I tell you the truth, many prophets and righteous men longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it” (Matthew 13:11–17).

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The destruction of Jerusalem was one of the matters that Jesus decided to hide from His adversaries. In His words in Luke 19:42 and 44, He mentioned that, “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes…because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you.” Seventy or so years after Jesus ascended to the clouds, the days came when Jerusalem’s enemies built an embankment against her, encircled and hemmed her in on every side, dashed her and her children to the ground, and finally left her without a single stone above another. Before this happened, however, Jesus made sure, through the workings of His promised Holy Spirit, that He would take care of His own, that not one of His cherished believers who held faithful to His teachings would be swept along the torrent of destruction. When Roman brutality fulfilled what Jesus tearfully prophesied, not a Jewish Christian was left in their beloved Jerusalem; they had been long gone, sown all over the key cities of the Roman Empire spreading the teachings of Jesus with their words and the example of their holy lifestyle.

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With the absence of physical boundaries to protect and promote the preservation of the Law, the very religion that expelled Christianity out of Palestine was in danger of dissolving as well. But the Law had the breath of God in it, as Christianity has, and it continued to endure in the same way Christianity did, though it did not gain the worldwide stature attained by the latter. Nevertheless, even in the international arena, Pharisaic Judaism persisted to pose challenges to the integrity of the Christian faith.

By this point, Christianity brought a whole new perspective in looking at spirituality, and with it, a growing spectrum of sub-sects that were mutates by Judaism, Zoroastrianism, and Greek thought. In Galatians, Paul goes into a rampage in defense of the salvation of Jesus against a new brand of counter-evangelization advanced by a group that theologists today identify as the Judaizers, a sect adhering to the tenet that Christ’s believers must continue to keep the Law to complete the salvation they have in God. And the outward representation of this dedication was the ritual of circumcision, an act based on the world where the believers had been freed from living in any further—

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“The law is not based on faith; on the contrary, ‘The man who does these things will live by them’” (Galatians 3:12).

In following the circumcision of the flesh, the Galatian believer condemns himself back in following the Law back to the letter in which a single slip of disobedience brings the curse of death (5:3). Paul, in the epistle therefore, raises the concepts of faith and the fruits of the Spirit into battle positions to rally a strong phalanx against the hungry wolves of ancient doctrine of bondage. The invading counter-doctrine of the Judaizers emphasized on the superficiality of the Law where the circumcision of the flesh attempted to offset whatever redemption and power Jesus provided at the cross (2:21). In short, this meant putting confidence in the flesh, in an act which scarred the human body, rather than a faith aimed at the One who was scarred for the sins of all humanity. For this, Paul devalued any merit there was in the flesh, referring to it as “the sinful nature” (5:13), enumerating its acts as only opposite the liberty and life found in the Spirit of God. “The acts of the sinful nature are obvious” (5:19), Paul begins, stressing that there is nothing in the flesh that any believer must attach the slightest worth:

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“sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, self ambition, dissensions, factions, and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God” (verses 19–21).

According to the Judaizers, conversion to Christianity meant conversion to Judaism if the believer was a Gentile, and strict observance to the Law’s fundamentals if he was a Jew. Paul denounced this, declaring that there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female since all are one in Christ Jesus, making all Abraham’s descendants, heirs according to the promise (3:28–29). And by “Abraham’s descendants,” he means every soul justified by faith in God.

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Historians do recognize a same group claiming that Jesus was a Jewish Messiah sent only to the Jewish people. This was the Ebionite sect, which TIME magazine held as an example of “how flexible early Christianity was” (David Van Biema, p.36). It, in fact, was, as we mentioned, one of the vast spectrum of false doctrines that tried to survive branching away from the true teaching of Jesus. And Jesus did foretell that “false messiahs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect” (Matthew 24:24 and Mark 13:22, NET). To the Ebionites—the “poor ones”—Jesus was originally mortal, a man who faithfully kept the entire Jewish Law, perfectly fulfilling all its hundreds of commands and requirements. This extraordinary display of righteousness caught the attention of God who decides to adopt Jesus as His son and assign him a special mission to become the ultimate sacrifice for the atonement for sin (Ibid.).

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When Jesus came to fulfill the Law (Matthew 8:17), He did it for all, for all whom He invited to come to Him, those who were heavily burdened seeking assurance for their souls (11:28–30). In the same way as He came to die once for all, man’s obligation to fulfill the hundreds of the Law’s requirements came to an end. Yet the power of the Law did not wane upon those who chose to obey it and refuse the Salvation offered by divine grace through faith: "For all who have sinned apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law" (Romans 2:12, NET Bible), and that, "whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law” (Romans 3:19, NET Bible).

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In Romans 3:21, however, it says that “apart from the law…the law of righteousness of God has been disclosed” (NET Bible). St. Paul explained that this “law of righteousness” was “the righteousness of God through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ for all who believe" (v.22). The salvation through faith was the aspect missing in the Law and was therefore what the Law could never provide, even with all its ritual baths and circumcision. What the Law was about was atonement for the justification of sins which needed the sacrifice of the blood of animals, animals that typified a facet of Jesus the Messiah, to cover for the sins committed consciously or subconsciously. Yet while the blood of animals could only coat these sins over, the blood of Jesus cleansed every sin. An act completely alien to the Law. This was the ideal expressed by John the Baptist in Matthew 3:11 when he said:

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“I baptize you with water, for repentance, but the one coming after me…will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire” (NET Bible).

Yet he could not make himself any clearer when one day he pointed at one Man coming to be baptized and said, “Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.”

This sect that called itself the “poor ones” came at a transitional period in Christian history when the evangelization of Jesus’ message was emerging out of the Jewish walls and into the Gentile world. The Ebionites were said to have particularly hated the Apostle Paul for spearheading this move of gearing the teachings of Jesus to appeal to non-Jews. Fifteen years after Jesus’ death and resurrection, whatever influence the Ebionites asserted to win over the early believers was lost, thus reducing them into a minority as Christianity shed its Jewish manacles to became a religion of no specific nationality, with much thanks to the faithfulness of those who carried out the Great Commission.

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The Ebionites were among the many that would arise out of the woodwork to fit array of the false doctrines which Jesus foretold. Some, however, had developed a mystical outlook as it mixed Christian aspects to Eastern tendencies, among which was a group called the Mandeans. This sect, established in the vicinity of the Persian Gulf, embrace the rites of baptism and the Eucharist, and holds a special place in their doctrine for John the Baptist. And that’s as far as the Judeo-Christian element gets; the rest of the group’s system features facets from Babylonian, Indian, Persian, and even Muslim beliefs, with much allegorization of ancient myths.

The Mandeans, however, came much, much later in the second century A.D. Another group that was more or less a contemporary of the Ebionites came about 140 A.D. when a millionaire businessman named Marcion entered the Church scene with a grand donation of 200,000 sesterces then produced two books of theology that articulated the idea of a bad Jewish God who was replaced by the more gentle “God of Jesus” (David Van Biema, p.38).

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It is a popular fact that the Mandeans claim John the Baptist as their chief prophet. When the Islamic world first penetrated the Mesopotamian region in the sixth century A.D., the Mandeans and other ethnic religious groups were faced with forced conversion. The Mandeans attempted to negotiate for their survival, asserting their connection to the cousin of the Jewish Messiah. Since John the Baptist appears in the Qur'an, the conquering Muslims granted the Mandeans the status of "People of the Book," a recognition given to groups of people who appear or are related to characters in the Muslim holy scriptures.

According to the Marcion theology, the world was created by a ruthless Jewish God who sent into punishment and death anyone who failed in following his laws and statutes, all in their stellar standards. Then suddenly, out of the heavenly blue, emerged a gentler more loving deity and sacrificed himself to free mankind from the clutches of his stern predecessor. What this second God did in effect was to provide humanity with an alternative salvation to those who sought relief from the burden of following perceivably demanding obligations just to qualify in a salvation which in truth could be accessed by anyone who would acknowledge the holy sacrifice made by the new God.

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That sure covered Jesus’ words in Matthew 11:28—“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest”; but what about the fundamental truth which Jesus unequivocally approved when the scribes stated, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one…God is one and there is no other but him” (Mark 12:29,32)? Or, what about the fact that Jesus did not come to abolish the Law and the Prophets but to fulfill them (Matthew 5:16–17)? Jesus did not come to empty the hands of the Father of followers but the opposite: to give glory to the One who sent him—

“He that speaketh of himself seeketh his own glory: but he that seeketh his glory that sent him, the same is true, and no unrighteousness is in him” (John 7:18, King James Version).

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But perhaps the plainest verse in the gospels where Jesus gave back glory to the “Jewish God” was in John 12:27, where before a vast crowd He prayed, “Father, glorify your name!” Here’s how it went down:

“Now my heart is troubled, and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name! Then a voice came from heaven, ‘I have glorified it, and will glorify it again.’ The crowd that was there and heard it said it had thundered; others said that an angel had spoken to him” (verses 27–29).

The gospels, especially the Book of John, stated how Jesus sought not the glory of Himself but of the Father. In Matthew 7:21, He stressed: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.” In 12:50, He gave the standard of what He considered as His family: “For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.” And as for the Father’s standards of salvation, Jesus explained it far away from the survival-of-the-most-obedient context of the Marcionites: “…it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish” (18:14). What fundamental logic would there be then to even assume the truth of this last statement if the Father, the “ruthless Jewish God” were to impose impossibly high legal standards for His children’s salvation?

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Marcion’s theology in effect was a flight from basic monotheism. In addition, it provided a direct contrast which bleached Jewishness in a bad light. Jesus referred to the first Jewish God as One of wrath and punishment, who, as we mentioned, imposed high legal standards impossible for the Jewish people to perfectly fulfill. It would have then followed that the Jewish people would have been sore with this sadistic God. But no. When Jesus came along with a new, gentler, loving, caring God, the Jewish people of His time, instead of flocking to this “second” God, clung tighter to the First One, defended Him and in doing even killed Jesus. The Jews, according to Marcionite theology, made their decision; and because of this, Marcion decided to edit out the Jews and Judaism from his version of the Holy Scriptures.

Jesus came to earth as a Jew; He will come back a Jew. In His teachings He referred to the Jews as “the first” (Matthew 19:3, 20:8–10, v.16, 21:28, v.31; Mark 10:31; Luke 13:30, 14:18, 16:5, 19:16). The Scriptures record Jesus’ words when He explained that He “came for the lost sheep of Israel” (Matthew 15:24), how He trained His disciples to concentrate preaching, teaching, and healing around the Judean countryside (Matthew 10:6). Jesus loves these sheep of His pasture, calling Himself their Shepherd (John 10:11). When Jesus spoke with the Samaritan woman by the well, He stated that "salvation is from the Jews" (John 4:22). And remember how He wept over Jerusalem on the morning after He stormed away the merchants and the moneychangers from His Father’s Temple? The gospel accounts unanimously document how Jesus expressed in analogy His desire to shelter the children of Jerusalem from the coming judgment like a hen that gathers its chicks in twilight.

References:

David Van Biema, “The Lost Gospels,” TIME (December 22, 2003).
NET Bible, ©Biblical Studies Press, L.L.C, 1996–2007.
The Holy Bible, King James Version.

All other verses with no indication of version come from the New International Version.

Lot of the Righteous

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To this day we cannot precisely pinpoint where the twin cities of Sodom and Gomorrah stood; but thanks to the detail of Lot’s wife turning into a pillar of salt (Genesis 19:26), we can at most suppose that these two great cities of their time were founded in the region surrounding the Dead Sea, where the midland salt is at its thickest. It is also the vicinity where Jerusalem has always stood. Back in Lot’s time, however, though there was a Salem (Genesis 14:18), there was still no Jerusalem. And the region was not a salt marsh, in case some of us might be thinking it was and then some natural process happened to flood it into a lake. The Bible, in Genesis 13:10, provides that the cities were located in the Jordan plain, “well watered, like the garden of the LORD, like the land of Egypt.” It was a description that drew the fancy of everybody seeking to survive the sweltering conditions outside of the Fertile Crescent, including Abram’s nephew Lot, when he cast his eyes east of Bethel and decided to establish his fortunes where the grass would never seem to lose its greenness, so to speak. Unfortunately, among the eyes lured to its enormous prosperity were the voracious and rapacious, such as the Elamite King Kedorlaomer who took control of the twin cities and three more in the region for twelve years (Genesis 14:4). Apparently Lot entered the city of Sodom in the latter years of its government under Kedorlaomer.

Lot was already famous when he entered the city of Sodom. Just imagine this guy strutting into the gates followed by a seemingly endless train of cattle that might tightly populate the tribal land of Dan, pampered by the hand of God, fed, watered and protected by a God who only knows health and prosperity to anyone allied to Him. Because of the LORD’s obvious prosperity glowing around him, his freshness invited to a city bled by a powerful overlord a vision of a hero, a Messiah, who comes in the Name of One who sends rain to the earth and maketh the sun shineth by day and the moon by night! Later on, he would stand as one of the city’s prominent residents, “sitting in the gateway of the city” (19:1) as an administrator or councilor. But in the days of the city’s war for independence against Kedorlaomer, he would be carried away as a hostage along with “all the goods of Sodom and Gomorrah and all their food” (14:11–12). Now why one would be carried away along with the vital wealth of a region if he were not vital wealth himself? Everyone, good or bad, valued Lot for at least his Messianic image: the credibility emanating from his image; the charisma that can weld an alliance; the compelling countenance that can spark a revolution. He was definitely not slaughter material, so the four-king coalition of Kedorlaomer takes him away.

Now Abram the Hebrew (14:13), the real head of the Messianic House, finds out that his favorite nephew was being held hostage. No, really. Lot was his favorite nephew, and not because he was the only nephew in his traveling tribe. In Genesis 12:1, God told Abram to, “Leave your country, your people and your father’s household.” So he takes his wife Sarai, all his accumulated wealth, and “his nephew Lot” (verse 5) and sets out for Canaan. He could have left Lot in Haran, but no, Abram felt the need to take Lot along. Why, you say? Because that’s what Terah would have wanted.

When Terah left Ur of the Chaldeans it was his idea to take Lot along because Lot served the memory of Haran. Haran was Terah’s third son and brother of Abram (11:27). In the twenty-eighth verse it says that, “While…Terah was still alive, Haran died in Ur of the Chaldeans, in the land of his birth.” For some reason, which could be connected to Haran’s death (the Bible makes no mention of this), Terah later on decides to leave Ur, takes Abram and Haran’s son Lot and travels northwest in a region which happens to be named Haran. The Bible gives no details but it is possible that Terah called the region Haran in honor of his son, and it could have been intended as a place for Lot to call his own had not Abram later convinced him to saddle up with him to Canaan.

Terah’s decision to take Lot and possibly to secure the land of Haran for his grandson may reveal how much he loved his early departed son and how much he later lavished this affection upon Lot. Taking Lot along meant treating him in the same way as Haran if he were alive. It would then be no doubt that Terah might have mandated Abram to regard Lot as he would Haran, his own brother. And judging by Abram’s decision to take Lot along the journey to settle in Canaan, it would seem that Abram did consider Lot as his long-dead brother. This meant that Abram treated Lot as an equal. Assess therefore the words of Abram when he offered his nephew the opportunity to be free in Genesis 13:8—

“So Abram said to Lot, ‘Let’s not have any quarreling between you and me, or between your herdsmen and mine, for we are brothers.’”

—and notice the equality there was in the manner Abram made his offer:

“Is not the whole land before you? Let’s part company. If you go to the left, I’ll go to the right; if you go to the right, I’ll go to the left” (verse 9).

But was there truly equality there? “Lot looked up and saw that the whole plain of the Jordan was well watered, like the garden of the LORD, like the land of Egypt, toward Zoar. So Lot chose for himself the whole plain of the Jordan and set out toward the east” (verses 10 and 11). As far as Abram was concerned, however, the “cities of the plain” which implied trade and commerce, contained all the opportunity for Lot to establish himself into a mighty nation, in the same way as he believed God would make him as such. After some time of living peaceably, Abram catches news of Lot’s life and chances to prosper threatened, so like a good brother, he comes to the rescue to even up the odds, leading a crack troop of “318 trained men born in his household” (14:14).

Abram launches an overnight pursuit (verse 15), routes the enemy, and safely recovers everything, including Lot (verse 16). With a handful of men crushing Kedorlaomer and his confederacy, Abram became an instant celebrity. “The king of Sodom came out to meet him in the Valley of Shaveh (that is, the King’s Valley” (verse 17), offering him all the recovered goods; the king of Salem, Melchizedek, likewise emerged bringing out the bread and the wine, blessing the victor who, in turn, gives him a tenth of everything (verses 18–20). Abram, however, decides to keep a low profile. He accepts the latter offer with honor but declines that of the king of Sodom with the words—

“…I will accept nothing belonging to you, not even a thread or the thong of a sandal, so that you will never be able to say, ‘I made Abram rich.’ I will accept nothing but what my men have eaten and the share that belongs to the men who went with me—to Aner, Eschol and Mamre. Let them have their share” (verse 23–24)

—which might have even cemented his renown. After this Abram retreated to his home in Canaan and Lot, being the only living memory Abram to the people of Sodom and the realm of its five-king alliance, assumes the popularity of being Abram’s “brother” and becomes ever more famous, being the next big thing on this side of the plain. But since the First Big Thing, that is Abram, was not around, the Second Big Thing, which was Lot, did just fine. It was a “title” that hauled him to the top of the city’s new leadership.

The victory won by Abram for Sodom and its five-king alliance brought unprecedented wealth to the region. The people got fatter but their moral condition became more dissolute. Before the war of independence the Bible already noted the wickedness of the people of Sodom, as they were by then “sinning greatly against the LORD” (verse 13). Now, with the element of more fat (Isaiah 6:10), more spiritual stupor had overcome its people until they had become completely blind and calloused of any consciousness reminding them of the presence of God. It now came to a point that the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah has become so great and their sin so grievous (18:20) that it required God to “go down and see” (verse 21). It was in this same manner that God as Jesus Christ descended into Jerusalem thousands of years after Sodom and Gomorrah to “see” what could be done to spare the righteous from receiving the punishment meant for the wicked. The LORD in the guise of flesh promised Abram (now his name revised Abraham) to spare Sodom in the event He found fifty (verse 26), forty-five (verse 28), forty (verse 29), thirty (verse 30), twenty (verse 31), or ten (verse 32) righteous people in the city. In Genesis 19, no ten but four, including Lot, were found righteous in Sodom, and the angels of the judgment urged them to flee the city or be swept away when God destroys it at the break of dawn (19:14). Now the issue was no longer preserving the city on account of the righteous; it was a last-plane-out operation before the first light of day for the few found righteous.

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The fate of Sodom and Gomorrah was more like what might have happened if ever the pillar of fire collapsed on the Israelites—and a very small scale sample of this did occur in Numbers 11 when the infamous Israelite grumblings yet again provoked God to anger that He sent “fire…among them and consumed some of the outskirts of the camp” (verse 1). In spite of the report saying that He “rained down burning sulfur…out of the heavens” (Genesis 19:24), let us keep in mind how the Bible described the presence of the LORD—

“For the LORD your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God” (Deuteronomy 4:24); “But be assured today that the LORD your God is the one who goes ahead of you like a devouring fire” (9:3); and in New Testament, “for our God is a consuming fire” (Hebrews 12:29).

And we must never forget that in the story when to Abraham God confided His plan of overthrowing Sodom, He promised him, “I will go down” (Genesis 18:21). And there was no other fact in Abraham’s mind other than that the judgment on the twin cities lay completely in God’s hands:

“Will you sweep away the righteous and the wicked? Far be it from you! Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?” (verses 23 and 25)

And God repeatedly responded with complete accountability: “I will spare the whole place for their (the righteous’) sake” (verse 26).

And though the angels confessed to Lot that they were sent to destroy Sodom (19:13), and even struck blindness in the eyes of the men pounding on Lot’s door (verse 11), Lot understood that “the LORD is about to destroy the city” (verse 14).

This is a detail we have never cared understanding, after all, all that mattered was the culmination of the excitement of God’s holy a-bomb being finally dropped on the twin cities of wickedness. What we never cared to understand was that there was no a-bomb, no alien force hovering over the region bathing the place with an incinerating ray that resulted in today’s Dead Sea. It was God who broke out against Sodom and Gomorrah.

The tragedy of Lot, however, did not end there, unfortunately. Lot and his daughters got up after the tragedy and did what came naturally in the aftermath of a calamity. He went to Zoar and sought to regather their lives and rebuild. Genesis 19:30, however, said that Lot "was afraid to stay in Zoar" so he sought solace in the "caves." I never really got this. Why would a man, who was welcomed into the most powerful cities of the plain and upheld as leader and role model, until the angelic visitation, lose it and take off to the hills and prefer desolation over civilization?

When Lot and his family escaped Sodom, they had nothing with them but their lives. At about halfway to Zoar, Lot loses his wife as she turns back to behold the burning city behind them. Compare the pride, the prosperity, the awe that beheld his entourage from when they entered Sodom many, many years before; the little town of Zoar saw no one special rushing into their gates that early morning. If anything, here was a man all dusty, sweaty, grimed with his two daughters looking as haggard as well, banging into the Zoarite gates desperately seeking solace from the horror sweeping the plains. Lot entered Sodom a hero out of nowhere; this day, he enters Zoar a pathetic, empty-handed refugee. Genesis 19:30 even plainly states that Lot was "afraid to stay in Zoar," so he finally takes off to the hills and lives isolated with his two daughters in a cave.

What made Lot fear the Zoarites? The Bible is quiet about this, though it is clear that it is one of the cities of the plains that formed the bloc with the kings of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboyim shattered by and regrouped twelve years later against the powerful confederacy under Kedorlaomer of Elam (Genesis 14:1–3, and verse 8). The tight bloc of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboyim, and Zoar prospered together in the plain, fell together into captivity under Kedorlaomer for twelve years, and were liberated together into greater prosperity. And being neighbors, they not only shared prosperity; they shared culture.

Zoar shared with the wickedness of Sodom and Gomorrah. And Lot, now with eyes wide open to the result of wickedness which he now sees sprawling before him again, changes his original contingency measure to take solace in this little place and takes off to the safety of the hill caves in the distance. The tragic and traumatic experience of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah was too much for Lot and his two daughters that being swept away with the wicked came almost upon them and they were not about to put themselves ground zero again! Hence, the hills. It could have also been that the Zoarites, being wicked, may have lost respect for Lot and his daughters, once honorable and even feared people of influence of Sodom, now helpless and lost, seeking for Zoarite aid and refuge. It could also have been very, very possible that Lot, being a man who once dispensed justice and important decisions of Sodom (Genesis 19:1), might have made some enemies from Zoar, or connected with Zoar, during this high point of his life and may have ran into the same people now as a sorry, desperate, sole survivor of a once-great city. Sharing the same culture and wickedness, it may have been the same treatment Lot received from his neighbors during the last night of the city when all of Sodom's men went into a frenzy over the two angels whom they demanded handed over to them to be raped. Check out how the crazed crowd spoke to Lot as one honored in the city administration as a judge:

“'Get out of our way,' they replied. 'This fellow came here as a foreigner, and now he wants to play the judge'" (Genesis 19:9).

It is apparent in this passage that the people of Sodom had no regard for this person of honor, whether or not he had done good for the city as a whole or to individuals who were once helpless and harassed. It may have been this way when he stood in the premises of Zoar. It may have been a great day of victory and rejoicing that it was them chosen by destiny—not the mighty Sodomites, not the mighty Gomorrahites, not any one else in that wretched plain—to carry out the distinguished task of bringing the culture of the perverted plains into the next glorious phase. And they wanted Sodom's favorite son, Lot, out of this! What they never figured out was that if not because of Lot, they would not be alive that morning, for before those hours, while Lot, his family, and the two angels made it through the outskirts of Sodom, Lot requested to flee to this town "near enough to run to" (verse 20), instead of the "mountains" (verse 19) designated by the angels. The angels' reply:

"He said to him, 'Very well, I will grant this request too; I will not overthrow the town you speak of. But flee there quickly, because I cannot do anything until you reach it'" (verse 21).

Lot interceded for the Zoarites. By the way he fought for the Zoarites it seemed that they were close to him. They way he presented Zoar before the angels was such that it was likely that he had invested quite a deal of trust in this town. Lot also apparently underestimated the Zoarites; he may have misjudged the size of the town as his basis for how its people would estimate a distinguished man as himself.

"But Lot said to them, 'No, my lords,please! Your servant has found favor in your eyes, and you have shown great kindness to me in sparing my life. But I can’t flee to the mountains; this disaster will overtake me, and I’ll die. Look, here is a town near enough to run to, and it is small. Let me flee to it—it is very small, isn’t it? Then my life will be spared'” (verses 18 to 20).

Being "small" as he described it to the angel, Lot may have pictured Zoar rolling out the red carpet for him in hopes that his harrowing experience and survival would aid them in preventing the same disaster from overtaking them. He may have thought furthermore that the Zoarites would readily pile their hopes in him to bring their town into the great heights Sodom and Gomorrah had reached. Lot may have had good intentions for the town of Zoar particularly by the time when he was rushing to its gates, hoping that he might change the ways of these wicked people and bring their hearts into total devotion to the God who brought down judgment upon the great cities of the plains. This time, he may have thought, he would be living right for the God of his uncle Abraham, maybe playing the role of a prophet for the Zoarites, a sincerely changed man. Sadly, his sincerity was dashed to pieces as was his hopes when the small town he hoped to convert turned against him.

So Lot and his girls fled to their final refuge: the hills. And there they lived quietly till the last days of Lot. I don't think so, wish it was though. In Ecclesiastes 3:11, it says that God had set eternity in the heart of man. Simply put, God has made man to set his heart into the future, to plan for his future, to look forward. And this was what Lot's daughters were going through. In Genesis 19:31, "the older daughter said to the younger, 'Our father is old, and there is no man around here to give us children—as is the custom all over the earth.'" For Lot, however, the cave, where he niched himself in after trying out Zoar, was the future. That was it for him. He launched out from Abraham's protection as rich as Abraham. He entered Sodom a fresh superhero. He was held in high esteem in Sodom. In the end, he lost everything: his wealth he stored up from his days as Abraham's friend, his wife, his friends, his trust, his security. Now, he was about to lose his self respect, for in the thirty-second verse his older daughter was plotting of raping their father to ensure their future—after all, it was dad who dragged us here, let him give us our future!

"Let’s get our father to drink wine and then sleep with him and preserve our family line through our father” (verse 32).

The thirty-third up to the thirty-sixth verses showed how the plan was consummated. Two daughters succeeding, taking turns raping their father. The thirty-sixth plainly saying that both girls got pregnant to who would become Israel's most relentless adversaries (verses 37 and 38). Through the sight of his sons-slash-grandsons by his daughters, righteous Lot, who wept for the rest of his life for what was lost to him in the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, went on through the last days of his lonely existence tortured by the lurid image of Sodom's immoral spirit.

"The older daughter had a son, and she named him Moab; he is the father of the Moabites of today. The younger daughter also had a son, and she named him Ben-Ammi; he is the father of the Ammonites of today" (verses 37 and 38).

"Moab" means "from father," while Ben-Ammi means "son of my father's people."

Burstein Collection/CORBIS

To me it was absolutely unthinkable how a daughter could conceive of such a plan to pursue. Considering that the plan came from someone who saw the hand of God miraculously deliver her family and herself from terrible judgment. On the other hand, it was as equally unthinkable for me to read about how her own father offer her and her sister to a sex-crazed Sodomite crowd to save his two visitors from being gang raped. Scholars today, however, explain that Lot may just have been making a point how seriously important these two visitors were. As it was during those days, the scholars continue, ancient folk always used exaggeration to drive a point, to emphasize. But Lot's girls also had a point. And so did Sarah way back in the days when the promise of a son was first disclosed to Abraham which is why she offered her maidservant Hagar as it was the custom in those days to offer the slave because, after all, the slave owned nothing, and whichever you wanted to take from the slave was fine for it was the way in those days, right? Well, Sarah found out that, like today, whichever belonged to anyone belonged to her, whoever she was because when the distinction needed to be made who the real promised son was, the slave girl and her son ended up packing and hitting the dirt road!

It was the same for these girls. Imagine the horror that bleached them before that lust-sweltering crowd when they heard their father sacrifice his daughters to be gang raped. Was there really any confidence in the obvious that a sex-crazed crowd of homosexuals roaring for the two angels would utterly reject the virgin daughters? The Sodomite men may have had raging hormones during that time but—again, like today— many of the men had homosexual desires and not completely homosexuals. This particular situation seems to have repeated itself in Judges 19, when a Levite and his concubine traveling through the city of Gibeah in the territory of Benjamin were harassed by the "wicked men of the city" (verse 22). Here's how it went down, and tell me if this does not look familiar:

“'You are welcome at my house,' the old man said. 'Let me supply whatever you need. Only don’t spend the night in the square.' So he took him into his house and fed his donkeys. After they had washed their feet, they had something to eat and drink. While they were enjoying themselves, some of the wicked men of the city surrounded the house. Pounding on the door, they shouted to the old man who owned the house, 'Bring out the man who came to your house so we can have sex with him.' The owner of the house went outside and said to them, 'No, my friends, don’t be so vile. Since this man is my guest, don’t do this outrageous thing. Look, here is my virgin daughter, and his concubine. I will bring them out to you now, and you can use them and do to them whatever you wish. But as for this man, don’t do such an outrageous thing'” (Judges 19:20–24).

Previous to this text, the weary Levite and his partner had already reached the outskirts of the city of Jebus and it was nearing nightfall by then. He refused to enter it, however, because in those days, this city which would later be known as Jerusalem was inhabited by pagan Jebusites, which the Israelites could not dislodge, and the holy man had made it a point not to "go into any city whose people are not Israelites" (verse 12). Confident in the safety of his own countrymen, he decided to travel a little bit more towards Gibeah or Ramah (verse 13). By nightfall, the man of God and his partner reached Gibeah, but finding an inn for themselves was a bit tricky—no one wanted to take them in (verse 15). If not for a kindly old man, who by chance was also an Ephraimite like the Levite, the holy man and his concubine would have spent the night in the city square where they would not survive the night, as they were fearfully briefed by the old Ephraimite who took them into his own home. But, as they later found out, it didn't take spending the night in the city square to get "surrounded" by "some of the wicked men of the city" (verse 22):

"Pounding on the door, they shouted to the old man who owned the house, 'Bring out the man who came to your house so we can have sex with him.' "

The old man who owned the house, kind as he was, did a Lot and pleaded with the drooling crowd, offering his "virgin daughter and [the Levite's] concubine" (verse 24). Right down to the last detail as it was with Lot—and he had to offer two: his daughter and the concubine! But unlike with Lot's daughters, the concubine was not so fortunate. Though the men "would not listen" to good, hospitable old man (verse 25), Mr. Holy Levite Man chooses to save old man's soul:

"So the man took his concubine and sent her outside to them, and they raped her and abused her throughout the night, and at dawn they let her go. At daybreak the woman went back to the house where her master was staying, fell down at the door and lay there until daylight" (verses 25 and 26).

While the visiting angels of Sodom reached out to grab Lot from the frenzied mob, the man of God grabbed his concubine and fed her to the howling werewolves.

Was it revenge for Lot's daughters? Did the offer they've heard and witnessed from their very own father trying to appease a swarm of men reduced to creatures of instincts create such a deep hatred that they waited for the right moment to return the favor regardless whether Lot was where they derive their flesh and blood? Or was it the last price he had to pay for choosing to cast lots with the culture of the wicked? END.

Enfleshments

2013-11-22T18:53:00.000-08:00

©Bettmann/Corbis

JEWISH HISTORIAN FLAVIUS JOSEPHUS described the four-hundred-year interval between the days of the Prophet Malachi and John the Baptist as religiously corrupt. The priesthood was a virtual business corporation and a political oligarchy at the same time. It maintained the façade of the Mosaic spiritual tradition restored but only as a measure of control to keep the Jews politically in line as by that time, the world powers have already acquired an idea how the Jews restrained a notorious inclination to rebel that broke at the slightest instance their religious rights were curtailed. But the biggest aspect claimed for perdition was the Zoroastrian adulteration of the Word of God.

©Chris Hellier/CORBIS

The millennia of Babylonian control over Near Eastern paganism had ended and it was the turn for the new Persian masters to dictate the region’s cultural advance. The summit of this control was attained with the rise of Magian Zoroastrianism, during a time when the Orient needed a stronghold against the torrential march of the Roman Empire. By 150 B.C. the Magians had successfully unified the East through a religious and cultural shield against the rising tide of Rome's advance towards the sands of the former Persian Empire.

©Diego Lezama Orezzoli/CORBIS

The appearance of the Magi in the story of the first Christmas may somehow tell us about the kind of influence the oriental religion exerted over Palestine. As the vast eastern realm of the Magi survived politically to counterbalance the power of the Roman West, the spiritual appeal of the Magian culture carved out the religious configuration of the domain it once called its own. From the time Cyrus the Great was momentarily identified as the Deliverer of the Jews for re-opening the opportunity to them of populating Palestine, and though holding itself aloof with its own special revelation, Israel seemed to have manifested a profound respect for the Persian culture. For several hundred years, the Jewish and the Magian religions learned from each other, developing perspectives that apparently shed greater luminance to how they understood their traditional doctrines. The Persian religion, in fact, was a main foreign agent which helped establish the rabbinical Jewish sect of the Pharisees that proposed the existence of a Heaven and a Hell, angels and demons, a resurrection of the dead, a final judgment, and other matters that the priestly Sadducaic denomination of Judaism did not adhere to (Matthew 22:23, Mark 12:18, Luke 20:27).

©Stefano Bianchetti/Corbis

Yet of all the doctrines that swept through the region, it was Persian theology of dualism that proved to be the most embraced. The appeal of dualism did not lie in its uniqueness, but in the fact that people older than the Persians, like the Babylonians and the Egyptians, had already patented a basic framework of this in their fundamental doctrines. This meant that the region had by then been tilled with the idea of the battling forces of good and evil and was therefore easy for the native Near Eastern to swallow and digest than any other import that came in the hoof beats of later Western conquerors. The principle of spiritual twofoldness became the most popular perspective and inclination than many other beliefs in the former Persian Empire. Greater significance, however, must be noted on how Persian theology fundamentally impacted Israel as the first one served as a plug that checked the latter's loss of spiritual identity to the seduction of Hellenistic dilution that came in the end of two centuries of Achaemenid dominance.

©Images.com/Corbis

The element of Zoroastrianism, if imagined as a monster in a prophetic vision, may be seen two heads: one of fair complexion with gentle features to represent the goodness of the light, while the other hideous, vicious, and aggressive to embody the treachery of the dark. But there are more to the bellows of this monster echoing to our days than just the eternal battle of light and darkness . Contemporary studies assert that even the concepts we understand today of Heaven and Hell can be traced back to the Zoroastrian religion. The original Old Testament doctrine holds nothing much about Heaven and Hell except that Heaven is either God’s abode or the Promised Land while Hell can either refer to the state of death, represented by the ground or a pit, or the condition of exile from God’s Promised Land. No one before and during the time of Jesus ever suggested ascending to Heaven after death to be with God—except for Moses, David, Solomon, and Jesus Himself, none of whom were known to have been schooled in the feet of the Eastern sages. Orthodox Zoroastrianism held that the soul after death was supposed to meet his conscience either in the shape of a damsel or a hag, depending to the merits or demerits gain during its lifetime. Our traditional understanding today of determining the final destiny of the righteous and the wicked—by the counting of good and bad deeds, words, and thoughts—stem from Zoroastrianism. This even goes for the belief that certain prayers, offerings, rites, and ceremonies performed for the sake of the deceased can win them a place in Heaven [Collier's Encyclopedia, Vol. 23, 1997, 166)].

©The Gallery Collection/Corbis

The mutation of God’s Word and foreign conviction was what God Enfleshed ran into by the sixth century B.C. By that time it had entrenched itself into the Palestinian culture and Jesus had to reveal the real power of God’s Law, not by abolishing the Law or the prophets but by fulfilling them (Matthew 5:17), which the Pharisees spent all their dedication seeking to unravel. Jesus referred to them as “blind guides” (Matthew 15:14) attempting to lead other blind folks into another way of discovering the Truth, which Jesus had already prepared to those who believe in Him. The way of the Pharisees was a way to the ditch—death, in other words. Theirs was a matter complicated by their own doing and Jesus showed them how their mixed up hybrid doctrine was way off the mark. Jesus, on the other hand, came and offered the Gospel: a message of repentance—“Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is near” (Matthew 4:17)—a declaration that the “year of the Lord’s favor” has finally come, and now is revealed the One whom the Spirit of God had chosen to proclaim good news to the poor, release to the captives, freedom to the oppressed, and the regaining of sight to the blind (Luke 4:18–19). Notice the recurrence of that last word: blind, the very word that Jesus used to describe the teachers and complicators of the Law. These very people whom He publicly exposed in searing condemnation in Matthew 23:12–36, during the latter part of His ministry, were nonetheless invited to receive the Gospel. Jesus cared for the blind so much that no blindness survived an encounter with Him. Until He came head-to-head with that of those whom He called “blind guides” (verse 16).

At the time of His death, “about the sixth hour…darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour, for the sun had stopped shining” (Luke 23:44–45), vanished the “great light” which the Prophet Isaiah spoke about in the ninth chapter and second verse of his ancient text. But in that darkness was declared the formal closure of the power of the Law: “the curtain of the temple was torn in two” (ibid.). In the same way as the prophet John the Baptist diminished in the ministry for the sake of the rise of the Messiah (John 3:30), the Law fell on its knees in abject surrender to the power of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross and ascribed to Him the salvation it never had in its hands to give.

JOHN THE BAPTIST—THE ENFLESHMENT OF THE LAW.

John the Baptist is popularly known as Jesus’ forerunner, the voice in the desert calling to make straight the way for the Lord (Isaiah 40:3); yet virtually unnoticed to all was his role as the representation of the perfection of the Law—he was a prophet, and like any other prophet, he represented the pure and unchanged state of the Law. He was an enfleshment of the Law, the picture of its strength and limitations. “The law of the Lord is perfect,” hailed King David in Psalm 119:7, and who will argue with the man God personally considered “after [His] own heart” (1 Samuel 13:14)? Almost by default, we today do not view the Law with the fairness the Bible actually provides. We have understood it in the perspective of bondage and inadequacy to cleanse the human spirit opposite the salvation Jesus provided on the cross. We have skipped over the parts where the Apostle Paul upheld the Law (Romans 3:31) and where Jesus fulfilled them rather than abolish them (Matthew 5:17). In prophetic song, David rejoiced over the beauty of the Law, providing his kingdom a whole new perspective in living a life dedicated to the Lord. But according to the Apostle Paul, the Law pointed the way to salvation instead of being salvation itself. According to Romans 3:20 “through the law we become conscious of sin”; the writer of Hebrews stated that the Law provided the requirements for forgiveness—the shedding of blood (9:22)—but did not itself grant salvation. In fact, it was expressed in 10:1 that “the same sacrifices [must] be repeated endlessly year after year” though it did not make perfect those who drew near to worship. The ensuing passage explains:

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“If it (the annual sacrifices prescribed by Law) could [provide salvation], would they have stopped being offered? For the worshipers would have been cleansed once for all, and would no longer have felt guilty for their sins. But those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins, because it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins” (verses 2–4).

John the Baptist was a constant reminder for the people of Israel to “repent” (Matthew 3:1). He was the personification of why the Law was provided man: to make him conscious of his sinful state and point him to the “Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). So when John saw the crowds of people wanting to be water baptized coming to Jesus instead of him, he who perfectly spoke in the very words of the Law finally proclaimed the end and greatest weakness of his ministry:

“A man can receive only what is given him from heaven. You yourselves can testify that I said, ‘I am not the Christ but am sent ahead of him.’ The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him, and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom’s voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete. He must become greater; I must become less” (John 3:27–30).

When John the Baptist witnessed the hungry repentant crowds seeking baptism gravitating towards Jesus, he saw the future and, in it, the irrelevance of the Law—his irrelevance. He saw the end of the Law’s effectivity, the end of its very days when sacrifices will truly cease and the altar forever cleaned of animal blood. He therefore saw no point of keeping the tradition alive now that the One who comes from above and is above all has come (verse 31).

“Whoever believes in the Son,” declared John, “has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains of him” (verse 36).

John is known to us as the Messianic Forerunner as the Law he represented was “a shadow of the good things that are coming—not the realities themselves” (Hebrews 10:1). For this principle, John never had it in his heart to compete with the ministry of the Son of God. John represented the harmony the Law found in Jesus. Unlike the impression young modern believers have towards the Law today, it was never in conflict with the salvation of Jesus. When that curtain tore from top to bottom, the open invitation of the Gospel to all mankind became viciously, unmistakably clear, and John the Baptist, the embodiment of the Law in all its strengths and limitations, could only point all souls to the Source of this invitation. And if some people truly listened to John in his preaching, their eyes would have been instantly opened to the One “whom God has sent [to speak] the word of God…[who has been given] the Spirit without limit” (verse 34). But though He came speaking freely of salvation and peace, they believed Him not and the message and warning that preserved the life of many became hidden to them—

“If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes…because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you” (Luke 19:42, 44).

The Law never tried to update itself to compete with the rising trend of the Messiah. That effrontery was done by the Pharisees, and if the Pharisees were smart enough it could have been obvious to them that Jesus Himself was the Law’s update, the last and the only. John the Baptist lived his life as the personification of what God intended the Law to be. It was therefore no wonder Jesus considered him as the greatest ever risen—

“I tell you the truth: Among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing and forceful men lay hold of it. For all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John. And if you are willing to accept it, he is the Elijah who was to come” (Matthew 11:11–14).

©Jon Hicks/Corbis

And it was in this honor Jesus regarded the Law. John the Baptist was a righteous man, even the wicked King Herod believed this and even “protected him” (Mark 6:20). Herod “feared” the man, considered him “holy” (ibid.), and though John screamed at his face about taking Herodias as his queen, Herod “liked to listen to him” preach (ibid.). When he ordered the execution of the prophet, it was said that he was “greatly distressed” (verse 26). But if Herod or his wife, who goaded for the beheading of John, thought that Judea had heard the last of the prophet, they had another thing coming: for not only did John’s life testify of the power of the Law. If Herod had truly learned anything in all of John’s teachings he could have understood how the dissolution of his kingdom was prophetically foreshadowed in the violent murder of John. END

The Rock of Mages

2012-07-27T03:38:00.005-07:00

ACCORDING TO SOME MODERN ZOROASTRIAN ACCOUNTS, the original Magi occupied ancient Bactria. Some experts assert that it was in this country where the first Zarathustra found refuge when he was banished from of his own tribe. It was here where his philosophy blossomed into a greater way of life complete with a caste of brilliant priests—our Magi, similar to the Israelite tribe of Levi who were designated to serve God as His priests and religious attendants. It was a lineage made up of Zarathustra’s best handpicked disciples, and from this he chose some to be itinerant teachers to scour the Near East for the purpose of drawing converts. The invasion of Alexander the Great in 330 B.C. shattered the Magi’s ancient lineage. From then on, the exclusivity of the title Magus was corrupted as non-Zoroastrian priests began donning the label for themselves even as Alexander declared himself the “Great King” in Medo-Persian tradition when he was Greek. Or rather Macedonian, whom the Greeks scorned as semi-barbaric.

► Bactria

The standard understanding, however, has been that it was in Bactria where Zoroastrianism gathered its greatest adherents after the death of Zarathustra. Not much is truly known of Bactria; among those in record is that it became an independent kingdom in the third century B.C., came under the power of the Medes then became a satrapy of Cyrus the Great about 540 B.C. Its wide and bustling highways of commerce and trade provided for the Persian Empire immeasurable wealth in gold revenue and goods from the most exotic regions of its distant borders. It was also through these great Bactrian highways that the Zoroastrian religion was introduced to every part of the Empire and later into the West, as far as Rome. By the time of Cyrus the Great, it was said that Bactria was already the main hub of Zoroastrianism since around the seventh century. And as significantly, it along one of these highways that led the Zoroastrian Magi to Palestine, bearing gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh, seeking the One called King of the Jews.

Photo: Baldur's Gate ©Wizards of the Coast

But what the Jews, and some of us Christians today, never expected and, to this day, have never understood—beyond the sovereign choice of God, is this: God was with the Magi, whether they knew it or not.

The Biblical account is literally clear that the Magi were in search of a “king,” a hero understandably human, who, like the Jews believed, would lift his people out of oppression and into a national state of deliverance and prosperity. It may have not been too remote for the Wise Men to have interpreted such a king in the same way as the Jews did in that aside from having knowledge of the Hebrew Scriptures, their religion, Zoroastrianism, also held the belief in a messiah who would be born into this world and prepare it for the end.

Whatever the Magi or the Jews expected, there's some certainty, they were expecting the heroic type, like this one on the right. And there is some certainty that nobody expected the one below.▼

The Zoroastrian culture was established by its prophet Zoroaster, or Zarathustra, who was a culture-bearer of sorts, believed to have arrived to his people and offered the innovation of agriculture. Historically, he was said to have initiated the Neolithic revolution that ensured the greater survival of his people. And to bring to life greater ideals of prosperity and life, he was believed to return in nine thousand years and bring a new age to mankind. Then in the sixth or seventh century B.C., another individual bearing the name Zarathustra did appear establishing religious reforms, which to some people were corruptions to the original Zoroastrian doctrine. Nevertheless, these reforms were accepted and a new Zoroastrianism was instituted under the new rule of the Persians when they successfully wrested supremacy from the Medes.

► Parthia

By the time of Jesus’ birth, the great seventh-century-B.C. power of the Medo-Persians had been massively reduced into the much inferior Parthian Empire whose expansionistic wave was decisively walled out at the borders of Palestine and Syria, which by this time was owned by a new world power—Rome, and everyone who was either under the power of Rome or stood in the way of its imperial quest groaned in the jaws of this monster’s ruthless oppression. How rife was the time for a hero to emerge and save the world from brutal tyranny. The good news was that contained in the Jewish and Persian tradition was the hope of such a champion to come; the better news was that the Persian Magi had learned of the exact date when this champion was to be born.

Source: antiquitatis.com

Parthia was a part of the former Persian and Greek empires which Rome largely never got to touch. In the early days of its rise to power, the Imperial Eagle sent its legions into the region to either push back its enemies advancing from the orient or to pressure rival forces to capitulate. Noted of these campaigns were the ones by the Trajan where he was able to inflict several severe defeats upon the Parthians and capture from them several provinces. But that was during his reign between 98 and 117 A.D., by the second century, which by that time the Parthian Empire was on the decline. In the first century A.D., however, Parthia was Rome’s major pain in the neck on the eastern front as it maintained and expressed its defiant sovereignty by ruthlessly decimating any Latin force plunging into their sandy territory. An example of their fury is told when they poured molten gold down the throat of the notorious Roman financier and politician Marcus Licinius Crassus after the attacking Roman force he was with fell int middle of the desperation of the times, echoes of a Promised Deliverer come reverberating from land nearby and the Persians realize that they are not alone in their hope. The Hebrews, a people Cyrus inherited out of his conquest over the Babylonians, were likewise awaiting for One foretold by prophets of old who would overthrow Roman oppression and establish His everlasting kingdom where there will be peace, where—

“The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them” (Isaiah 11:6); where “the cow will feed with the bear, their young will lied down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox” (verse 7); where “the infant will play near the hole of the cobra, and the young child put his hand into the viper’s nest” (verse 8); where all beings “will neither harm nor destroy on all [His] holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea” (verse 9).

The Persians understood this for their Magian religion taught of a clear belief in a future life. They believed that in the end, the forces of good would be rallied behind a messiah to overcome evil and iron out a world free of Ahriman, the god of darkness. The last great day would come when the souls of the dead would be judged according to their deeds and Paradise be made available for those whose lives be found justified.

Seven hundred years after the last Zarathustra had made his visit and brought the Persian culture to the summit of world dominance, another one like him from out of the remnants of the Old Persian Empire was about to arise, whose star the Zoroastrian Magi had charted from the time they stormed and took over the temples of Babylon. Both Jew and Persian braved the oppression of the times, strengthened by the hope of a hero to come. With the advantage of the Hebrew Scriptures, the Zoroastrian priestly writings called the Zendavesta, and the Magian knowledge of astrology, the Magi’s expectation became enhanced with a precise calculation as to when the Messiah would come. And when the date fell, “they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him” (Matthew 2:11).

This worship, this act of allegiance, some historians believe, was a decision to show that the priests of Zarathustra had recognized Him, accepted Him, as the hero whom they awaited [Stewart C. Easton, The Heritage of the Past (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1961); p.105].

After the account of the birth of Jesus the Magi disappear from the pages of the Bible. Not, however, without representation from two New Testament figures who virtually depicted the dualism of light and darkness espoused by the Magian religion.

In the time of Jesus, Judaism was already bordered within by sects, dominant among which were the Pharisaic, or Rabbinic, and the Sadducaic. Yet there was also another one more reclusive, more fundamental, and surprisingly, more Magian. They situated themselves in the desert wilderness of the Judean region, away from mainstream urban and rustic settlements where the major Jewish denominations have established their bastions. In Greek, they were called hosios for their discipline and dedication to holiness; yet in a name still shrouded in mystery to this day, this sect was known as the Essenes, famous to our generation for authoring the so-called Dead Sea Scrolls discovered in 1947.

Their strict observance to Law made the Essenes principally similar in character to the Pharisees, except for the part where the latter was cited for their long “flowing robes” in which they love to walk around in the marketplaces and be greeted by the inconvenienced crowd (Luke 20:46). While the stoles of the Pharisees were winning them “important seats in the synagogues and the places of honor in the banquets” (verse 47), simple white garments identified the Essenes in their unsophisticated lifestyle of habitually eating the plainest food, self-support by manual labor, and sharing communal wealth and property in a world where there was neither rich nor poor but where everyone rejoiced in having everything they basically needed.

◄ © American Colony Photographers/National Geographic Society/Corbis

Source: theesseneway.net

Manifest likenesses to the Pharisaic and the Christian sects have been drawn of the Essenes since the modern world caught notice of these peculiar people who shook the foundations of contemporary Christianity as well as Judaism. And it has been as far suggested by some writers that Christianity was an outgrowth of Essenism even though the strict foundational legalism of the Essenes diametrically contrasts Christianity’s emphasis on salvation by grace. Never, however, has there been any implication—or has it ever been a popular food for thought—that standing evidences also assert shreds of Magian Zoroastrian influence might have somehow secured an important part of the Essene doctrine.

Source: blackplanet.com

Though historical records at best trace the Essenes’ origin from the second century B.C., its members claim their beginnings back to Adam’s seventh son Enoch (Genesis 4:17–18), the first of two celebrated personalities in the Bible who was taken into heaven without traversing death. As accounts have it, it was from the powerful Jewish political party called the Hasideans where the nucleus of the first Essene membership emerged [Max I. Dimont, Jews, God and History (New York: Mentor, 1994); p.92]. Losing their taste for politics, they withdrew into an isolated existence of religious observance, but that was after they have realized what had become of their group which at the beginning simply sought to keep alive the fire of faithfulness to the Mosaic Law and the restoration of the Davidic kings. Never had they envisioned the massive Jewish following in their midst awaiting leadership that would stand against the Hellenization of Israel. They were a spark that launched the Jewish national anti-Hellenization movement leading to the Maccabean revolt in 167 B.C. The flame which they ignited however was carried out by the separatist Pharisees, another Hasidean faction that would not agree with the isolationist sentiments of the Essenes. In the period following the failure of the Maccabean revolt, some historians assert that John Hyrcanus (135–105 B.C.), son of the last surviving brother of the great Judas Maccabeus, issued oppressive measures against the Essenes, particularly to persecute the latter’s very respected Teacher of Righteousness for the mere reason of a rebuke which the Teacher gave to Hyrcanus for switching party affiliation to the Sadducees, the sect that supported Israel’s Hellenization. The harassment which Hyrcanus initiated against the Teacher of Righteousness continued in the reign of his successor Alexander Jannaeus (103–76 B.C.), forcing the Teacher to flee to region of Damascus where the Syrians were engaged in an offensive against Jannaeus (Genesis of Eden http://www.dhushara.com/book/yeshua/apoc.htm). Here we see the striking, almost supernatural, resemblance of events between the Essene master fleeing to Syria and Zarathustra retreating to Bactria. But while the flight of Zarathustra account is largely debatable to this day, the story of about the Essene Teacher of Righteousness surprisingly turns out historically factual as discovered in the 1947 unearthing of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Source: truelovetoo.blogspot.com

Among the manuscripts dug up by the Qumran scientific team was one entitled The War of the Sons of Light with the Sons of Darkness, the document that made experts decide that it was the Essenes who had established Christianity around two hundred years before Jesus lived. This is the account where the Teacher of Righteousness makes his appearance, a man whose life not only reflects Zarathustra but Jesus as well. According to the ancient writings, the Teacher was considered as a divinely sent Messiah who violently died in the hands of the Sons of Darkness. The Essenes, being disciples of this Teacher, called themselves the Elect of God and their doctrine the New Covenant. This set of facts alone was all Sorbonne Professor A. Dupont-Sommer needed to attribute the foundation of Christianity to the Essene tradition, as he stated in his study entitled, The Dead Sea Scrolls: A Preliminary Survey. Then a more in-depth examination of this religion further showed that the Essenes called their chief priest the “Anointed One,” same as St. Paul and his Christian disciples called Jesus; and ordinary priests whose role may have been similar to that of the Old Testament Levites were referred to as the “sons of Aaron.” This piece of information, however, did not nullify the existence of a particular Teacher of Righteousness who, like Jesus, preached humility, love for one’s neighbor, and obedience to the Law of Moses before dying a violent death between 65 to 53 B.C. Like Jesus, the Essene Teacher was the subject of religious hate particularly from the party of the Sadducees, which as we have seen in brief composed the political force which John Hyrcanus switched to after being sharply rebuked by the Teacher.

Other manuscripts discovered along with The War of the Sons of Light with the Sons of Darkness are the monumental scrolls of the Prophet Isaiah which may be the originals of his entire book which has been canonized in the Bible. It was the foundation of their conviction from their early anti-Hellenistic days that attracted an entire nation into a sentiment expressed by a great prophet who envisioned the final hours of the very Lamb of God. The impact of the message found in Isaiah 53 never seemed to have gotten into the minds of the people until God supernaturally allowed it to be practically lived out by the Teacher of Righteousness as a sample of what the Jews could expect once His true Messiah would finally be enfleshed. Now imagine the shock of this devout Jewish sect when they came to discover how a Persian prophet by the name of Zoroaster likewise lived through the same exact ordeal of persecution and rejection from his very own people centuries before the time of the Teacher of Righteousness. There was a trend occurring which may have been divinely strung as the times marched closer to the Messiah’s arrival.

To the Israelites, heaven meant Canaan, the Land of God’s Promise. Although they understood that there was an actual heaven, it was, to them, God’s throne (Isaiah 66:1); Israel was the heaven He had given to His people. Israel in its heavenly context would be the capital of earth’s prosperity and contentment, living up to its description as the “land flowing with milk and honey” (Exodus 3:8,17; 13:5; 33:3; Leviticus 20:24; Numbers 13:27, 14:8, 16:13–14; Deuteronomy 6:3, 11:9, 26:9, 15; 27:3; 31:20; Joshua 5:6; etc.). If there was any hell, it was the condition of being cast away from the Land or the hopelessness of not having to return to the Land forever. The Northern Kingdom of Israel was said to have descended into the grave, or hell, from the time it was devastated, its people deported into Assyria, and swept into extinction when its conqueror fell into defeat. The Southern Kingdom of Judah, however, was, as sung by King David, saved from the cords of death (Psalm 116:3–4) when they found hope in the land of Babylon. Ultimately consummating God’s deliverance was one He had already chosen before the time Judah was sent into exile—Cyrus the Great:

“who says of Cyrus, ‘He is my shepherd and will accomplish all that I please; he will say of Jerusalem, “Let it be rebuilt,” and of the temple, “Let its foundations be laid”’” (Isaiah 44:28).

Source: deebrestin.com

Cyrus the Great, in his act of sending the Jews back home, became a picture of the One True Messiah—Jesus Christ—in His purpose to bring deliverance to those He loves and those who love Him. It can be said that Cyrus the Great was the symbolic messiah to remind the new generation of Israelites, now called Jews, that there was going to be a Messiah to come, greater than the Persian monarch who would not begin to measure up to carry the thongs of His sandals. Yet what could be a coincidence or a prophetic marker in Cyrus’ culture was Zarathustra, the messianic aspect of the Persian religion identical to that of the Jews’. This, along with the Jews’ respect for Cyrus the Great, may have been a converging point that may explain the Zoroastrian complexion of the Essene ethos.

The choice of white garments worn by the Essenes may trace its origin from the Magian tradition that identifies the pure color to the righteousness of Ahura-Mazda, the god of light. The Essenes believed in a world equally polarized by the opposing forces of good and evil, as very well stated in the title of their document, The War of the Sons of Light with the Sons of Darkness, reflective of the distinctive Magian theology of Dualism. Another document written under the scope of dualism as applied to the political trend of its time was the Habakkuk Commentary. It was said to have been authored around 41 B.C. explaining how the rising tide of Rome represented the oppressive power of Darkness.

Source: mishkanministries.org

Magian theology has been able to contribute considerably to Essene thought like the belief in Hell and with it a modification of the original Jewish doctrine of Heaven; a future resurrection of the dead to face judgment; a shaping of an Essene version of Ahriman the Persian god of darkness in the form of Belial. Because of Dualism, the impression that evil was co-equal in power and strength to the force of good pervaded in religious consciousness. But let it also be understood: the Magian influence did not only affect the Essenes in that even the Pharisees and the Sadducees chose to rethink select aspects of their doctrines and accommodate some Magian judgments that came as sound and principally enhancing. Perhaps one of the attractions which drew the Jewish attention to the Zoroastrian philosophy was a number similarities possessed by the latter to the first one. An example was the seven-branched golden lampstand which God ordered lit “before the Lord from evening till morning” (Exodus 27:21). In Zoroastrian interpretation, this fire which continually burned in the Temple of the Lord was a symbol of the light of all goodness and purity that their god Ahura-Mazda stood for. Later down the centuries to the time of Jesus, the emblem of fire would grow in popularity as a Zoroastrian sect called Mithraism draws the faith of those from both near and distant lands of the Roman world. The problem with the harmonization of alien additions into the Jewish faith was that it did more to clutter and cloud the main understanding of what the Laws of God simply intended to convey. Jesus later referred to these supplements as the “yeast of the Pharisees and the Sadducees” (Matthew 16:6,11–12; Mark 8:15; Luke 12:1).

Jesus was troubled by the corruption of the basics of Jewish faith that in His debates with the experts of the Law in His land, readers will frequently note how He brought the issue back to its foundation as if He was re-educating them on the heart of matter, cutting through the confusion of the “yeast” which spiritual Israel had welcomed from its time in Babylon and then with its friendship with the Persians. During Jesus’ time, religious teachers were too immersed in doing good by obeying the letter of the Law without having, however, a firm idea why God really wanted His people’s obedience. In His teaching regarding hating and forgiving one’s neighbor, Jesus cites a regulation imposed by the Sanhedrin:

“…anyone who says to his brother, ‘Raca,’ is answerable to the Sanhedrin” (Matthew 5:22).

Raca is a word used to utterly vilify an individual, calling him “worthless.” Notice that in the next verse the word is no different from “you fool,” the slur which Jesus cited would bring anyone in danger of the fires of hell (verse 23). What Jesus was saying was that any one word an individual uses to curse his brother will immediately reserve him a seat in that dreaded place of eternal darkness, worms, and boiling excrement, no matter what the Sanhedrin and its fancy alien-inspired laws stipulate.

In His exposition on adultery, Jesus makes it very elementary. The interpretation of the law, “Do not commit adultery” (Matthew 5:27, Exodus 20:13) had been shredded into a multitude of commentaries that the basic attitude of God for the matter has been forgotten. Jesus, however, makes it very simple:

“…anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:28).

“Define ‘lustfully.’” That’s the condescending attitude one would get from an expert of the Law in the time of Jesus who had learned to “analyze” and “philosophize” and “sift through the possibilities where exceptions may or may not be applied.” The general mindset one educated in the scrolls of Babylonia and Persia was enveloped in the single word, “Objectivity.” Well, Jesus expressed just the opposite. God was not “Objective” about anything when He carved out the Ten Commandments twice on Moses’ stone tablets. When He stipulated, “Do not commit adultery,” it was because He hated adultery—and divorce, by the way (Malachi 2:16); when He expressed, “You shall have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3) and “You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything…[nor] bow down to them or worship them” (verses 4–5), it was because He was “a jealous God” (Ibid.). Now where’s the Objectivity there? God established laws because He is One “punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to thousands who love me and keep my commandments” (verse 5–6).

And it was the years of cross-referencing the Holy Scriptures with neighboring doctrines of belief from the years after 586 B.C. to 26 B.C. that had contaminated “expert” interpretation and subsequent obedience to the Law of God. It was then up to Jesus to bring the Law and the Prophets into completion:

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them” (Matthew 5:17).

As we focus a little longer on this verse we can come to a conclusion that the original interpretation of the Scriptures taught by Moses and held until the fall of Judah in 586 B.C. was no longer the foundation of how Jesus’ generation understood the Law. We can furthermore expect that the obscuration caused by addition of the Magian and other possible foreign trappings had rendered the original basics alien to the Jews. Jesus’ engagement with the Sadducees regarding a soul’s marriage at the resurrection, for example, showed how estranged these experts had become to generate such a question like, “…at the resurrection, whose wife will [a woman] be of the seven [brothers], since all of them were married to her” (Matthew 22:27)? The response Jesus gave was not even considered to be called a rebuttal:

“You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God. At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven. But about the resurrection of the dead—have you not read what God said to you, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead but of the living” (verse 29–32).

Source: kansastypewriter.wordpress.com

Interpretation: “Dudes, y’all missed the bridge by a hun’rid miles!” And if we may add: “Where y’all been?” Imagine the Sadducees, who did not believe in heaven, hell, or any resurrection of the dead, engaging Jesus in matters of the afterlife! Come on!—that is, unless they were propelled by the intention to promote Jesus as a Master of the Scriptures by making themselves look stupid! Though the Sadducees held a conservative understanding of the Scriptures, they were not unfamiliar to the popular teachings of their times espoused by the Pharisees, the Essenes, and other competing Jewish sects that were sprinkled with popular Magian hallmarks.

It has been a popular assertion that Jesus was an Essene partly because of the number of statements He made in the Bible that can be directly traced to the Essene tradition. One such statement allegedly made was in Matthew 5 where He spoke about “the light of the world” (verse 14). It seems that such writers once detecting the word “light” were just too quick to refer to their Essene records and thus fit Him among the ascetics of the ancient Jewish religious spectrum who wore garments of white and called themselves the Sons of Light. Another giveaway was in His famous Beatitudes where He alluded to the virtue of Essene frugal life:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they will be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:3,5–10).

Advocates of an Essene Jesus further assert that He advocated fasting, an activity that the Essenes were primarily devoted to, in that He even recommended it in more difficult cases of demon possession (Matthew 17:21 and Mark 9:29). But if this were so, then why was it asked, in Matthew 9:14, Mark 2:18, Luke 5:33, of His disciples why they never fasted as did those of the Pharisees and those of John? And for this, Jesus replied, “How can the guests of the bridegroom mourn while he is with them? The time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; then they will fast” (Matthew 9:15). The truth of the matter was that Jesus did teach His disciples to fast, to fast inconspicuously, not in the popular way that publicly advertised their moment of self-denial—

Source: robinhl.com

“…do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show men they are fasting” (Matthew 6:16).

Jesus instead recommended looking good and, most of all, normal: “But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to men that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen” (verse 17).

The Essenes were strictly legalistic, like the Pharisees, but not Jesus. In Matthew 12, Jesus’ disciples were once again placed under the spotlight as they passed through the grain fields and began picking and munching on some heads of grain (verse 1). The Pharisees were indignant and cried out, “Look! Your disciples are doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath” (verse 2). It can be one of two things, Him being an Essene in both cases: that Jesus was an irresponsible Teacher or a rebel to His own culture. His alleged “violations” of the Sabbath did not stop there. In verses 9 to 13, Jesus provoked His accusers to anger by healing a man’s shriveled hand on the same day with this in His defense:

Source: pastorblog.cumcdebary.org

“If any of you has a sheep and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will you not take hold of it and lift it out? How much more valuable is a man than a sheep! Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath” (verse 11 to 12).

With a strict Essene, it is doubtful for him to risk violating the regulation of the holy Sabbath. For this, an Essene will miss the point as will any Pharisee or Sadducee.

If Jesus were an Essene, would He delight one bit knowing that the version of the Law by which His society had been formed sports shards of Magian belief? Yet on the other side of the Essene prism, not even the Magi would agree to some of the Essene tenets, like asceticism and excessive fasting.

But perhaps one of the greatest disregards to Scripture made by the advocates of an Essene Jesus is the allegation that He was actually born in Nazareth and not in Bethlehem. Claimants of an Essene Jesus explain that Nazareth was founded as an Essene settlement in the north for which the term “Nazarene” means “Northern Essenes” [Brother Nazariah, D.D., “Introduction to the Ancient Essenes and the Modern Essene Church of Christ” (http://www.essene.org/Ancient_Essenes.htm), The Essene Church of Christ, 1998–1999]. Logic follows that the town was a bastion of the Essene culture with a population clothed in the simplest garments of white, living unsophisticated lives, never marrying, and starving because of excessive fasting. We have no arguments to this, except that Jesus was born here. The Bible is clear that His parents, Joseph and Mary, who were by then living in Nazareth, traveled down to Bethlehem, the town of their birth, in compliance to the Roman decree to register for the “first census” issued by Caesar Augustus (Luke 2:1–2,4). The story in Luke 2:5 continues that on that day, the holy couple were among the most inconvenienced because it was Mary’s most awaited month for Jesus to be born. In the sixth verse, the Expected One chose to be born “while they were there”—“there” where? Bethlehem, that’s where. Luke documented the visit of the shepherds on the night of Jesus’ birth but it was Matthew who recorded that after the party of the Magi and local folk had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream telling him to spirit Mary and Jesus to Egypt because Herod had gone murderously crazy and issued a search-and-destroy for the One born King of the Jews (Matthew 2:13). On the nineteenth and twentieth verses, the same angel who appeared to Joseph in a dream came once again to tell him that Herod had died and thus was the coast clear for them to return to Israel. It took some years, therefore, for Joseph and Mary to have never set foot in Nazareth, thus Biblically junking the argument that Jesus was born in the northern town. But the debunking of the idea that Jesus was an Essene does not end there.

Source: http://catholic-resources.org

The account in Luke 4:14 to 30 tells how the synagogue in Nazareth where he grew up rose furious against Him and drove him to the brow of an outlying hill to hurl him down the cliff (verse 28 to 29). It was after Jesus read on the passage He read in Isaiah 61:1 and 2 and from it taught a strange prophetic sermon about the future of Israel, how the land of God’s Promise would be abandoned by His Spirit in the same way as Elijah was sent to a widow of Zarephath instead of the “many widows in Israel” in his time. For this, His listeners, who could have been Essenes, became homicidally incensed.

If Jesus were an Essene, this story in Luke would have made Him an ex-Essene, or worse, an anti-Essene. But the word “Essene” never appears in the Bible as do “Pharisees” and “Sadducees” stud the pages of the gospels. Jesus spoke against the latter two parties, calling them “vipers” (Matthew 12:34, 23:33), yet even though He never mentioned the Essenes, He likewise taught opposite to what they believed. The matter of being the “light of the world” in Matthew 5:14 was focused to all the Jews, not merely to a particular membership.

The teachings of Jesus came from the heart of the Scriptures, that is, the Law and the Prophets. These were principles that determined the common ground of all Jewish sects, from the most politically outspoken to the religiously withdrawn. Not one sect, therefore, could claim ownership of even a fragment of the Scriptures and the truth they contain; and because of this, Jesus liberally drew from them with all the authority of His divine nature and His natural human right as a Jew, at to Him it mattered not whether that which He drew was upheld by the Pharisees or Sadducees or Essenes or whatever sect. Frequently in His teachings, in fact, He was quick to acknowledge the corresponding reward of any good deed. Notice these passages:

“So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full” (Matthew 6:2).

Source: praying.kansasbob.com

“But when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full” (6:5).

“When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show men they are fasting. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full” (6:16).

Let us understand that though Jesus obviously spoke against the ways of “the hypocrites,” He was not about to deny the fact that they were nonetheless in obedience to God albeit in mere form and not by the sincerity of their hearts (Matthew 15:8, Mark 7:6).

Source: magdelene.wordpress.com

Yet what Salvation might have been if Jesus were an Essene? Would Christian fashion mean wearing white? Would we be living in a tightly knit counterculture of simple living and simple food, awaiting the days to lead all mankind to final judgment? Would we be gathering in synagogues as the Jews still do and listen to one read from a huge scroll covered in an ornate case, with Leviticus our frequent reference to obedience? As we have understood earlier in our study, the Essenes were a legalistic sect and strictly adhered to the letter of the Law, as did the Pharisees. It was then a common point of agreement between both sects that in order to be saved, the Law must be the center of one’s life. If this were the situation, then St. Paul would not have fought against the Judaisers who later tried to infiltrate the Galatian brethren convincing them of the saving power of the Law—

Source: washingtonpost.com

“’How is it then that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs?’ We who are Jews by birth and not ‘Gentile sinners’ know that a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by observing the law, because by observing the law no one will be justified. You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified” (Galatians 2:14–16; 3:1).

As we have also seen earlier, there were instances when Jesus “disobeyed” the Law in full view of the mainstream religious leaders and followers, acts so controversial that no Pharisee, Sadducee, or Essene would risk bordering to be questioned and therefore be charged with sacrilege.

Ever since the modern fascination over the Essenes started, the virtual direction of the study has always led to how Jesus was very much like the Essenes. Never had it occurred to experts, and to Christians, to see the issue in reverse perspective—how much the Essenes were very much like Jesus—and to consider the unique implication thereof. We have seen how the Book of Isaiah had been an integral part of the Essene society, how they had adhered to the hope of the Prophet, particularly on his Messianic theme. It can be said that the Essenes were the backbone of the Israelite faith in the coming Messiah; they were the ones who kept this flame alive even if it meant pulling themselves away from the mainstream, not to hide themselves, but to put themselves on a stage far enough, high enough for all to see. And in their special way of conveying their message they lived it out, like the modern Christians do (ideally, anyway). In this we may see a special purpose for their white garments: serving as lights for all to see. Later on, Jesus may have picked out their example when He preached about letting “your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:16). Yet even before Him, the prophets taught about “the people living in darkness [seeing] a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death, a light has dawned” (4:16).

During the days right before Jesus began His ministry, the Essenes in their white garments served as this light in the distant wilderness for those living scared and hopeless in the walled cities to see. The Essenes, through their lifestyle, may have hoped to serve as a spark to those who had given up belief in the Promised Deliverer. To one in a city on a mountaintop looking at the setting sun, the Essenes teeming in the distant landscape may have appeared like white tongues of fire coming together as one as they actually gathered for their evening ritual. This may have been the significance that literally manifested among the disciples when the Holy Spirit descended upon them in the Upper Room on that Day of Pentecost, only that instead of the tongues of fire gathering before them, the flaming wonder “separated and came to rest on each of them” (Acts 2:3).

Pictured above is a congregation of Samaritans celebrating the festival of Shavuot at Mount Gerizim. Their garments of white are among the closest pictures of what the Essenes may have looked like at a distance during their dusk and dawn prayers: like flames of fire lighting up the dark distance.

(More to come!)

The Priests of Persia

2012-07-08T22:00:00.000-07:00

©Dietrich Madsen/Illustration Works/Corbis

History describes the Magi as the order of priests and religious teachers among the Medes and the Persians. It was in this context how the King James translation of the Bible chose to use “wise men” for these mystic dignitaries. In the Second Chapter of Matthew, these wise men were associated with a star said to signal the birth of the Jewish King. How they came to know this was by their knowledge of the Hebrew Scriptures, as facilitated by the Babylonian policy of liberal exchange of ideas that the Persians were just too happy to continue; another was through an expertise in astrology.

The Magi and the Messianic Star

► Ancient Astrology: the Egyptians

©Brooklyn Museum/Corbis

Astrology had been in existence thousands of years before the Persians, going back to the Sumerians of 6000 B.C. It was a primitive science that was almost exclusively mastered by the Semitic Mesopotamian civilizations, an erudition that distinguished them from the Egyptians. The Egyptian priests were never known to have displayed a knowledge of astrology as advanced as their Mesopotamian counterparts. This may explain why the whole Empire of the Nile was thrown into total panic when a “darkness that could be felt…covered all Egypt for three days” (Exodus 10:21–22). Not to suggest that the Mesopotamians would have reacted with more courage if it happened to them, but their priests could have tried to explain the phenomenon with the abundant stock of information gathered from years of systematic study of heavenly bodies. The Egyptian sages, however, possessing no advanced astrological method to attempt in any way to ease their panic, stood stiff in their place for three lightless days until the darkness past—“No one could see anyone else or leave his place for three days” (verse 23).

Photo source: http://alternativearchaeology.jigsy.com

Are You Sirius?

What we do know of Egyptian astrology concerned the annual flooding of the Nile on which the survival of the people depended. These people were quick to notice that the rise of the river waters coincided with the rise of the star Sirius in tandem with the ascension of the sun (Into the Unknown, New York/Montreal: Reader’s Digest Association, Inc., 1981; p.138). According to the 1970’s bestseller Chariots of the Gods? (New York: Bantam Books, 1978), however, author Erich von Däniken suspected that there was more to the observation of Sirius than the Nile flooding. He asserted that a Nile flooding did not occur every year, nor did every Nile flood take place on the same day. If Sirius, therefore, appeared on the horizon at dawn at the same time as the Nile flood, it was by mere coincidence (Däniken, p.65). Called the “Dog Star,” Sirius has been one of those heavenly bodies that were not as easily spotted as, say, the North Star. It was peculiar, he continues, that the Egyptians took a special interest on Sirius in that seen from Memphis, it can only be observed in the early dawn just above the horizon when the Nile floods begin (Ibid, p.64). But surprisingly, the Egyptian scholars were able to systematically organize a Sirius calendar running on annual cycles of more than 32,000 years (Ibid.).

It has not been so widely discussed but the Dog Star was held in high honor in both Egypt and Mesopotamia during ancient times, even before the time these two civilizations ever met. The Sumerian goddess Ninutra was symbolized by Sirius, believed to be the judge of the universe and passed sentence upon mortal men (Ibid., p. 62). It may probably be a coincidence but the oldest extra-Biblical proof of the Noahic Flood was discovered in an ancient Sumerian library which stored 60,000 clay tablets. In the Sumerian account, it was in a place called Shuruppak where its version of Noah built his ark (Ibid.). Did these ancient people agree on the link between Sirius and the flooding of the earth?

Advanced or not, however, the closed and xenophobic character of the Egyptian culture prevented its influence to rise as the standard of the ancient world. The privilege instead fell to the Babylonians as the intellectual founders of astronomy, revolutionizing the minds of even of the greatest of the western thinkers when they met in the days of Hellenization.

► Astrology, the Magi, and the Holy Scriptures

Photo source: Baldur's Gate II: Shadow of Amn

When the Persians rose in power in 538 B.C., the faith and science of the stars fell into the committed hands of its new Aryan masters, the Magi. This is not suggesting, however, that the Persians possessed no knowledge or concern for astrology until they penetrated the gates of Babylon. The fact that they were regional neighbors may even be enough to give us the inclination to believe that these Aryans next door were infected with the same cultural astro-mania that possessed the Babylonians, Assyrians, and the Chaldeans. In this light, it can be safely followed that the Medes and Persians merely perfected their knowledge of astrology the moment they inherited the libraries and altars of Babylon.

Because of the liberalization of knowledge and learning, the stage was set for the fateful encounter between the Persian priest-scholar and the Hebrew Scriptures. Then interpreting the latter with the arcane science of astrology, the coming of the Jewish Messiah proved to be an inevitable event and a promise understandable and unhidden even among the pagans who would but cast a willing attention to the Word of God. To this day, the story of the wise men and the star of Bethlehem remains one of the prime evidences that spiritual salvation was not meant to be boxed up among the Jews. On that special night, not one in Israel was with the slightest hint that born on a manger somewhere in the towns in the periphery of Jerusalem was the One whom the entire nation had been praying to come and bring deliverance from Roman oppression. And it took the attention of several dignitaries from Persia to awaken the king of a surprisingly unsuspecting nation to the fact, written in both ink and in the stars, that the King of the Jews had been born.

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Pagan Magi read the Scriptures, took them seriously to the point of applying their own system of learning so they could validate an exact date to supposedly join the whole nation of Israel in joyful celebration of the birth of its King. Now, please be reminded that this was an ancient world with ancient ways; and one of those ancient ways was that if some royalty was born at a neighboring kingdom, it was the way of an ally, or one seeking an alliance, to show goodwill and honor the regal celebrant with their presence with gifts. So this was no ordinary bash. Imagine the trouble that these people had to go through: planning what clothes to wear, practicing their entourage, preparing their speeches—what to say, what not to say—polishing gestures, picking out gifts for the newborn King! The main thing was that the Magi expected festivity of a national scale. But when they got there…. The imagery that held the faintest trace of a party were the crickets chirping in starlight and shepherds on graveyard shift, a-storytelling and a-warming around a bonfire. You can bet the Magi, this grand entourage meant for a conquering king, felt the same feeling we would feel if were all dressed up bejeweled and speckled head to foot and some guy comes along and remarks, “So where’s the party?”

Too bad that their astrology never presaged for them that it was going to be a boring night in the land of the Jews by the time the Persian delegation hit Palestinian borders.

Let it be confirmed here that the Persian discovery of Jesus’ birth and location did, or does it ever, suggest that God approved of the practice of astrology. At no time and with no exception did God relax His judgment on those who worshiped the heavenly bodies—

“If a man or woman living among you…is doing evil in the eyes of the LORD your God in violation of his covenant, and contrary to my command has worshiped other gods, bowing down…to the sun or the moon or the stars of the sky…then you must investigate it thoroughly. If it is true and it has been proved that this detestable thing has been done in Israel, take the man or woman who has done this evil deed to your city gate and stone that person to death” (Deuteronomy 17:2–5).

And though it appeared that God cooperated with the pagan Magi by guiding them with the Messianic star (Matthew 2:2,9–12), the very Star of Jacob prophesied by the Prophet Balaam during the wandering days of the Israelites (Numbers 24:17), it was a clear case of God asserting His sovereignty as He did when He seized control of the necromantic rites performed by the witch of Endor to arrange one last encounter between King Saul and the deceased ghost of the Prophet Samuel.

► Thus saith the Lord, "Here's how it's goin' down, so shut up and listen!"

Many believers tend to forget that God will not be contained in a doctrinal expectation or two. While it is true that He in His holiness has set up rules and laws to show His predictability, He will, at the same time, will not be reduced and limited within borders of helplessness beyond which lie an endless stretch of darkness as treacherous as the enemy that rules it. What is usually forgotten here is that the God believed to be trapped by His own holiness is the same God addressed as the Almighty One, who claimed in Isaiah 46:10 in all power and authority, “I will do all that I please.”

Through the Prophet Isaiah, God thundered: “Bel bows down, Nebo stoops low…. I say: My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please. What I have planned, that will I do” (Isaiah 46:1,10,11).

This decisive declaration built up to the prophetic judgment of Babylon in which God spoke in terms that the Babylonians would understand. God has always been known to value every word coming from Him (Isaiah 55:11; Matthew 4:4; 24:25; Mark 13:31; Luke 11:28; 21:33; John 5:24; 6:63,68; 12:48); and in pronouncing judgment on the Babylonians, He made sure they understood what was coming to them. Observe the reference God made to magic, a preoccupation that the Babylonians knew so well:

Photo source: Baldur's Gate

“They (loss of children and widowhood) will come upon you in full measure, in spite of your many sorceries and all your potent spells. You have trusted in your wickedness and have said, ‘No one sees me.’ Your wisdom and knowledge mislead you when you say to yourself, ‘I am, and there is none besides me.’ Disaster will come upon you, and you will not know how to conjure it away. A calamity will fall upon you that you cannot ward off with a ransom; a catastrophe you cannot foresee will suddenly come upon you. Keep on, then, with your magic spells and with your many sorceries, which you have labored at since childhood. Perhaps you will succeed, perhaps you will cause terror. All the counsel you have received has only worn you out! Let your astrologers come forward, those stargazers who make predictions month by month, let them save you from what is coming upon you. Surely they are like stubble; the fire will burn them up. They cannot even save themselves from the power of the flame” (Isaiah 47:9–14).

No power in heaven or on earth or anywhere else from the darkest corner at the outskirts of all the galaxies could ever limit the Mighty Almighty. No question, protest, complaint, doctrine, or doubt born out of man’s boisterous little brain could ever intimidate God. Not even a slanderous troublemaking sprite named Satan lurking around like a devouring lion could make God change His mind—not even on a bad day! The Bible says, “May God arise, may his enemies be scattered. May his foes flee before him” (Psalm 68:1). This means wherever God puts His foot on He scares away the opposition; and that anywhere, not just in places that invite His presence like churches, believers’ homes, or where two or three are gathered in Jesus’ name (Matthew 18:20). God is an unstoppable God, invading even the darkest, dirtiest, and the scariest—

As unstoppable as Samson was when he clobbered an army of Philistines with a jawbone of a donkey! But, really, it was God propelling Samson to wipe out that army, according to Judges 15:14–15: "The Spirit of the Lord came powerfully upon him. The ropes on his arms became like charred flax, and the bindings dropped from his hands. Finding a fresh jawbone of a donkey, he grabbed it and struck down a thousand men." "A thousand men," folks.

“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me” (Psalm 23:4).

When God decided to stick His finger in Egypt and throw the Empire into panic and economic devastation, no one was able to provide a worthy opposition that could make God turn back and regroup—

“But when the magicians tried to produce gnats by their secret arts, they could not. And the gnats were on men and animals. The magicians said to Pharaoh, ‘This is the finger of God’” (Exodus 8:18–19).

As far as the pharaoh was concerned, he could have prevented further destruction in his kingdom by declaring freedom to the Israelites. According to history, all Egypt was the pharaoh’s property. Surely the first sight of his Nile River turning to blood as a result of his mockery of Moses and Aaron must have compelled him to repent and emancipate His people. But as far as God was concerned it was too soon for the king to relent. God had determined to break the power of Egypt with various afflictions building up to the death of the firstborn. And before God commissioned Moses to return to Egypt and be His representative, He revealed a plan to manipulate the pharaoh’s heart to render the kingdom pregnable to the attacks of all ten plagues.

“The LORD said to Moses, ‘When you return to Egypt, see that you perform before Pharaoh all the wonders I have given you the power to do. But I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go. Then say to Pharaoh, ‘This is what the LORD says: Israel is my firstborn son, and I told you, “Let my son go, so he may worship me.” But you refused to let him go; so I will kill your firstborn son’” (Exodus 4:21–23).

As much as the pharaoh probably wanted to free Moses’ Israelites and stop the devastation of his kingdom, there was nothing he could do to resist the power of God that unremittingly hardened his heart. One important reason why the Egyptian king was so easily swayed to defy God was that he had a natural disposition toward stubbornness—

“But I know that the king of Egypt will not let you go unless a mighty hand compels him. So I will stretch out my hand and strike the Egyptians with all the wonders that I will perform among them. After that, he will let you go” (Exodus 3:19).

This is but one case that bears witness to God’s “bragging” claim in Isaiah 46:10 and 11—“My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please. What I have said, that will I bring about; what I have planned, that will I do.”

Thousands of years later God was at it again, so to speak, when He one day decided to slap some perspective in a vainglorious megalomanic Nebuchadnezzar. In Daniel 4:29 we find the Babylonian king “walking on the roof of the royal palace of Babylon,” surveying his vast and endless realm; he comments on the thirtieth verse: “Is not this the great Babylon I have built as the royal residence, by my mighty power and for the glory of my majesty?” According to history, Nebuchadnezzar did bring the Babylonian civilization into its greatest glory when, under his command, he led the battle of Carchemish and crushed the power of Assyria in 606 B.C. wresting for himself the great empire of these hated merciless people that curved from Gaza in southern Palestine and covered the entire course of the twin rivers Tigris and Euphrates down to the Persian Gulf. Though he failed to restore the original excitement of the Babylonian religion, the greatest extent of his civilization’s political and military power was proven under his rule in 570 B.C. But there was more to this. In the Bible, the Creator of heaven and earth called Nebuchadnezzar His “servant” and chose him master of all the lands once held by the Assyrians—

“Now I will hand all your countries over to my servant Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon; I will make even the wild animals subject to him. All nations will serve him and his son and his grandson…. If, however, any nation or kingdom will not serve Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon or bow its neck under his yoke, I will punish that nation with the sword, famine and plague, declares the LORD, until I destroy it by his hand” (Jeremiah 27:6–8).

What business did God have with this Godless and ruthless pagan Nebuchadnezzar who in his life never acknowledged the real Master of heaven and earth? This was a guy who ransacked the Temple of the Lord when he penetrated Jerusalem in 607 B.C. and carried away “the vessels of the house of the LORD” and “put them in the house of his gods” (Ezra 1:7), desecrating these holy articles by using them in his religious celebrations. The Prophet Jeremiah needed but one answer to this:

“With my great power and outstretched arm I made the earth and its people and the animals that are on it, and I give it to anyone I please” (Jeremiah 27:5).

But the day Nebuchadnezzar basked in his own glory was the day God flung him to the ground in total humiliation—

“The words were still on his lips when a voice came from heaven, ‘This is what is decreed for you, King Nebuchadnezzar: Your royal authority has been taken from you. You will be driven away from people and will live with the wild animals; you will eat grass like cattle. Seven times will pass by for you until you acknowledge that the Most High is sovereign over the kingdoms of men and gives them to anyone he wishes’” (Daniel 4:31–32).

In a very long thirty-third verse, it accounts how “Immediately…Nebuchadnezzar…was driven away from people and ate grass like cattle. His body was drenched with the dew of heaven until his hair grew like the feathers of an eagle and his nails like the claws of a bird.” At the end of a period described as “seven times” (verse 32), or what could be a week, he raised his eyes toward heaven and his sanity was restored (verse 34). And as immediately as when his wits evaporated away, this king, who once ascribed to himself the eminence of single-handedly resurrecting Babylonian supremacy, began singing a new song:

“Then I praised the Most High; I honored and glorified him who lives forever. His dominion is an eternal dominion; his kingdom endures from generation to generation. All the peoples of the earth are regarded as nothing. He does as he pleases with the powers of heaven and the peoples of the earth. No one can hold back his hand or say to him: ‘What have you done’” (4:34–35)?

Not only did Nebuchadnezzar learn a valuable lesson that time. And not only was Nebuchadnezzar restored to his throne and “became even greater than before” (verse 36). He learned of a King of heaven whose deeds are always right and whose ways are always just and who could humiliate any dude who walks in pride (verse 37). How about that, Nebuchadnezzar became born again!

For what happened to their king, the Babylonians could be considered very, very fortunate as compared to the Israelites when King David got himself into the same trouble when he decided to measure his military might and explain the consistent victories he had been securing in his campaigns. God in His sovereignty decided to step in give the man after His own heart a stern reminder of nudging Him out of the picture:

“Before David got up the next morning, the word of the LORD had come to Gad the prophet, David’s seer: ‘Go and tell David, “This is what the LORD says: I am giving you three options. Choose one of them for me to carry out against you…. Shall there come upon you three years of famine in your land? Or three months of fleeing from your enemies while they pursue you? Or three days of plague in your land”’” (2 Samuel 24:12–13)?

We all know which David chose. In verse 15, it says that God sent a plague that within three days took the lives of seventy thousand Israelites, from one end of the kingdom to the other. It was a choice in which both David and God relented.

The Bible has got pages of God’s answer to anyone who challenged His sovereignty, right back to the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve started meddling with the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and the Tower of Babel, when He decided to descend uninvited and mess up the Shinar project aimed to build a city “with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth” (Genesis 11:4).

And on the night Christ was born, God in His power and mercy lit up the night sky with a star that a group of pagan Magi had been expecting for probably centuries before. Probably because of the excitement of the season it is set in, Christians today take the story of the Magi and the star of Bethlehem too casually that they miss the details of God’s sovereignty and the apparent negligence of the people, who were supposed to be ardently praying for the Messiah to come, to realize what the pagan Magi had known during, or even way before, that time. To be fair, the Magi used astrology, a craft forbidden in Israel; and with the close guidance of the synagogue system, which every Jewish person felt strongly compelled to be a part of “or die,” so to speak, astrology generally won no takers among the Jews.

So was it a technicality then that the pagan Magi won the attention of God for unraveling the exact date of the birth of the Messiah with their arcane and forbidden art? That’s not true. It was God who revealed to these pagan wise men about the star. By now you might be noticing and even bothered by the detail of my recurrently using the word “pagan” as a modifier for the Magi. And I think you know why. God, by His sovereign choice—God has a choice, just like you and I! If He didn’t, then we wouldn’t have been made in His likeness!—chose to intervene in their mystic craft and send them pagan Magi an exclusive invitation to come to the birth of the One who will break the power of sin and death once and for all! Now why did God do that and forget about the “expectant” Jews? Well, doubtless here is God’s sovereign choice so we shouldn’t be asking why at all. On the other hand, God is not intimidated by our questions, so He says, “Come now, and let us reason together” (Isaiah 1:18, King James Version).

First of all, what the pagan Magi knew about the Messiah was old news to the Jews; they held the same Scriptures. In fact, the Jews should have known more because they had the prophets, priests, rabbis, and “various ways” (Hebrews 1:1) at their disposal to help out in interpreting God’s Word. And that was not difficult because the Scriptures were written in the language they understood more than the Magi! Furthermore, God was and is still not a stranger to this nation. The Magi—oh, I forgot! The pagan Magi—on the other hand, needed the help of the stars, a method that was supposed to add more difficulty in an already intricate task of studying the Scriptures of a foreign culture. Imagine, therefore, the predicament of the Magi who looked at the Scriptures and asked, “Could this mean that…?” and then turned to their telescopes and asked, “Could this alignment mean that…?” The trouble in this would be a resultant knowledge surrounding the Messiah more than the Messiah Himself. Because of their knowledge of astrology, the Magi knew more of the star than the Messiah; and in Matthew 2:2 nothing in their arsenal of sophisticated erudition could yield where exactly the Christ was to be born. Thank God—and literally, thank God—for the star.

► The Prophet Daniel: A Possible Link to the Magi?

But could have it also been that the Magi were given the appropriate understanding in the Hebrew Scriptures that ultimately linked them to the Messiah? The answer to this is surprising. When Cyrus the Great pushed back the gates of Babylon and entered its temples seventy years after the Israelite deportation, the great Israelite Prophet Daniel was the chief of all the wise men in the capital. It is even stated in Daniel 2:48 that he ruled over the entire province of Babylon. These were positions which he held from the time the Israelites had settled in the empire “until the first year of Cyrus” (1:21). Furthermore, in the time when the Jews were heading back to Jerusalem in waves after Cyrus the Great proclaimed them free to return and rebuild their ravaged nation, Daniel remained in the royal palace prospering (6:28).What better person to have interpreted the Scriptures to the Magi than the Scriptures’ greatest exponent, the Prophet Daniel? The Prophet Daniel was a man of the Scriptures. It was, in fact, this devotion to the Scriptures that propelled him to his knees and intercede for the restoration of Jerusalem:

“…I, Daniel, understood from the Scriptures, according to the word of the LORD given to Jeremiah the prophet, that the desolation of Jerusalem would last seventy years” (9:2).

Yet was it in Daniel’s heart to willingly share the secrets of the Scriptures to pagans? As we have seen earlier, the conversion of Nebuchadnezzar’s heart, as expressed in his confession in Daniel 4:34 to 37, may have given Daniel an outlook that God was, by that period, willing to share His revelation to the pagans; this would therefore mean a primary understanding of His Scriptures. The Book of Daniel is full of accounts regarding God revealing Himself through the miracles seen moving in Daniel’s life and compelling Nebuchadnezzar and later the Persian official of Babylon named Darius to proclaim the wonder of “the God of Daniel.” An example of these was one written by the satrap Darius “to all the peoples, nations and men of every language throughout the land” in 6:26 to 27:

“I issue a decree that in every part of my kingdom people must fear and reverence the God of Daniel. For he is the living God and he endures forever; his kingdom will not be destroyed, his dominion will never end. He rescues and he saves, he performs signs and wonders in the heavens and on the earth. He has rescued Daniel from the power of the lions.”

Throughout Daniel’s life as the chief of the Babylonian, and later the Persian, wise men, it was from the
Scriptures and the Spirit of God where he drew his inspiration and nothing more. Never do we find this great man sinking his curiosity in the magic arts and astrology of his subordinates and contemporaries. And because he was the chief, he may have gained a following who learned from him and adhered to his wisdom derived from God’s holy Scriptures. In the years that followed after him, his teachings may have been carefully documented and lovingly enshrined for generations of mystics to come.

► Back to the first Christmas.

God used a star to guide the Magi. The star was a real star, not some spectral vision or one of those you see when passing out or when you shut your eyes too hard. This was a star that could be seen by everyone, both Magi and any Jew who looked up to the night sky. And even if this star looked just as ordinary as the others that twinkled that night, special only to the learned—but pagan—Magi, it was hard to resist, at least for some, to satisfy a measure of curiosity and follow a mighty train of royal dignitaries as if it was making its way to heaven on foot! Matthew 2:3 says that when the Magi came to Herod as asked him where the real King of the Jews could be found, “all Jerusalem” was troubled. Who wouldn’t be?

This Persian contingent was more than the traditional Christmas picture of three lonely old men on camelback that we have gotten so used to. How a traditional procession of incoming VIP’s on a state visit is a more likely picture, complete with bodyguards and heavily armed escorts! We also have to consider the part of history which was shared between the Jews and the kingdom these Magi by then more or less represented. Around 40 B.C., a not-so very distant time before the first Christmas, Parthia, a kingdom made from the remnants of the fallen Persian Empire in 250 B.C., lent its troops to the last Jewish Hasmonean Prince Antigonus in his political power struggle against Herod, the Idumean appointed by the Romans to rule southern Palestine alongside Hyrcanus II. For three years, Parthian soldiers occupied Jerusalem securing Antigonus’ government until the Roman legions headed by Herod finally trounced them. Forty years later, as this very same Herod snuggled soundly on his royal mattress, a knock on his royal palace revealed the presence of a formidable entourage of Parthian soldiers headed by Persian Magi looking for the real King of the Jews. For sure, they knew who Herod was and it didn’t take no star to tell them that he ain’t the King and he ain’t no Jew! But even so, this impostor on the throne had the audacity to tell the Magi:

“Go and make a careful search for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him” (Matthew 2:8).

Yeah, right. If Herod really had any intention of worshiping the One whose throne he by then illegally and immorally occupied, why he didn’t and his chief priests join in the search? They could have just tagged along since it was not that hard to miss the sparkling mass of sophisticated foreign pilgrim even if one trailed after a wide distance. The problem was no one in Jerusalem had any courage, time, or interest to know where the Messiah was. Later, the Messiah would allude to this event in one of His parables that told of a wedding banquet where the invited refused to come. In Matthew 22:9 to 10, the master of the feast told his servants—

“’Go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.’ So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, both good and bad, and the wedding hall was filled with guests.”

On the night Jesus was born, a group of pagan Magi ardently searched for the address of this holy Celebrant with the help of a single star God provided in the heavens which He was sure they would never cease to follow until He was found. At the same time—

“…there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign for you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger. When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, ‘Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.’ So they hurried off and found Mary Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger" (Luke 2:8–12,15–16).

Now get this: where the Magi failed, the shepherds succeeded—“When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them” (verses 17–18).

And there was a party after all.

[There's more a-comin'!]

Countdown to Destruction: "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem…"

2012-06-11T23:39:00.000-07:00

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THE DAYS OF HIGH PRIEST ACTING AS HEAD OF STATE in addition to his religious leadership in Israel did not begin with Joshua of the post-exilic era, but with Eli of the Book of First Samuel, with whom the Aaronic High Priesthood ended. In 1 Samuel 3:18, it says that Eli “led Israel for forty years”; by “led” the passage meant “judged,” the same word used to describe the leadership of all other Judges before him. But unlike some of the Judges that ruled before him, Eli’s role as both head of state and of religious affairs went and ended dismally. It was during his time when the Philistines were making frequent incursions into Israelite territory; the availability of metalworking in the “whole land of Israel” (1 Samuel 13:19) was wiped out, for fear that “the Hebrews will make swords or spears” (verse 19); and the spiritual service of God’s people to the LORD was being vexed by the corruption of Eli’s sons. It was for this last reason that made God reach down to take back what was rightfully His.

In 1 Samuel 2:30 to 36, a prophecy was pronounced against Eli’s family ending the role of his “house” and his “father’s house” to “minister before me forever” (verse 30). Entailing this was a bitter judgment upon Eli’s descendants that will “cut short your strength and the strength of your father’s house, so that there will not be an old man in your family line” (verse 31), this because his sons Hophni and Phinehas did not honor Him but treated their calling with disdain (verse 30). According to the seventeenth verse, their sin was “very great in the LORD’s sight, for they were treating the LORD’s offering with contempt.” In the Fourth Chapter, they carried the Ark of the Covenant to battle against the Philistines; the Philistines prevailed, took the Ark, and killed the brothers (verse 11). The curse upon Eli’s House had exerted its reign. But wait, there’s more. A Benjamite messenger sprinted from the battlefield to Shiloh and came straight to Eli and announced the defeat. More concerned with the Ark of the Covenant, the shock pushed Eli off his chair, crushed the vertebra in his neck because of his cumbersome weight, and died (verse 18).

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Thus ended the leadership of Eli in the land with a well-loved Judge this time taking over. The Prophet Samuel spent his young days under the tutelage of the High Priest Eli, knew about the corruption of Hophni and Phinehas, but nonetheless grew “in stature and in favor with the LORD and with men” (2:26). During his time his leadership took over the basics of a High Priest though he did not replace Eli in the office of High Priest. Samuel was called to be a Prophet, the Old Testament vanguard of the integrity of the Jehovic culture over Israel. If he found something wrong, through the power of God he was the uncompromising hammer that straightened it out. In his days Israel lived without a High Priest, but God made sure through Samuel, that it would be of no spiritual detriment to His people because some twenty years after the Ark of the Covenant was captured by the Philistines, the great man of God leads a mighty revival throughout the land the effect of which rid all foreign gods from every Israelite household and wiped out a major Philistine attack that was about to swoop down upon the repentant people of God (1 Samuel 7:10–11). Then in the thirteenth verse, another important milestone was reached in the annals of the Israelite nation: “the Philistines were subdued and did not invade Israelite territory again.”

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It may not have been written down much in the Scriptures to make a major impression in most of us, but the peace that existed between Israel and her neighbors was centered on the fear of Samuel. Let us remember that God is an unseen God; and for the pagans to fully understand the power of God, Samuel became the visual persuasion of the very Being they must fear. In the fourteenth verse it says that “there was peace between Israel and the Amorites.” The Amorites were a race of people who originated from the west of Palestine, around the Tigris-Euphrates region, and populated the immediate regions around Israel. The Philistines, on the other hand, were not among the Amorites, having emerged from the coasts of Anatolia some time around the fourteenth century B.C. and made incursive attacks against Egyptian and Levantine countries. Though the Amorites were among the people God enumerated as inhabitants of the Promised Land, historians understand that all the other people mentioned by God were but cultural sub-divisions of the more general Amorite race.

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The Prophet Samuel’s time may have been that of great revival but it was also one of great turbulence, for it was then when, for the first time, the people of his nation demanded to give them a king to rule over them as the nations around them have (8:5). It may have been partly (in the least) born out of the desire to preserve the peace and prosperity that was reigning over the nation at that time. Fearing that the Prophet was then old and his sons, who were the primary candidates of taking his place, were not anywhere as righteous as him, all the heavenly conditions Israel was experiencing might turn sour as they had in the past two hundred years once a Godly leader dies (Judges 2:10–22). From the time of the Prophet Moses, through the great Judges, up to the time of Eli and the Prophet Samuel, though these leaders stood before the people to command respect for the LORD and His Word, Israel’s King was God. Envisioned by the corrupt prophet Balaam in Numbers 23:21—

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“No misfortune is seen in Jacob, no misery observed in Israel. The LORD their God is with them; the shout of the King is among them.”

—and by the great Moses in Deuteronomy 33:5—

“He was king over Jeshurun when the leaders of the people assembled, along with the tribes of Israel.”

If they had been called Jews way back then, then God was the King of the Jews. God’s Theocracy was a very simple condition to which the Israelites agreed to: “I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God” (Exodus 6:7). And in this context, God claimed the Israelites for His own, frequently referring to them as “my people.”

The clamor of the people for their own king to rule over them foreboded the end of the time of the Judges. This vehement demand which refused to capitulate even to the words of the Prophet the people loved was the biggest decision of God’s chosen to distance themselves from Him, to considerably limit His hand upon them, to dethrone Him as King—

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“And the LORD said to him [the Prophet Samuel], ‘Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you that they have rejected as their king, but me’” (1 Samuel 8:8).

This day did not take God by surprise, no siree, for this was an eventuality He had anticipated and even prepared for way back in the wandering Days of their ancestors. In Deuteronomy 17 beginning in the fourteenth verse, God had set up the regulations and parameters of choosing a king to lead them. And in the process, He did not exclude Himself from the examination of candidates—

“be sure to appoint over you the king the LORD your God chooses” (verse 15).

The Prophet Samuel understood this; the people understood this, that’s why they came to him—God’s representative. In the people’s minds the matter was up to the Prophet; in the Prophet’s faith, the matter was up to God. Sure enough, the day before the candidate for Israel’s ever first royal house came to present himself to the Prophet, God had already revealed to the latter that He would be sending “a man from the land of Benjamin” to be anointed leader over all Israel (9:16). On the next day, catching sight of the chosen leader, God confirmed His words: “This is the man I spoke to you about; he will govern my people” (verse 17).

We all know who this was, it was Saul. Now through first impression alone we all know the tragedy attached to the reputation of this king. Yes, God did genuinely choose him to lead His people, but didn’t He pay attention to His foreknowledge that Saul would one day reject Him, disobey Him, and humiliate Him by frustrating the mandate of totally annihilating the Amalekites from the face of the earth, as God had promised from the time these wasteland bandit people pursued and treated the Israelites like wild animals in the desert (Deuteronomy 25:17–19)? Now, hold on: Everything was an open book to God; He knew every detail that would unfold in the future. It was not a matter of knowing, or not knowing, what the future held. Instead, it was everything about giving to the Israelites what they stubbornly demanded of the Prophet Samuel.

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The second parameter God had established in choosing for a king was that the leader “must be from among your own brothers,” not a foreigner but a brother Israelite (Deuteronomy 17:15). And God was not about to violate this directive. He not only gave them a leader from among them, but the leader like them. Saul reflected the spiritual condition of his generation, the generation he was to lead. Yes, the people by that time had already been reined in under Samuel’s leadership; they had just gone through a great revival that shattered a large-scale impending Philistine assault upon a massive unarmed gathering of Israelite civilians on their knees in repentance. Yet their relationship with the LORD still maintained a shadow in which lurked the possibility of them reverting to their old ways of corruption once Samuel’s righteous spiritual guidance had gone after his death. They remained a corrupt generation as revealed in the way they rejected both the stern and gentle rebuke of the Prophet Samuel when he tried to change their minds from their insistence for their king—

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“Samuel told all the words of the LORD to the people who were asking him for a king. He said, ‘This is what the king who will reign over you will do: He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they will run in front of his chariots. Some he will assign to be commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and others to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants. He will take a tenth of your tenth of your grain and your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants. His menservants and maidservants and the best of your cattle and donkeys he will take for his own use. He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves. When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, and the LORD will no answer you in that day’” (1 Samuel 8:10–18).

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And here’s the point we need to see, as pointed out from the nineteenth verse: “But the people refused to listen to Samuel. ‘No!’ they said. ‘We want a king over us. Then we will be like all the other nations, with a king to lead us and to go out before us and fight our battles’” (verse 19–20).

There is a little bit more to this verse than we have previously evaluated. Notice the desire of the people to “be like all the other nations, with a king to lead us.” Not only did this generation reared their corrupt tantrum before the LORD; they also expressed their desire to be “like the other nations” as the generations before them had gone on to pursue the same aspiration—to be “like the other nations” by worshipping their gods and adopting alien lifestyle never prescribed by the LORD—and perish violently.

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Later on in Saul’s life, the rejection that the people slapped on God’s face was returned to the king they chose when before all the elders of Israel, after the king turned away from the Divine directive against the Amalekites, Saul made a spectacle of himself, humiliating himself in the judgment of God:

“’You have rejected the word of the LORD, and the LORD has rejected you as king over Israel!’ As Samuel turned to leave, Saul caught hold of the edge of his robe, and tore it. Samuel said to him, ‘The LORD has torn the kingdom of Israel from you today and has given it to one of your neighbors—to one better than you’” (1 Samuel 15:26–29).

And that pretty much summed up the spiritual life of the nation of the Chosen. An entire kingdom swayed by a single head, a single head that determined life or death for its people. That single head God had blessed with the knowledge of His Spirit, just as what occurred in the life of Saul when He changed him in Gibeah before he was inaugurated as king (1 Samuel 10:10). God was not all judgment and indignation when the people of Israel asked for a king; He did not go ahead and provide them a king who mirrored their corrupt spiritual condition just to drive that they had made a big mistake in electing Him out of the political limelight. Even in His decision to grant the people their desire, God still made His way to provide for them a king after Him. In 1 Samuel 10:6, the Prophet Samuel prophesied that the Spirit of the LORD would come upon Saul in power, enabling him to prophesy and he would be “changed into a different person.” In the ninth verse—

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“As Saul turned to leave Samuel, God changed Saul’s heart, and all these signs were fulfilled that day.”

In spite of this, however, in full knowledge, Saul went on to defy the LORD’s mandate in the Fifteenth Chapter of 1 Samuel. In the very words of God, He confides His disappointment to the Prophet who anointed him king:

“I am grieve that I have made Saul king, because he has turned away from me and has not carried out my instructions” (verse 11).

Let’s just try to analyze this verse. God did not judge Saul for one single mistake of missing out on a directive. If this were so, it picture God as a sore dictator on a rampaging tantrum over a detail. The verse did not say, “he [Saul] has turned away from me because he has not carried out my instruction.” It states instead that Saul had not carried out God’s instructions “because he has turned away from me.” The corruption of the heart took place first then manifested in disobedience.

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Several thousand years into the future, the images of Saul’s time haunt the time of Jesus like the unclean spirit described in the latter’s teachings who returns to the house it left behind after a period of wandering in the desert, after finding no shelter or rest (Matthew 12:43–44). In His lesson, Jesus ends this teaching with the statement, “That is how it will be with this wicked generation” (verse 45). Comparatively, while pre-exilic Israelite world collapsed on its own rotten foundation, the post-exilic times featured the pagan influences of Hellenization, the Roman political power, and the Persian and other minor neighboring religious philosophies—the “other spirits more wicked than itself,” going in and living there (verse 45)—stilting up the existence Jewish nation. It appears that the demon that had left Israel after its desolation returned when the Jews were restored in Palestine with a new Temple not, however, for God but as a palace for the religious-political leadership of the High Priest. And the Temple was arranged just the way the spirit liked it: “unoccupied” by the Spirit of God, yet “swept clean and put in order” (verse 44).

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When the Spirit of God abandoned Saul, the Prophet Samuel said that the LORD had “torn the kingdom of Israel” from Saul that day and had “given it to one of your neighbors—to one better than you” (1 Samuel 15:28). Before Saul’s eyes God’s chosen successor to the throne emerged to be slowly embraced by the Israelite kingdom. Furious and tenaciously holding on to the royalty that no longer belonged to him, Saul took measures to take David out of the picture. David, however, refusing to sin against the LORD and His anointed, takes on a life of a prey warily evading the consummation of the threats of death.

In the time of Jesus, the kingship was held by a pretender and a foreigner—Herod the Great, an Idumean. One night, foreign delegates from Persia informed him that the real King of the Jews had been born in the country he ruled. Furious, fearful, but tenaciously holding on to the royalty that never belonged to him, Herod took measures to hunt down this newborn King even if it meant slaughtering all infant boys of Bethlehem and its surrounding vicinity (Matthew 2:16). But like David, Jesus had God’s hand upon Him. The night after the Magi had made their visit, God warned Joseph beforehand to take the infant Messiah and Mary and escape to Egypt where they stayed after the death of Herod the Great.

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In around 4 B.C., the rule of Palestine was split in three with another Herod—Herod Antipas—ruling the northern region of Galilee and Perea. Jesus later called this Herod a “fox” (Luke 13:32) for his slyness and vindictiveness. By religion, Herod Antipas was a Jew but only up to the point where it rules out marrying one’s half-brother’s daughter who was also another half-brother’s wife (Matthew 14:3; Mark 6:17; Luke 3:19). For this he was rebuked by the fiery Prophet John the Baptist, who was also Jesus’ cousin. According to the Bible Herod basically wanted to kill John for openly speaking against his marriage with Herodias along with his other misdeeds, but fearing the people who considered John as a prophet Herod opted to duck away. The time came, however, when Herod would be compromised into a corner that would compel him to execute the Prophet. In Matthew 14:13, the moment Jesus heard about the death of His cousin, “he withdrew by boat privately to a solitary place.”

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• The Temple Hydra

The religious world of Palestine was also as fake as the land’s political set up. According to Biblical historians, the particular period that covered the life of John the Baptist, Jesus Christ, and the early days of the Christians in Israel was considered as the most corrupt episode of religious Israel. For the first time, the office of high priest, which God prescribed for only one person, was held by several, all of a single family of unscrupulous and formidably terrifying political reputation. But the most despicable aspect of this controversy was that none of these pretenders were in any way, shape, or form descended from the house of Aaron, the brother of Moses.

In Exodus 28:1, God handpicked Aaron and his sons to minister before Him as priests. In the fortieth chapter, He commanded Moses to anoint Aaron first, then his sons, in their sacred garments, for the service. “Their anointing,” God said, “will be to a priesthood that will continue for all generations to come” (verse 15). No other family in the Bible was awarded the office of priesthood aside from Aaron’s. In the twenty-fifth chapter of Numbers, Aaron’s house gets blessed with a covenant of lasting priesthood, through the zealous act of Phinehas that turned the anger of God away from the Israelites. The priesthood recognized by the Mosaic culture, therefore, was the Aaronic priesthood.

It was a mandate straight out of heaven shamelessly disregarded in the last fifty turbulent years before Jesus’ birth, when an aristocrat named Annas was appointed high priest in Jerusalem. The nation, probably tired of reacting against their foreign oppressors, tolerated the appointment further when Annas maneuvers to swap and share the office with his son Caiaphas and another relative to accomplish a unique multi-headed mutation of an originally Divine design. Very often in the gospels, the controversial plurality of “chief priests” is confirmed in many passages, beginning in Matthew 2:4 to John 19:21; then from Acts 4:23 to the twelfth verse of Chapter Twenty-Six.

What was meant to be a single-headed leadership with the high priesthood on top turned into a religious council patterned like a Greek-style oligarchic supreme court. It was almost the four-headed, four-winged leopard monster in the Prophet Daniel’s vision (Daniel 7:6).

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At a very weak period of Jewish history the Annas-Caiaphas-et al religious atrocity seized the synagogue innovation and twisted it to their advantage. As a result, it achieved as its greatest the death of Jesus on the cross. After that, it was all downhill for the beast. It even kicked and lashed to protect itself when it even further exploited its influence over the elders of Israel when they together conspired to devise a plan to douse the excitement that would surely reprise in the evident light of Jesus’ resurrection from the grave:

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“…some of the guards went into the city and reported to the chief priests everything that had happened. When the chief priest had met with the elders and devised a plan, they gave the soldiers a large sum of money, telling them, ‘You are to say, “His disciples came during the night and stole him away while we were asleep.” If this report gets to the governor, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.’ So the soldiers took the money and did as they were instructed. And this story has been widely circulated among the Jews to this very day” (Matthew 28:11–15).

The success of story woven by the chief priests proved that their corruption had by then seeped deep into the nation’s cultural fiber. The city that killed the prophets and stoned the ones sent to her (Matthew 23:37) had revealed a heart swollen in apostasy and calloused stone-hard from the touch of God. Jesus, in prophetic sorrow, saw a nation on its way to the ground—the grave—when He mourned:

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“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing. Look, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord’” (Matthew 23:37–39).

Jesus saw a Jerusalem that had cast its lot with the enemies of God. In Luke 19:41, it says that His love for Jerusalem was such that He burst weeping as He approached the city. While a crowd of admirers rejoiced “in loud voices for all the miracles they had seen” (Luke 19:37), Jesus was distressed when at that instant, a vision of the future unfolded before His eyes, which He sadly described:

“The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you” (verses 43–44).

Jesus loved children. During the years of His earthly ministry, He gave importance to the kids. Who will ever forget the ever-famous line, “Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God” (Mark 10:24, King James Version, of course!)? In Matthew 21:16, it is apparent that one of His favorite verses was Psalms 8:2, which says, “From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise.” In Mark 7:27, He tries to illustrate the priority of His earthly mission with a family norm: “First, let all the children eat all they want…for it is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to their dogs.” In this story, He heals a daughter of a Syrophoenician woman. In His parable, He used sons; He healed a lot of sons; and daughters, like Jairius’ little girl whom He raised from the dead. Among His most memorable illustrations involves children. He could just put a plug in the dispute among His disciples by setting a little child before them to drive the truth into them: “unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3 to 4). His words that follow this passage bear a promise for the children: “And whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me” (verse 5). Then there was the indignation to anyone who causes “one of these little ones who believe in me to sin”—“it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and be drowned in the depths of the sea” (verses 6 to 7).

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One of the elements of the vision that broke His heart was the children. The gospels that contain this prophecy never fail to include what He witnessed of the children. In Mark 13:17, Jesus was so troubled that He shared, “How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers!” Even during His last moments before His death, on His way to Calvary heaving a beam on the back of His head, Jesus turned and addressed the women in the crowd wailing and mourning for Him:

“Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me; weep for yourselves and for your children. For the time will come when you will say, ‘Blessed are the barren women, the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed'” (Luke 23:28–29).

And the time came. In 70 A.D., a longstanding siege formed by the Roman general Vespasian in 68 A.D. swooped down into Jerusalem under the command of his son Titus—and in the words of the late great Jewish historian Max I. Dimont in his book Jews, God and History (Mentor: New York, 1994)—“slaughtering a populace reduced to helplessness by starvation. The Temple was put to the torch”—fulfilling what Jesus prophesied in Matthew 24:2, Mark 13:2, and Luke 21:6—“infants thrown into the flames,”—exactly what troubled the Lord Jesus—“women raped, priests massacred, Zealots thrown from the wall. Altogether, [Roman historian] Tacitus estimates 600,000 defenseless Jewish civilians were slain in the aftermath of the siege” (pages 110–111). The horrific death echoes the words of the people when Jesus stood trial before Pilate and a mob made bloodthirsty by the ruthless chief priests:

“When Pilate saw that he was getting nowhere, but that instead an uproar was starting, he took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd. ‘I am innocent of this man’s blood,’ he said. ‘It is your responsibility!’ All the people answered, ‘Let his blood be on us and on our children!’” (Matthew 27:24–25)

Innocent blood has a voice and it cries out to God when unjustly spilled. When Adam’s firstborn Cain murdered Abel, God confronted Cain with these words: “What have you done? Listen! Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground” (Genesis 4:10). In 2 Kings 21:16, a king named Manasseh who ruled Judah for fifty-five years (verse 1) “shed so much innocent blood that he filled Jerusalem from end to end—besides the sin that he had caused Judah to commit, so that they did evil in the eyes of the LORD.” God later forgave Manasseh who “sought the favor of the LORD his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers” (2 Chronicles 33:12), rebuilt Jerusalem’s fortification and restored the Temple the way it was before he defiled it with his foreign gods and occult paraphernalia. In spite of these amends, even being succeeded by a God-fearing grandson in Josiah who rediscovered the Book of the Law and had it re-implemented in the cultural mainstream of the land, God would not “turn away from the heat of his fierce anger, which burned against Judah because of all that Manasseh had done to provoke him to anger” (2 Kings 23:26). More than sixty years after his reign, Judah was ravaged by the Babylonians and raiders from Aram, Moab, and the Ammonite kingdom—

“because of the sins of Manasseh and all he had done, including the shedding of innocent blood. For he had filled Jerusalem with innocent blood, and the LORD was not willing to forgive” (24:3 to 4).

As for first-century A.D. Jerusalem, the prophets were proved right. God had uprooted the very nation He established. John the Baptist, years before this, preached about the consequence of hardening their hearts to the voice of God allegory:

“Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire” (Matthew 3:9–10).

It was perhaps because John had lived closer to the time of Jerusalem’s destruction for the prophecy to have been so vivid in his mind and in the words he spoke. A short time later, John the Baptist was murdered (the story of how he died is told in Matthew 14:1–12 and Mark 6:14–29) by Herod the Tetrarch (Luke 9:9); and a development of the prophecy fell upon the anointing of Jesus. If John’s warning came in the context of producing “fruit in keeping with repentance” (Matthew 3:8), Jesus’ seemed more ominous and inevitable: coming up hungry to a fig tree one day to share of its fruit, He said, “May you never bear fruit again” (Matthew 21:19), when He found nothing of it to eat. “Immediately,” according to the Gospel of Matthew, “the tree withered.” The incident occurred on the morning after He had made His grand entry into Jerusalem and the unexpected incident with the Temple merchants. Jesus was not only a tad closer to the appointed time; He was by then walking the terrain where the Roman siege work would be assembled. Jesus, nonetheless, delivered the same message that John preached: “And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins” (verse 26).

Jesus preached the same message of repentance heard from John. It was one of the comparisons drawn between the cousins that made people, including Herod the Tetrarch, suspect that John had resurrected after his execution (Matthew 14:2; Mark 6:14, 8:28; Luke 9:19). The urgency in His words, however, was apparently more distressful when He alluded to the destruction of Jerusalem. While John saw the “ax…already at the root of the trees,” Jesus in a parable He shared in Luke 13:6 to 9 envisioned a garden owner just itching to use that ax:

“A man had a fig tree, planted in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it, but did not find any. So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, ‘For three years now I’ve been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven’t found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?’ ‘Sir,’ the man replied, ‘leave it alone for one more year, and I’ll dig around it and fertilize it. If it bears fruit next year, fine! If not, then cut it down.’”

The context of this parable was based on a conversation that revolved around the heinous massacre of a number of Galileans whose blood was used by Pontius Pilate to desecrate their sacrifices with. It was current events at the time. What did you think? All Jesus and His disciples ever talked about were super spiritual matters? He may have been God, but He was human too, you know. And in verse 4, His statement about “those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them,” proved that He was very much aware and actively evaluating the temporal events of His country! In the same way as we interpret “great earthquakes, famines and pestilences in various places, and fearful events and great signs from heaven” as foretokens of the end of the age (Luke 21:11), Jesus pointed out that the subject of their discussion entailed a spiritual warning that the end of Jerusalem was just a few years away. But unlike the daily news that provides no single alternative to avert or evade an impending tragedy, Jesus taught: “Unless you repent, you too will all perish” (verses 3 and 5).

• The Hellenistic Beasts

Right before the destruction of Jerusalem, the religious hydra of the land that had gained a greater murderous clout, which sparked among the Hellenistic Jews in Jerusalem, had triumphantly chased away the children of God—the believers—out of the city. Until the Hellenistic Jews became involved, the chief priests, who were Hebraic Jews, could only arrest the believers (Acts 5:18)—the Apostles, in particular—detain them in prison for but overnight (Acts 4:3), warn them not to speak about Jesus’ name again (Acts 4:18,21, 5:28), and then send them home singing praises to God (Acts 5:41). The worst the chief priests could do to the believers was have them flogged (verse 40). This was because the leaders who pushed for the death of Jesus “feared that the people would stone them” should they use force upon the Apostles (Acts 6:26). But with the involvement of the Hellenistic Jews, things became more brutal.

The Hellenistic Jews were different from the Hebraic Jews. It can be understood to this day that there is an overwhelming urge for a Jew to return to the land God has given him. It has been this way since the Apostles’ time. The Hellenistic, or Grecian, Jews were such who retained their Jewishness but adopted Greek cultural trappings, which, among others, included name, education, language, profession, and clothing. Because they were adapted to foreign life from birth, much of the Mosaic culture was unfamiliar to them.

An example of this was the young Timothy of Lystra in Acts 16, whose mother was a Jewess and his father a Greek (verse 1). The third verse relates that the young man had not yet undergone the rite of circumcision until the Apostle Paul came to their home. Wanting to take him along in his missionary journey, the Apostle performed the circumcision on Timothy as a necessary measure to gain the confidence of the Hebraic brethren and establish his credibility among them.


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Upon returning to Israel at some point to enroot their lives in the land their own, they were looked down upon by the Hebraic Jews, who maintained over them some air of superiority in that the Hebraic had never been aliens to the culture God has blessed them to live by. In this, it was important for the Grecian Jew to catch up and gain equal footing with his Hebraic brother. It was, therefore, the first one’s dream for an opportunity to prove his worth in a predominantly Hebraic society. That opportunity came with the chief priests’ problem of the Jesus believers.

Because of the weakness the chief priests possessed in prosecuting and stopping the Jesus faith from swallowing the Mosaic society, a particular group of Grecian Jews, who felt they had nothing to lose, were just too desperately reckless to go to the extent of applying murder on the enemies of their Hebraic brethren.

Now, not all Hellenistic Jews gravitated towards the Mosaic religion; there were also those who became Christians. The story in Acts 6 begins with the friction between the Grecian and Hebraic Jewish believers. The Apostles, who were Hebraic, thought of solving the issue by appointing a seven-man committee, known to us today as deacons, to directly address the issue of the Grecian widows neglected in the daily distribution of food (verse 1). The fifth verse introduces the seven, all with Greek names, which means the Church’s first deacons were Hellenistic Jews. The Grecian membership loved the idea (verses 3 to 4). So while the Church had decisively solved the equality problem between the Hellenistic and the Hebraic, the Mosaic society was still getting into gear with its solution.

In the ninth verse, the opportunity presented itself when the Grecian Jew of the Church crossed paths with the Grecian Jew of the Mosaic "Synagogue of the Freedman" (Acts 6:9), which was constituted by the “Jews of Cyrene and Alexandria as well as the provinces of Cilicia and Asia.” This particular synagogue came into opposition to the Christian deacon Stephen while he was doing “great wonders and miraculous signs.” The men of the Freedman Synagogue, wanting to snare the man of God into speaking blasphemy “against Moses and against God” (verse 11), methodically stirred up the people, the elders, and the teachers of the law to seize Stephen and bring him before the chief priests. Notice in the fourteenth verse that the ultimate objective of respect in a predominantly Hebraic society was very manifest from the allegation of this Freedman mob: “For we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and change the customs Moses handed down to us.”

What happened next was a tremendous Spirit-filled educational discourse that neither the Hebraic nor the Hellenistic in that trial ever thought of getting. And then it happened. At a speech as if being delivered by Jesus Himself—with the words, “Was there ever a prophet your fathers did not persecute? They even killed those who predicted the coming of the Righteous One?” (Check out Matthew 23:37, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you….”)—the Greek-schooled folk, who were supposed to have been taught sophistication and emotional restraint, erupted into a bestial pandemonium, furiously “gnashing their teeth at [Stephen]” (7:54), covering their ears, “yelling at the top of their voices” (verse 57). They all stampeded toward Stephen, “dragged him out of the city” and stoned him until he died (verse 58). At this, Christianity gained its first martyr. If the chief priests hid behind the crowd they manipulated against Jesus, the Freedman mob got down and dirty and drew the blood of Stephen with their own hands.

“On that day,” according to Acts 8:1, “a great persecution broke out against the church at Jerusalem”—led by these Grecian-educated social climbers acting no different from the mindless orgiasts under the Bacchanalian moonlight, which they had undoubtedly learned about in the marbled universities of Greece, Rome, and Asia Minor—“and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria.” The death of Stephen marked a new phase in Christianity in that it got thrown toward the Mediterranean border of Jewish Palestine; it also marked the decline of the church in Jerusalem. In the same chapter in the Book of Acts, we find the Samaritan ministry of Philip (verse 4 to 8), another deacon, and his Ethiopian encounter (verses 26 to 40); Simon Peter also began fortifying the Samaritan frontier in 8:9 to 25. Blown out of the water, so to speak, were the Christians in Jerusalem and very quickly then after did local fellowships begin sprouting at the periphery of the western Jewish borders, such as the ones in Damascus, Antioch, and Cyprus (Acts 11:19). And they flourished there.

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What the Freedman religio-social climbers sparked against the Christians in Jerusalem did nothing to stop God’s judgment. Instead of repenting, as preached by John the Baptist, Jesus, and the apostles, the influences that ruled Jerusalem at that time took God’s message and slapped it to His face. God, by now acting through His Holy Spirit, moved to protect the welfare of His people, the believers, the real Israel born out of Abraham; and like what He did to save the lives of Lot and his family, a subtle but swift flight from Jerusalem had to be carried out. He needed to move the real Israel away from the dust, dross, and shaving that clung to it and claimed its origin from Abraham. These were the goats that Jesus talked about in His parable in Matthew 25:32 and 33, the tenants that killed their landowner’s servants and son in 21:43, the honored guests who refused the king’s invitation in 22:1 to 14, the “blind fools” of 23:17, the five foolish virgins of 25:1 to 13.

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By 60 A.D. major Christian churches have been established in several parts of Asia Minor, Greece, and even in Rome, giving a new home to the believers, who by this time were still guessing what was in store for them in this new phase of their lives. By this period, the Christian culture had opened its doors to new adherents, non-Jews. Prior to this, it was a practice of the original apostles to baptize their converts first into Judaism and then into Christianity. This was because Christianity back then was classified as a sect of the Jewish mother religion; by this time, it had become the fifth addition to the top four of Jewish beliefs—the Pharisaic, the Sadducean, the Essene, and the political Zealot.

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It was the norm for alien converts to be baptized into Judaism first, to be circumcised most of all, before joining any of its sects. Jews were free to join any they wished, including Christianity; they just later had to contend with the snarling Freedman pack who thought that Christian-bashing was a shortcut to the acceptance and respect they aspired to receive from their traditionally superior Hebraic brethren! Before those intellectual beasts entered the scene, the Hebraic Jews respected them Jews of the fifth sect. When the Apostle Peter stood up to address the crowd on that historic Pentecost Day, "God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven" who "were staying in Jerusalem" for the holiday (Acts 2:5) listened to his message and were "cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, 'Brothers, what shall we do?' “(verse 37) That day, according to verse 41, three thousand accepted the message, repented and were baptized into the Christian faith. In Acts 2:47, this peculiar new Jewish sect enjoyed the favor of all the people. In Acts 5:13 it says that the Christian believers were "highly regarded by the people" though "no one else dared join them"; but still "more and more men and women believed in the Lord and were added to their number" (verse 14). The Christians were highly esteemed by their traditional Jewish brethren that they were not driven away from the Temple courts where the believers chose to meet together every day (2:46). Dude, the traditional Jewish authorities afforded Christianity a niche alongside their other sects—maybe with much reluctance, but accepted and tolerated nonetheless! As far as the Bible is concerned, Jewish Christianity had only two sets of detractors: the chief priests and the Freedman folk—none of which representing of the popular Jewish sentiment on the Christian "threat."

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Did the Jews kill Jesus? It's an age-old question that has spawned hatred, erroneous doctrine, dead-wrong Bible interpretations, and deadly religious beliefs. So, did they?...kill Jesus? No. Them Jews did not kill Jesus, period. Not even them Roman sadists killed Him! In fact, when He prayed, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing" (Luke 23:34), He was praying for the cold-hearted Roman soldiers who, despite torturing Him and nailing Him on the cross, were just following their orders from their superiors. When Peter drove his point in his Pentecost message and said, "God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ" (Acts 2:36), he was alluding to the rebellious spirit that the people needed to repent of; there was no intention to slap them with guilt and accusation. The Jewish people loved Him! He came to them healing, feeding, and preaching deliverance. How could anyone not love Him? He loved kids! He brought hope. Sure, there were those who got offended in His teaching when they thought He was talking about cannibalism about eating His flesh and drinking His blood, but an entire nation did not hate him. Those He helped and loved loved Him back and followed Him as a crowd mourning Him while He staggered all the way to Calvary with that heavy cross on His back. Lots of Jews may have hated Him; lots of Jews may not have cared about Him; but lots of them also loved Him. And lots of them came to understand and love Him when the apostles took on their ministry, preaching the same message that was distinctly Jesus all over. Who killed Jesus? The chief priests. These were the ones who schemed and planned with all the proverbial itch in their body! And why did they scheme and plan? Because they were scared of the people (Matthew 21:46; Mark 11:18, 12:12; Luke 20:19, 22:2). And why were they scared of the people? Because the people loved Him and one false touch from anyone might cause a riot—something that the Roman authorities might handle with unmitigated cruelty and which will eject them chief priests out of business!

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Now, when we say business here, we just don't mean religious business. We categorically do not mean taking care of the spiritual lives of the people. We mean financial business—ch-ching, ch-ching! b-bling, b-bling! The annual worth of a high priest in those days already stood at 8 million dollars by today's standard. He raked an annual salary of about 16 million dollars and amassed commissions, among which came from the sacrificial animals sold in the Temple area that brought him an average $8 per approved sacrifice. This data alone will explain why Annas, Caiaphas, and the other members of the Temple hydra would send a Jesus to His death and smash the brains out of a kindly Grecian Jewish Christian deacon who did nothing but share food and the Gospel to whom he thought were the underdogs of a Mosaic society. The Jews did not kill Jesus; the masters who controlled them—who just happened to be Jews—did!

And you thought thirty pieces of silver was just about it concerning the Temple Hydra. Well, how about the time when Jesus turned the tables on the moneychanging Temple scam on His first day in Jerusalem?

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But thanks to the Hellenistic beasts, the land was ignited with a vicious kind of persecution against the Jewish Christian that carried with it a threat to his life. It caused an inadvertent ejection of many Christians from their homeland and the understandable scrambling to get their lives back basically on track ground Church membership growth to a halt. The Freedman threat did much to fire up the chief priests and may have even reprogrammed the popular Hebraic attitude toward the Christians decisively severing away the Church's source of Jewish converts. And even when the disenfranchised believers had finally gained their bearing in their new foreign setting, they found some complication in fulfilling the Great Commission to draw the non-Jewish people into God's House. For one thing, their story of being expulsed out their homeland may had come as a bad rep to non-Jews wishing to be converts. The statistics of those wanting to join the Faith that came in in droves back in Israel went down to trickles in Asia Minor, Greece, and Rome.

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One other thing that may have squeezed the slowdown of new membership in the House of God was the foreign reception on the prerequisite of going through the Jewish baptism of proselytation. It could have been that a range of feelings from fear to anorexy impeded the prospects of conversion in that there was a predominating apathy for the Jewish culture, if not for Jesus Christ and His message. What therefore was viewed as a powerful and up-and-coming fifth sect that took Israel by storm was nothing but another fish when dropped in the larger sea of ethnic cultures, religions, and philosophies. Against this new setting, the local Christian fellowships that would found the great churches of Ephesus, Galatia, Corinth, Thessalonica, Rome, and others, were in danger of languishing as insignificant enclaves of a neo-Judaic counter-culture.
In the face of possible extinction or stagnation, God gave the believers a man who would sow the seeds of church growth and hew for the believers a doctrine that would liberate them from the clutches of an old tradition.

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• Paul

He was a Jew, raised in Tarsus, a city in the vicinity of Cilicia. Despite the Hellenistic setting of his youth, he was strictly reared a Hebraic. At an early age, he was brought to Jerusalem to study at the feet of a great Hebraic teacher named Rabbi Gammaliel to become a Pharisee. By age thirty, some scholars suspect, he was already a member of the Sanhedrin. He was about Jesus' age, according to historians, when came to Jerusalem about the same time Jesus began His ministry; the two never met, though. He is first mentioned in the Bible as Saul of Tarsus (Acts 8:1), as one who stood by and gave approval to the stoning of the Christian deacon Stephen. He declared himself an enemy to those who followed the Way (9:2) and militantly pursued them, "whether men or women...[to] take them prisoners to Jerusalem" (Ibid.). From this point alone, history proved him to be a life-changer in that his infamy struck fear in the hearts of the Christian believers. In Acts 9:13, panic was all over the Godly Ananias at the mention of the name. Note that where there was supposed to be a "Yes, Lord, I will obey," a wealth of words instead issued out of his databanks:

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"'Lord,' Ananias answered, 'I have heard many reports about this man and all the harm he has done to your saints in Jerusalem. And he has come here with authority from the chief priests to arrest all who call on your name.'"

That reminds us about ourselves when God at some time told us to do the right thing and then we went, "God, You gotta be kidding!" But the simplicity of His virtue alone is enough to nag the bad attitudes out of us and get us back on track to Him!

In another passage, in verse 26, even the apostles recoiled in fear at the sight of him. This guy was bad news. If the believers in those days had a Believers' Broadcasting Network, it wouldn't take a lot of air time to send the folks running for cover if the newscaster would merely say, "Saul of Tarsus."

In one of his missions, however, he had a God encounter. Through this, it was the life-changer's turn to get his life changed. Forever.

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The account in Acts 9:1 to 9 tells it all. Though he grew up in a Hellenistic city, he was not Hellenistic but strictly Hebraic. But his character—snarling, "breathing out murderous threats against the Lord's disciples" as he galloped towards Damascus, where some believers' assembly was reported to exist—made him no different from his rabid Freedman brethren that screamed for Christian blood. All of a sudden, a flash of bright light from the heavens sends him sprawling to the ground; then in the midst of this brightness, a voice spoke to him saying, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?" (verse 4) It was Jesus introducing Himself to Saul in a private vision, in spite of the group that he was traveling with. In the seventh verse, they heard "the sound but did not see anyone." It was Jesus who created that sound; but just like a parable that hides its meaning from the unspiritual, there was nothing slightly intelligible that could be suspected of it, as far as the company was concerned. It was nonetheless so startling that stunned them "speechless" (Ibid.). It was a whole different story from Saul's side, however. At that instant, Jesus showed Mr. Saul who the Boss was. In the sixth verse, He commanded Mr. Big-Time Persecutor of the Believers to "get up and go into the city" of Damascus where he would be told what he had to do (Ibid).

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So like a good boy he entered Damascus. Blind. A devout brother named Ananias came to him and laid hands on him in prayer to restore his sight. “Immediately,” according to Acts 9:18, “something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes, and he could see again.” The next verse tells how this persecutor of the Christians got up, got baptized into the Christian sect and “regained his strength” to preach to the Jews in their synagogues in Damascus that Jesus is the Son of God.

A combination of knowledge that came from years of studying the Holy Scriptures and the fiery fervor of a man with the Truth made him an unstoppable force that baffled his target audience which he wanted to win for Jesus (verse 22). There was, however, some learning of value here. His knowledge and fervor made him too unstoppable and the immovable advocates of Judaism were not amused one bit. In the twenty-fourth verse, Saul learned of a plot to murder him sending him fleeing for his life out of Damascus and into Jerusalem. In the nation’s capital, he tried to enter the apostles’ church but his infamy just blew him out of the doors. Eager to do his share and win souls for Jesus, however, he marched right for the “Grecian Jews” —these guys!—and tried to debate with them and tried to get himself killed (verses 28 and 29). Immediately, “the brothers” (verse 30) swooped down to his rescue and then sent him off to Tarsus.

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Three succeeding chapters of the Book of Acts move on with Saul’s name appearing in only three verses of the Eleventh Chapter and the last of the Twelfth. By this time, the Jewish Christians were faced with the inevitable fact that “Gentiles also had received the word of God” (verse 1), and from the Tenth Chapter, God had been speaking to the Apostle Peter through a vision (10:11 to 16) and His Spirit (verse 19 to 20) about the foreign prospects of the Great Commission. In essence, God was telling the Apostle Peter that the inevitable part of the Great Commission, where it says “…go and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:18), has finally come, beginning with the Greeks whom the brethren from Cyprus and Cyrene had been reaching out to (11:20). And these Greek converts were coming in by the droves (verse 21). Peter had to decide quickly on what to do with the imports. One Jewish brother in the church in Jerusalem, however, was trying out a contingency of his own: bring back Brother Saul (Acts 11:25)—that Greek-speaking Hebraic Roman citizen would know what to do!

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This is where Saul’s ministry begins to crystallize. The Jewish brother who suddenly remembered Saul was Barnabas of the Jerusalem church, “a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and faith” (11:24) who was sent to the church in Antioch to check out the new growth of Greek believers. After encouraging them all “to remain true to the Lord with all their hearts” (verse 23), he made a trip to Tarsus “to look for Saul, and when he found him, he brought him to Antioch” (verses 25 and 26). In a year’s time, Saul and Barnabas were able to disciple the swelling congregation of the church in Antioch as well as support the city’s evangelization.

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The Jerusalem church, though it continued to retain the respect of the Christian fellowships elsewhere, started to diminish from prominence. The churches in Israel enjoyed “a time of peace” (9:31) after the Freedman incident exploded, but church growth was no longer as before. One element concerns the rise of the Grecian Jews who were liable to lose it when a Christian brother came in contact with them. Saul himself found this out when he tried to talk and debate with them (verse 29) in the name of the Lord (verse 28). Another is the severe famine that struck “the entire Roman world” (11:28), which included Palestine, as predicted by the Prophet Agabus (Ibid.), to further lose numbers of the Jerusalem church congregation to emigration. Then in the Twelfth Chapter, it says that Herod the Tetrarch “arrested some who belonged to the church, intending to persecute them” (verse 1). With a top political personality now getting his dirty fingers into the “Christian situation,” it became clear to many believers that it was time for an emigration. It was very ironic that as the Hellenistic Jews came pouring into the land of their Mosaic heritage, the believers of the land were draining themselves into the vast frontiers of the Graeco-Roman realm.

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Being banished from the Promised Land, the Jewishness of the Jewish Christian was being hurt. Culturally, he was taught that only the disobedient were undeserving of the Promised Land, the heaven God had made for His chosen people. But in his devotion to obey the teachings of the Messiah, like Abraham launching out of Ur, the Christian saddles up either for Antioch or the farther centers of Asia Minor, even the more distant lands of Macedonia and Rome, where Christian churches had by then been established. In the years ahead, there would no longer be any Christian in Jerusalem. By 70 A.D., Jerusalem was no more.

Through all of these, one thing we could learn between the Christians and the Jews is that both seem to form the two sides of a coin; and I say coin because each of them had an inability to look at the other while one was undergoing a crisis. It was just too bad because they could have learned much from each other well. History shows us that the Jewish believers underwent the very same problems, dilemmas, and ordeals that the Christians believers did; the flight from Jerusalem was the first. If the Jewish believers took a hint of the plight of the Christians when they were sent scattering all over the Roman Empire, there might have been some measures taken—like the repentance that John the Baptist, Jesus, and the apostles had preached—to minimize or even avert the tremendous slaughter that occurred during 70 A.D. and the reprisals of 113 A.D. and 132 A.D. If the Jewish believers had taken note of the extreme religious persecution the Hellenistic Jews had put the Christians through, they might have considered it a glimpse of their future when the Jewish people too would undergo the same treatment from the nations they sought refuge in during the centuries after 135 A.D., when Jerusalem and Judaean Palestine was made off-limits to the Jews by the Romans, until May 14, 1948, a Friday, at 4 p.m., when the Israeli state was born.

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And in considering the ordeals each has undergone, it can be observed that both underwent the same problems in a way that it seemed they were handing them down to each other after one was finished with it. The pattern in the lives of these two people was so evident that an impending problem could have been surely foretold, and averted, if one people had the time and the humility to observe and learn from the other.

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In light of the destruction of Jerusalem, we now understand why Jesus came for the lost sheep of Israel—

“He answered, ‘I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel’” (Matthew 15:24).

“These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: ‘Do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans. Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel. As you go, preach this message: The kingdom of heaven is near’” (Matthew 10:5–7).

Through the message of the Gospel, Jesus was able to save a great remnant for God’s people and for Israel, as God has always done before.

Now we understand that God did meet the expectation of the Jews for deliverance when Jesus came to them as the “Suffering Servant” of Isaiah 53. While we still see the said passage in a largely spiritual context, God did intend to rescue Israel from the “day of the Lord’s vengeance” (Isaiah 61:2), which He later described in detail in Luke 21:22 as the “days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled” (King James Version):

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“When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, you will know that its desolation is near. Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, let those in the city get out, and let those in the country not enter the city. For this is the time of punishment in fulfillment of all that has been written. How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers! There will be great distress in the land and wrath against this people. They will fall by the sword and will be taken as prisoners to all the nations. Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled” (verses 20–24).

We saw in our previous article that Jesus came to reclaim the High Priesthood and, in His death and resurrection, He accomplished this. But just like the anguish of His people of old, their cries have gone to the point—once again, which also goes for the buildup of sin!—that has reached up to heaven, and He has to, once and for all, raise a Leader to deliver His people and rid them of all the sin that was corrupting them. It was like way back in the days of Sodom and Gomorrah, only this time, He sends no two angels. MORE TO COME.

Countdown to Destruction: 0—The Fall and Rise of the High Priesthood

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The Prophet Isaiah prophesied almost two hundred years before that a foreigner by the name of Cyrus would rebuild the Temple of God and the walls of His city. By the year 538 B.C., the words spoken by the prophet started jumping out of the Scriptures like popcorn. The Israelites of Judah, now called the Jews, started coming back home with the blessing of a victorious emperor whom the Persians called Cyrus the Great. Historically, however, we know that it was not really out of the abounding kindness of the Persian monarch’s heart or a heartfelt understanding of Zionism. If Babylonia stood by a policy of cultivating imperial strength out of people disenfranchised of their nation, Persia believed that people worked best in an environment which they considerably controlled. If Babylon gave the Jews the opportunity to be themselves and the right to self-government except repossess their country, the Persia granted them continuation of what they had in Babylon and their restoration to their country, except national independence. And in this new development we find a link to the new role of the high priest—his new political role.

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The next wave of prophesies were about to take place. Now to get things straight, the Jews were allowed to return to Palestine under the probation of being granted self-rule, not political independence. The Persian government recognized the potential financial gain they could generate for the kingdom if the Jews were granted the favor of running their own lives with less bureaucratic control. Once the repatriates had settled, the very first thing that had to be set up was the leadership. Cyrus the Great himself appointed as governor of Judah a man named Sheshbazzar (Ezra 5:14), said to be a prince of the royal house of David. From Babylon he came with the first batch of returnees bearing “the gold and silver articles” (Ibid.) which Nebuchadnezzar had plundered from the Temple of God. As soon as the Jews had settled in Palestine, Sheshbazzar immediately set to work in laying the foundations of the Temple (verse 16). But for some reason, the Temple construction ceased and Sheshbazzar mysteriously disappears from the pages of the Bible and in history.

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The first batch of Jewish returnees arrived at Jerusalem, among which was a Zadokite priest named Jeshua and a direct descendant of the King David named Zerubbabel (Haggai 2:23).

Taking Sheshbazzar’s place, much to the Jews’ jubilation, was another Davidic prince by the name of Zerubbabel. To the reader of the Bible’s minor prophets, even the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, the name of Zerubbabel is not unfamiliar. As a matter of fact, when the name is mentioned, there seems to follow reverberating strains of God’s favor upon this individual—as if the Messiah Himself had arrived. In Haggai 2:23, the book’s last verse, the Prophet assured the prince with the words of God—

“’I will take you, my servant Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel,’ declares the Lord, ‘and will make you like my signet ring, for I have chosen you,’ declares the Lord Almighty.”

In 1:14, it was noted that “the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah” along with his high priest and all the Jews living in the land to resume the rebuilding of the Temple of the Lord. And as confirmed in history, on the “in the second year of King Darius” (verse 1), around 520 B.C., the restoration carried on. In the “sixth year of the reign of Darius” (Ezra 6:15), the Temple was completed, under the leadership of Zerubbabel. But it did not look good for Zerubbabel after accomplishing the Temple restoration for even he vanishes from the Bible as did his relative Sheshbazzar before him.

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A puzzle it may remain but there are speculations exist to provide implications of their fate. One was allegedly based on the intention of the Jews to make them king. Purportedly the Jews in Palestine during that time examined the trend in their lives as a nation and made a troubled supposition of their situation when in case the immediate successor of Cyrus the Great would not possess his tolerance but instead have the disposition to mistreat them once again, as what happened during their ancient days in Egypt. Moving against the Persian ordinance of insurrection, the Jews declared Sheshbazzar king of the Jews, prompting the Persians, as soon as it was uncovered, to contain the situation by summarily beheading the Jewish prince. Appointing in his place Zerubbabel, and now wary of his leadership potential to spark another seditious act, the Persians kept close watch over the situation but without stressing normal conditions. Some time after the Temple restoration was done, Zerubbabel was nonetheless seized away and executed to avoid the eventuality of high treason. Replacing him as governor of Judah, the Persians chose a distinguished individual from the family of Zadok named Jeshua (or Joshua), Zerubbabel’s high priest. The Persians were comfortable with Jeshua, having no objections to a priest being in charge. With this, the prophecy spoken by the Prophet Zechariah came true:

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Things changed for the people of God after Judah fell to Babylon in 586 B.C. The years they spent in Babylon transitioned them into an age of religious complexity and social turmoil especially when the mantle of Alexander the Great’s world Hellenization was spread over them. Yet another aspect of Israelite spirituality was finally awakened, almost newly born for it was not particularly underscored, although hinted, during the years before the Fall of Jerusalem. When Babylon crumbled in the hands of the Medo-Persians, the Messianic consciousness had spiked in the heart of the remnant Israelite; and it was Cyrus the Great who provided the Jewish generation of that time of what the Promised One might be like. Although the Great Persian monarch would be finally held as not the Messiah of the Lord, he was nonetheless honored for being a prototype thereof and the nation he belonged to tendered with handsome and wholehearted tribute.

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But what is it about those whom the Jews at that time hailed as their kings later losing their heads? Cyrus the Great, who became a model of the Messiah for the first batch of Israelites to be called Jews, was said to have been decapitated by the Massagetae Queen Tomyris, plunging his head into a sack of blood to “have his fill and satiate himself.” Sheshbazzar and Zerubbabel suffered the same fate of getting their heads lopped off by the Persians to keep them from sparking an insurrection among the Jews. Jesus, on the other hand, not only being hailed but even confirming the question by Pilate whether He was the King of the Jews (Matthew 27:11, Mark 15:2, Luke 23:3, John 18:33–37), got his head coiled with a crown of thorns. All “King of the Jews,” but only One got to keep His head. The implication of Jesus keeping the integrity of His remains is partly explained by the prophecy regarding no bone in His body would be broken (John 19:36, Exodus 12:46, Numbers 9:12, Psalm 34:20); but the best explanation was the one provided by St. Paul regarding our Lord Jesus being the Head of the Church (Ephesians 5:23, Colossians 1:18), the Head of every man (1 Corinthians 11:3), the Head of all principality and power (Colossians 2:10), and ultimately the Head of Christ being God (1 Corinthians 11:3). The last statement Jesus supported in His statement in John 15:10:

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“If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love.”

Jesus—as He said yet again in John 10:30 and 17:22—and the Father are inseparably indivisibly “one,” and never will He, be it symbolically or literally, be severed from the Father.

A high priest as king became the shape of things to come, for even in the days when the Greeks came Hellenizing the world after the Persians, the high priest was allowed to maintain governorship over Judah. The Temple of Judaism had returned in the form of a sect, however, since sharing in its influence over the Jews was the Rabbinic, or Pharisaic, denomination. But in the early years of existing side by side, the Babylon-born party was never a source of division or confusion for the Jewish faithful. As a matter of fact, its Sanhedrin maintained an outstanding check-and-balance in the land’s general religious leadership. Any abuse of power by invoking “Divine will” was controlled by the Sanhedrin’s expertise on the Mosaic Law. The Pharisees were not a threat during this stage, though a threat did truly lurk around, a threat that shortly emerged within the Temple leadership.

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In cross-reference with Nehemiah 12:11, some scholars, among who was the Jewish historian Josephus, note of a story that involved Jonathan, the son of Joiada, in what may have been one of the early scandals that marred the Temple sect. As believed, Jonathan was to inherit the High Priesthood by order of succession; the conflict was that a brother of his named Jeshua was promised the same position by a certain General Bagosus, a family friend in the Persian military. One day Jeshua stormed into the Temple and killed Jonathan in the middle of his rites. It was a story that never passed the pages of the Bible; nonetheless, it was the outline of things to come for the Jewish post-exilic Priesthood.

Generally, however, there was harmony between the political and the religious spheres when the Jews returned from exile. Through the political stability in the Persian Empire, the Temple was finally rebuilt and many of the Jews hungry for the rites that had been lost streamed into the great edifice. Population in Palestine grew and so did Temple adherents, in spite the existence of the synagogue system. And as the adherents grew, so did the Temple offerings. The Jewish prosperity of this period brought stunning vibrancy to the revived Temple treasury: one understandable factor why the post-exilic Priesthood came to be among the aristocracy. It was also a factor that attracted the greed of foreign conquerors and local usurpers.

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The currents of time brought new challenges to the Jews, and as the Persian power over world affair began to wane, so did the cosmetic purity of the Temple sect slowly peel. Evidences of corruption started to show. The Jewish society became more factioned with minor, lesser-known sects that adhered to foreign beliefs, particularly those of Persian origin, and the great prophets who heard from God and spoke His words were being ignored until they finally disappeared, notably after Malachi who lamented over the renascent corruption of the Priesthood. Yet the greatest damage was about to come. In 334 B.C. a young Macedonian general by the name of Alexander crossed the Hellespont with an army of 32,000 and smashed a greater Persian force; he demanded the capitulation of Darius III and the scepter of world rule passed from the east to the west. And so did Palestine.

©Stone/Paul Souders

The events that occurred after about 430 B.C. was called the “silent years” when no prophet or prophecy from God was heard. The fortunes of the Jews panned from good to very bad to severe, and there was nothing to blame but the threat of spiritual corruption eating at the core of the people’s religious and political leadership. Then in 6 B.C., Jesus came. According to Hebrews 1:1, He is the living prophecy of God’s message in which all the prophecies in the past and for the future are rolled into.

©Sandro Vannini/CORBIS

Once again, it was said that Alexander marched into Persia without a fight; the same was also said when he came to the thresholds of Palestine. In a popular story the high priest of Jerusalem at that time led a procession to welcome the Macedonian prince. Remember: the new Messianic consciousness which started with Persia was now etched among the Jews, and news about the exploits of this amazing fiery youth leading a handful of soldiers decisively winning wars was inspiring awe among the Jews. This could be the new Cyrus the Great, they anticipated; and true enough, Alexander took a liking of the Persian title and annexed it to his name, thus, Alexander the Great. Note here how the spirit of Persia, though reaching the end of its power, still exerted its influence upon its dominator. Later on in another study, we shall see how the Persian influence actively shored across the Near East and into the west despite the eastward thrust of Hellenization.

Yet whether or not we find validity to the story of Alexander being rolled out the red carpet when he entered Palestine, we are nonetheless introduced to the fact that Hellenization came as rain upon the land, strangely sweet but later gathering a torrent that almost rips apart the Jewish society then deracinates Christianity out of Palestine.

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Greek culture penetrated the thresholds of the Jewish realm like a glass of cool water in a summer’s day. It first came infecting language, manners, and customs; then encroached upon morals, ethics, and religion(1). This is why we find Hellenistic Jews in the Book of Acts, people born in some other part of the Roman Empire and raised in the Grecian ways. Though these foreign-born-and-raised Jews never denied their fundamental identity, it required a great deal of education for them to be integrated with the Hebrew culture. The Greek culture had entrenched itself in the Palestinian society in the last four centuries before the birth of Jesus that its effects persisted among the people until Jerusalem was leveled in 70 A.D. by the Roman General Titus.

©Araldo de Luca/CORBIS

The Jewish people made an impression on the victorious Macedonian prince who, being a barbarian himself by Greek standards, never thought that some distant civilization east of his home would hold a people as equally cultured as the Greeks. For one thing, as pointed out by Jewish historian Max I. Dimont, the Jews carried no visible gods to greet him. During that time, Grecian principles have just emerged from the supernaturalism of belief in gods and into the natural logical possibilities of cause and effect. Capable of higher reason, Alexander must have deduced of the Jews, so he grants them the right to self-government, which was actually a continuance of the privilege they had under the Persians: internal political and religious freedom. If there was such a thing, Alexander was added to their roster of Messianic prototypes, among which stood Cyrus the Great and possibly Sheshbazzar, and Zerubbabel.

©Atlantide Phototravel/Corbis

The season of Hellenization was high upon the Judean scene. Businesswise it opened greater opportunities to get rich and upgrade lives to aristocratic levels. Across the Greek Empire, Hellenization ushered in an aristocratic Golden Age that offered great prospects of commercial wealth.

The ancient Hellenized Jews would have loved this statue portraying one of their greatest kings as a Greek god.

After the death of Alexander the Great in 323 B.C., the boy-king’s vast empire splintered into the hands of his four generals. Palestine and Egypt came under the control of Ptolemy Soter. For several centuries, the Ptolemaic Empire became the most prosperous area in the world. The Ptolemaic rulers made it a point not to found any new Greek cities, except for Alexandria, and preferred to exploit the political and economic heritage of ancient Egypt(2). The agricultural system was rehabilitated to prosperity and the standard of living elevated, especially for the upper classes close to the Pharaonic throne. By Pharaonic tradition, which the Ptolemaics found suited for generating and securing their wealth, Egypt belonged to the Pharaoh. The best of the country’s resources belonged to the Egyptian monarch, which by this time were the Ptolemaics. But following the Pharaonic tradition would leave Palestine as a problem since it did not belong to the Egyptian sphere when the Greeks came and took over. The new rulers therefore resorted to a “live and let live” policy by maintaining Palestine to self-rule and peaceably generate taxes. In other words, the Jewish people were left to themselves to run their lives, whether to live as Greeks or as Hebraics, as long as they made their new masters rich. And made them rich they did as the Jewish aristocrats go richer themselves.

©Araldo de Luca/CORBIS

When the Seleucids wrested control of Palestine in 198 B.C., the favor and tolerant policies continued for the Jews. Greater business opportunities came. The Seleucids owned the greatest part of Alexander’s empire with borders stretching from the southern half of Asia Minor in the West to the Indus River in the East. Vast as it was, the territory lacked the central control very much exerted by the Ptolemaics over Egypt and the Jews had to adapt to new principles of commerce and trade. By and large, however, it was a great brave age for business, a converging of skill and ingenuity of Jew, Greek, and the rest of the Near Eastern world. The enormous hoards of Persian gold and silver that were locked in the royal coffers had finally exploded into circulation, the greatest stimulus to world trade. The chronic shortage of precious metals was relieved. For the first time throughout this great region, taxes were paid in coin. Banks sprouted everywhere, credit expanded far beyond expected, and the checks became a usual method of payment. It was the introduction of the money economy in this part of the world. Coupled with the commercial skills of the Jews and their neighbors, plus the ingenuity of the Greek business man, it was a great period for business(3).

Photo source: en.wikipedia.org

But the days of Greek favor were set to end for within the Jewish society itself was a movement born out of sentiments that called for an unadulteration of the Judaic culture. Not everybody in Palestine was happy about the new age of Hellenization sweeping over the land. In fact, they saw it as a rampaging flood of corrosion eating away the faith in the coming Messiah appointed to once again reign over Israel. It therefore took into an anti-Hellenistic movement called the Hasideans to protect the integrity of the Jewish identity. For decades the Hasideans were unnoticed by the largely Greek-admiring mainstream; but an event would raise them out of obscurity thirty years later and set them on a collision course with the highest figure of Greek rule: Antiochus IV. And it all happened with his fingers in the Priesthood.

How many of us find it weird when certain patterns in our lives seem to loop at particular periods before our very eyes? It was the same with the post-exilic Priesthood that after the Temple conflict between the brothers Jeshua and Jonathan, a similar scandal emerges in the same stage only this time on a grander scale. Could this be a principle to what Jesus expressed as “the beginning of birth pains” (Mark 13:8)? With the Greek foot in Palestine, the Seleucid kings gained the authority to appoint as governor the High Priest chosen by the Jews, in this case Onias III. Through intrigue and bribery, however, pro-Hellenistic Jewish aristocrats prevailed upon Antiochus to change his mind and replace Onias III by his brother Jason, a leading Hellenizer in Palestine. Jason promised Antiochus that the moment he steps into power, he would institute Greek customs among the Jews and generate large sums into the royal treasury(4). To the shock of the Jews, Jason opened the Temple to pagan rites, with statues of Grecian gods studding the sanctuary. Almost under the shadow of the Temple, a gymnasium was built where Jewish boys were trained in Greek games to compete naked in tournaments frequently held in the Temple courts. The priests left the service for these “Temple games.” Even Jason himself actually disrobed and shared in the games in honor of the Tyrian god Melkarth(4). Furthermore, Jewish envoys were sent to pagan festivals abroad to represent Jerusalem(5).

©National Geographic Society/Corbis

Outraged Jews from all walks of life sought something to hold on to amidst this storm of pagan invasion battering their Jehovic conscience. They flocked to the ranks of the Hasideans. At that instant, the Hasideans turned into a smoldering political party waiting for the right time to strike back. Their chance came in 168 when Antiochus marched out against the Ptolemies on a bid to capture Egypt.

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Antiochus IV called himself “Epiphanes” or “the manifest god”; Jewish history would, however, stand him in the roster of “madmen” who tried to exterminate them in their 6,000-year history. Antiochus, like the rest of his predecessors, was a military adventurist, meaning he was one of those Seleucid kings who vowed upon ascending to power to restore the former glory of Alexander’s empire, only that it would not be called “Alexander’s empire” anymore. It was, in fact, this vision that haphazardly contributed to the Seleucid Empire’s lack of central control. Another thing they had to contend with was the rising power of Rome. In 168 B.C., Antiochus, with the vision of a reunified Greek empire under him, mustered his troops to invade Egypt. Unfortunately, he runs into the greater might of the Roman armies, sending him out reeling with the remainder of his troops with their tails caught between their legs.

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By this time, news reaches Palestine that Antiochus was dead, killed by the Romans. The Hasideans determined that this was the time to strike. Party leaders charged at the Jewish Hellenizers and every individual appointed by Antiochus, executing them by hurling them from the top of the Temple then followed by the statues installed by Jason in the Temple. The Hasideans went on rapidly after that to seize control of the nation.

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News about this revolution, however, reached a humiliated and vengeful Antiochus who instantly blazed back to Palestine with every intention of venting out his sore ego upon the Jews. Mindlessly crashing into Palestine, he slaughters 10,000 inhabitants(6) and exterminates the Hasidean party leaders. He goes on to install a new set of statues in the Temple with a new set of High Priests—note the plurality—to tend to them. He takes full martial control of Jerusalem and invites the pagans to settle in the city and dilute the Jewish population6. Yet after all of this, Antiochus was not yet done but went ahead to outlaw the Jewish Sabbath and the practice of circumcision. At this, the Hasideans regrouped with a new stronger leadership: the Maccabees. In 164 B.C., the Maccabean army recaptured Jerusalem, purged the Temple of idols and rededicated it to God. The feast of Hanukkah was instituted in celebration of the miracles that happened in the war. According to historians, the war waged by the Maccabees was the first known religious war in history(6).

©Leonard de Selva/CORBIS

The Jews groaned under the atrocities of the Seleucids from 168 B.C., and the Book of Maccabees is among the best reference to this. The first chapter of the First Book documents the policies instituted by Antiochus IV Epiphanes for every citizen of Judea to adhere to with corresponding measures of brutality applied to anyone who violated. According to the prohibition of circumcision, for example, mothers who had gone ahead with this holy rite were put to death along with their families, their babies were particularly hanged (verse 60 to 61, Good News Bible, Today's English Version). “Innocent people,” says the thirty-seventh verse, “were murdered around the altar [in the Temple]” and “the Holy Place was defiled by murderers.” Also in the book was a detailed account of how the Greek ruler ransacked the Temple of God, brought an army from Mysia against the towns of Judea and plundering the city Jerusalem, razing it. After this, Antiochus sets up a fort north of the Temple where he installs himself and his “group of traitorous Jews” (verse 34). Yet this post-exilic violence did not come without the warning signs.

©Bettmann/CORBIS

The Book of Esther, written during Persian times around 470 B.C., shows how Haman, who in his time became “the most powerful official in the empire” (3:1, New Living Translation), expressed his intention to “destroy” (verse 9) the Jews. Contrary to what may have been an impression forming in our minds regarding the Jews in Persian times, the specter of Persian abuse did hover over the remnant of God’s chosen generation; and as we can see in the accounts in Esther, racial hate and all the capabilities that could be waged against the Jews was alive and well, lurking very close to them.

In a book written earlier than Esther, that of Daniel shows how the top Persian officials of the Empire conspired to take out the man of God because he “so distinguished himself among the administrators and satraps by his exceptional qualities that the king planned to set him over the whole kingdom” (6:3). There was no grounds to charge Daniel and disqualify him from the king’s favor (verse 4), until he was found out praying to a God other than the king (verse 7 to 12). We all know how the story went: Daniel, for his spiritual loyalty to Jehovah, got thrown into a den of lions where he miraculously survives unscathed because “God sent his angel, and he shut the mouths of the lions” (verse 20). But what could be noticed here was the contempt they had for a Jew who historically began life in the “big empire” as a captive of war and later risen opportunistically to dominate the master race. Going back to the Book of Esther, it is very interesting to notice that the word “race” (verse 8, New Living Translation) had been used to single out the Jews by, of all people, an Indo-Aryan man.

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The period of the Maccabees was grim and bloody and dragged on until 143 B.C. when the Seleucids, finally admitting defeat, retreated from Palestine, to grant the Jews the independent nation of Judea. But as history would prove, not even the gift of total independence could encourage reforms in an apparently corrupt and morally corroded post-exilic Priesthood. What was implicated of everything corrupt and irreversibly meant for destruction now doomed what God had purely intended to represent His Messiah to His chosen and to those seeking hope and deliverance.

Since Persian days, the High Priesthood contained in its role both religious and political leadership in Palestine. No wonder everyone closely related to the chosen High Priest was liable to develop the most depraved inclination to usurp the appointment. For the few years Simon Maccabeus ruled the Second Kingdom of Judah, however, the impression of religious reform prevailed over the land, until 135 B.C. Simon and his two sons Judah and Jonathan were slain by his treacherous son-in-law Ptolemy. John Hyrcanus, the son of Simon who survived the assassination, acted immediately to secure Jerusalem before Ptolemy could capture the city. But in Hyrcanus’ bid to pin the assassin, Ptolemy somehow finds a way to slip through the siege formed around his castle and safely escape to Egypt.

©Bettmann/CORBIS

With Ptolemy gone all Judah went ahead to crown Hyrcanus King of the Jews and anoint him High Priest of Jerusalem. Like his father until the last year of his reign, Hyrcanus was uncontested in his absolute power over the land for he ruled with the calloused heart of a backslidden zealot. North of his kingdom was the Greek-ruled Syria from where he believed could one day pour an avalanche of renewed Greek offensive, a fear contemplated even by his father Simon. What Judah needed was a buffer zone about the thickness held by the country of Samaria, plus a southern fall-back line about the distance from his kingdom coincidentally enjoyed by Idumea. It would become John Hyrcanus’ most successful campaign much to the grief and resentment of the Jews. To carry his plan out, he needed money to hire foreign armies. That was easy. He then proceeds to ransack the tomb of King David, shocking all Judah, and scraping some 3,000 talents of silver.

The desecration and sacrilege outraged the Pharisees, Hyrcanus’ party affiliation, immediately calling for the king’s abdication of his role as High Priest. Hyrcanus, however, responds by switching allegiance to the Sadducees, a decision which this time sends him facing off with his Essene adviser, none other than the ascetic sect’s holiest cleric, the Teacher of Righteousness. The Teacher reacts with a stern rebuke; Hyrcanus retaliates by ordering hostilities against the Teacher, forcing the latter to seek asylum in Syria.

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John Hyrcanus before his death had accomplished securing Judah with Samaria in the north and Idumea in the south. As a bonus, he conquered as well Medeba and the neighboring cities on the east of the Jordan7, and all this he did on his first year, in the year 135 B.C. When he was done, his Jewish kingdom encompassed a territory about the size of King David’s Israel in the tenth century B.C. But the years to come would justify the anger felt by his subjects the day their king annexed these territories and converted their pagan inhabitants into Judaism. From Idumea would emerge the unsavory Herods, the last of the pagans to don the title King of the Jews; and from Galilee, Jesus Christ.

Photo source: en.wikipedia.org

The decay of the High Priesthood continued to boil after John Hyrcanus. Selfish ambition ripped brother against brother and the office that was supposed to represent God Himself to the people became as dissolute as ever.

Before his death, Hyrcanus, realizing the risk of ruling as both king and High Priest, arranged to split the roles between his wife and his firstborn, where the first one would hold the political function and the religious for the latter. His wife thought it a great idea; the son, Aristobulus I, had other plans. When John Hyrcanus died, Judah’s newly proclaimed High Priest Aristobulus I seized his mother, his other brothers, and imprisoned them. Other accounts have it slightly different with Aristobulus I murdering his mother and one brother then hurling others in prison. He was a Sadducean advocate and his policies of Hellenization were carried out to unbearable extremes. His rule merely lasted a year but his successor, Alexander Jannaeus, was no less different in that he even plunged the country into civil war. In fact, things got so bad during Jannaeus’ regime that it brought together an unholy alliance against him.

Photo source: www.historynotes.info

As seen before, territorial annexation was carried out by John Hyrcanus to protect Judah from a reprised attack of the Seleucids coming from Syria. Jannaeus perceptibly understood this that he continued to carry out expeditions to expand his kingdom. But the danger he was supposed to fear this time was primarily not anywhere from the outside but from the inside for he knew nothing of the conspiracy arranged by his opponents, the Pharisees, with the Seleucids of Syria. It was entirely unexpected. The Greeks responded with an invading army. The Pharisees, however, realizing their folly of partnering with the sworn enemy switched over to Jannaeus and cooperated to repel the northern offensive. But after averting the danger, the Jewish King-Priest expresses his gratitude by dealing vengeance against the Pharisees in a bloodbath as horrific as can be described of Judah’s brutal history. Jannaeus ruled twenty-seven years, ending in 78 B.C. More than half-a-century of successively vicious political and religious leadership must have robbed the Jews of any expectation of good from their Hasmonean kings, but the next heir was nothing like their last three; more like Simon Maccabeus instead.

©Kenneth Garrett/National Geographic Society/Corbis

If a woman held the High Priesthood at any time, then that would make the last three kings more religiously sensible than the nine-year regime of Queen Salome Alexandra, widow of Jannaeus. Historians refer to her reign as a benign Golden Age when she prioritized on free and compulsory primary education among the young of her kingdom whose generation was rendered illiterate by almost sixty years of internal and external conflict. On this program she was mainly assisted by her brother who was a rabbi so her being a pro-Pharisee would have come as no surprise. But instead of easing the religious tension between her party and the Sadducees, her reign was marked with atrocities against the latter, a glaring failing score in her proverbial report card.

Since she could never hold the office of High Priest, Queen Alexandra appointed instead her son Hyrcanus II into the position who wore its white mantle throughout her reign. Except for the vengeance she continued to extract against the Sadducees, there was generally peace and stability throughout her kingdom. But the chaos that she kept at bay was bound to return upon her death when her sons Aristobulus II and the presiding High Priest battled for the absolute control of Judah. The younger Aristobulus, a Sadducean supporter, removes the older Hyrcanus from the priesthood; the latter retaliates by seizing the throne and deposing the first one. Aristobulus regroups with a stronger Sadducean force and this time deposes his brother.

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Stories of warring blood-brothers fill the pages of the Bible from Cain and Abel to Jesus’ prophecy about brother betraying brother in the gospels (Mark 13:12, also Matthew 10:21). Needless to say, the Hasmonean dynasty was no exception, only that the House was now tearing the last of its pillars to total obliteration. The power struggle ripping the family was the same force devastating Judah into civil war and it was beginning to spill over its borders. A seething Hyrcanus turns east to the Nabateans for support and intimidation, winning him the throne. Aristobulus on the other hand appeals to the rising power of Rome.

By 67 B.C., the Romans had ended Greek rule in Syria and were just waiting for an opportunity to break truce with the Hasmoneans and take Palestine. And that time had come. The Romans marched into Judah, orders Hyrcanus off the throne, and reinstates Aristobulus. Four years later, however, Aristobulus lashes out against Rome, so Pompey struts into the Jewish kingdom, overcomes Aristobulus and places Palestine under the governorship of Syria, that is, in the name of Pompey, not exactly Rome’s.

©Brooklyn Museum/Corbis

What made Aristobulus turn against Pompey? Under military rule, Pompey decided to employ an Idumean alongside his Jewish appointee to help the latter in governing Palestine. At this, the original loyalties of Aristobulus and Hyrcanus switched: Aristobulus rebelled while his brother accepted the conditions thus winning him the position of High Priest and ethnarch of Judea. The Idumean appointed as his political adviser was Antipater, surprisingly a friend of Hyrcanus who gained renown over the Jewish kingdom through the success of his advice that pushed Hyrcanus to the Nabateans.

Historians saw Antipater as the power behind the throne in Hyrcanus’ rule; what he truly was, however, was a very skilled diplomat who blazed a successful career in the art of footlicking. He died in 43 B.C. but not without scraping a niche for his son Herod and his generations of successors high above the very people who conquered his nation in 135 B.C. and forced it to accept Judaism.

The apple-polishing abilities of Antipater was nothing less than legendary even during the generations after him as it was kept alive by his sons who honed it to perfection. It was no wonder Jesus would later refer to Herod as a “fox” in Luke 13:32.

Photo source: en.wikipedia.org

When Herod rose to power in 37 B.C., he had several items in his agenda that were of prime importance. First was to execute Hyrcanus. But being an Idumean immediately barred him from assuming the title High Priest, so he installs a Jewish aristocrat Sadducee named Hananiah of Babylon, known in the Bible for the Greek derivative of his name: Annas. Like Antipater, Annas would go on in history to secure the High Priesthood for himself and his family alone. His would be the last days of the false High Priesthood when in the last half of his life Jesus Christ would be born to take back what he, his family, and the past generations of High Priest appointees had shamelessly bastardized in the name of greed, gold, and glory.

In the fourth chapter of Luke we read how Satan came to tempt Jesus at a time of His physical weakness. When he failed to make Him shed who He was, the Devil “left Him until an opportune time” (verse 13). Usually we see this “opportune time” as when he finally got to nail Him to the cross; yet as we have seen through history, through the silent years when God parched the land of His prophetic messages and revelations, there were numerous instances when the “opportune time” arrived as a chance to crucify the Messiah by mauling and perverting the office of the High Priesthood, Jesus’ most basic identity and expression of His love for His people. Throughout all the accounts we have listed above, we could see how the Devil would not be content in dropping an atom-bomb on his target and getting it over it at one take. This is a sick sadistic entity who found extreme and unnatural delight in inflicting torment and watching it destroy the likeness of the Son of God.

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Some of us following the course of the High Priesthood through time may take that the office had been doomed to fail from the beginning despite the fact that it was ordained by God Himself. The High Priesthood effectively typified the Messiah, His purpose, the sacrifice He was bound to accomplish. This was probably why enemy forces in the spirit realm worked so hard to destroy the office and brought its worse to humiliate and discredit the One True High Priest in the eyes of the people God had chosen for salvation.

Photo source: doubleportioninheritance.blogspot.com

From the time the sons of Aaron were killed for offering illicit fire in the Tabernacle to Annas and Caiaphas holding Jesus in a kangaroo court, the holy altar of God was stained for many centuries by the blood of the very priests, either rightfully chosen or usurpers. Because of this Jesus, the real High Priest, needed to ascend into Heaven and cleanse with His blood (Hebrews 9:14) the spiritual altar—the real heavenly altar, not made by human hands, and the pattern of the earthly copy (verses 11 and 23). Through His death, He ended the role of the false High Priests. Even the gospels recount the events that took place when He gave up His spirit. In Matthew 27:51, the thick veil that concealed the Holy of Holies where only the High Priest was allowed to enter once a year (Hebrews 9:7)—this curtain which was supposed to shield human flesh from the overpowering radiance of God and that became a symbol of intrigue and corruption—“was torn in two from top to bottom,” ending all of the lies that had adulterated the reputation of that which God had once ordained pure.

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In another instance, recorded in Matthew 27:45 and Luke 23:44 was a darkness that swept over the land prevailing upon it for three hours. What happened here was that Jesus died on a Passover making the Sabbath day of that month very special. It was said that the false High Priest Caiaphas, garbed in all his most lavish ceremonial robes (remember what Jesus taught in Luke 20:46 about how these aristocrats love gliding around the market places dressed in their most flowing of robes) was supposed to hold the traditional march around the city—much like how the Angel of Death swept into Egypt on the day of the first Passover. And the lights went out. Here’s what God was saying, as if we haven’t already figured out yet: the real show was not with Caiaphas but on Calvary where the real High Priest hung. The people gathered at the foot of the cross “saw what took place…beat their breasts and went away” (Luke 23:48); those who knew Him stayed and finished the sad and awesome spectacle; and one witnessing Roman centurion was the only one noted to have “praised God” and say, “Surely this was a righteous man” (verse 47). The repossession of the High Priesthood had begun. Because of the yeast of the Sadducees, the High Priesthood was set on a one-way ride to destruction. And it was by then up to the blood of Jesus to save it.

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The sin that stained the High Priesthood from the time of the sons of Aaron to the sons of Annas was one of those transgressions that had reached up to heaven. In such transgressions there was a need for God Himself to descend and personally apply judgment on the transgressors whose spiritual state by then had become so hopelessly unrepentant and on their way to destruction. Jesus, our High Priest, came to earth to save mankind—yes—by taking back the High Priesthood, the position meant for Him, the role entrusted to be portrayed by man for the same hope that mankind would someday be redeemed from the curse of corruption commanded by sin and death. Through the Priesthood, He would be proving to mankind His power to “sympathize with our weakness” (Hebrews 4:15), to “deal gently with those who are ignorant and are going astray” (5:2), and intercede for us, as He had shown in His lifestyle when He lived on earth, offering up “prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears” (verse 7). And all these He could do “since He Himself was subject weakness” (verse 2)—since the High Priesthood itself was subject to weakness, as we have studied.

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If Jesus came and experienced the best and the worst of humanity, the entrusting of the High Priesthood was God’s gift to His people, not just to remind ourselves of the hope we have in Him, but for us to experience the joy and exhilaration felt by the Messiah every time He ministers for us. END

NOTES:

1 Max I. Dimont, Jews, God and History [Mentor: New York, 1996], p.85.
2 Stewart C. Easton, The Heritage of the Past: From the Earliest Times to the Close of the Middle Ages (Holt, Rinehart and Winston: New York, 1961), p.281.
3 Ibid., pp.277–278.
4 Merril C. Tenney, “New Testament Survey” (Manila: OMF Publishers, 1985), p.28.
5 Dimont, p. 88.
6 Dimont, p.89.
7 Tenney, p.30.

Countdown to Destruction: 1

2012-02-08T02:55:00.000-08:00

The Apostle Paul loved to use the analogy of the earthen vessel in illustrating spiritual life. He said that—

“we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:7–9, 16–18).

The principle of the earthen vessel has been at work from the creation of Adam to the time Israel became a nation, exiled into Babylonia, repatriated to Palestine, exploded into all the world five hundred years after, and then re-gathered into the same strip of land they were promised four thousand years before into the State of Israel. The passage above which so many Christians cite to encourage themselves in the midst of their troubles worked for the Israelite nation in its role as the earthen jar which encased the house of God.

©Magictorch/Gettyimages

Yet the principle expands even further. Like a Russian Matryosha doll, its application can be seen as an individual’s immortal spirit encased in man’s perishing shell to the indwelling of God’s Spirit as the core of man’s life to the House God has built being sheltered by a nation chosen by God, and now as the Israelite world becoming Paul’s “treasure” in 2 Corinthians 4:7 and the “jars of clay” are the foreign nations that adopted them. How these nations treated the Israelites was a seed sown and reaped at God’s appointed time.

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In Lamentations 4:2, the Prophet Jeremiah alluded the Israelites to “pots of clay”: "How the precious children of Zion, once worth their weight in gold, are now considered as pots of clay, the work of a potter’s hands!"

When the Mesopotamians descended upon the Israelites in the eighth and sixth centuries B.C., the earthen vessel that contained the House of God was shattered. The Northern Israelite vessel, by the way was empty—chose to be empty—when it decided to distinguish itself apart from the rule of the house of David and adopt a culture to counter that which God had established for them. This same rebel nation blended into the mesh of exiles dragged away by the Assyrians and evaporated into oblivion when their conquering empire was trampled by the Babylonians. The Southern Kingdom of Judah, however, retained some traces of Godliness that God can hold on to—take note the mercy of God: “that God can hold on to”—to keep this nation from totally decaying like their Northern brethren. Like the Egyptian king who welcomed Joseph into the royal circle, Nebuchadnezzar and his successors treated their captive Israelites with a considerable measure of kindness and give the Israelites their dignity, except their land, back. But no matter, it was new and unusual kind of dignity, the kind noted in Exodus 21:5 to 6 as the servant who loved his master. In this, the Israelites put themselves in a state of Diaspora, a state of voluntary exile.

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The root of Diaspora is traced back to the Babylonian Captivity. "Diaspora" is a Greek word that means dispersion. Until the deportation of Judah, the Israelites as a nation had experienced no exile, though it was a fear that the Lord had told them about should they disobey His commands and live not according to the lifestyle He prescribed:

“…if you do not obey the Lord your God and do not carefully follow all his commands and decrees…all these curses will come upon you and overtake you: The Lord will drive you and the king you set over you to the nation unknown to you or your fathers. There you will worship other gods, gods of wood and stone” (Deuteronomy 28:15,36).

In the succeeding verse, the condition of exile is made more unbearable as it brings back the humiliation of their ancestors who lived and died as slaves in Egypt:

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“You will become a thing of horror and an object of scorn and ridicule to all the nations where the Lord will drive you” (verse 37).

Moses painted a very precise and disturbing picture of the consequence of rebellion and disobedience. He made the people realize that when God sends His judgment, it would not be as pleasant and as relenting as they would be if it were they who were plundering a city. There would be no mercy, indicated Moses, for the time of mercy would be given at an indefinite length until it is over; and when it is over, it would then be too late.

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It was like urging a friend to stop smoking to save his life. Many smokers are sold to the idea that dying of old age or by accident makes no difference from dying of lung cancer; so they enjoy popping that cigarette stick every day of their lives. What they don’t know, however, is the excruciating pain that accompanies one in his descent into the grave. Lots of us have this naïve picture of dying that the victim just gloriously closes his eyes, drops his head gently to his side, then opens his eyes to the bright light of the afterlife. Well, if you’ve seen someone die of lung cancer our preconceived idea of dying is nothing but a pile of bovine manure. As a child of twelve, I have witnessed with my own eyes how my father died of lung cancer. It was not pleasant. There was no glory in it. We understand death; we understand that it comes to everyone, smoker or nonsmoker. But it’s about time we also started understanding that there’s a whole lot of difference between dying in peace and getting the life ground out of us slowly and convulsed in pain.

“Just as it pleased the Lord to make you prosper and increase in number, so it will please him to ruin and destroy you. You will be uprooted from the land you are entering to possess. Then the Lord will scatter you among all nations, from one end of the earth to the other. There you will worship other gods—gods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your fathers have known. Among those nations you will find no repose, no resting place for the sole of your foot. There the Lord will give you an anxious mind, eyes weary with longing, and a despairing heart. You will live in constant suspense, filled with dread both night and day, never sure of your life. The Lord will send you back in ships to Egypt on a journey I said you should never make again. There you will offer yourselves for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buy you” (Exodus 28:63–66, 68).

When Judah fell in defeat in 586 B.C., not only were the words of the prophets ringing in the people’s ears but also the Mosaic warning on disobedience was being proven true to the letter. God did bring a nation against them from far away, from the ends of the earth, like an eagle swooping down, a nation of a strange language (verse 49). It did lay siege to Jerusalem until it fell (verse 52).

But the days of captivity came with its own device that sugar-coated the bitterness of spiritual loneliness of being isolated from the lifestyle that made the Israelites close to God. Babylonia offered an opportunity for its captives to be productive, to learn its ways, to contribute to the Babylonian society, to be a people of their own identity except hold national borders. The Israelites accepted the Babylonian kindness; we put the Babylonian offer as “kindness” based on the account on how Evil-Merodach treated King Jehoiachin in the Israelite monarch’s thirty-seventh year of exile:

“Evil-Merodach…released Jehoiachin from prison…. He spoke kindly to him and gave him a seat of honor higher than those of the other kings who were with him in Babylon. So Jehoiachin put aside his prison clothes and for the rest of his life ate regularly at the king’s table. Day by day the king gave Jehoiachin a regular allowance as long as he lived” (2 Kings 25:27–30).

From the days of Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian soul reserved a fondness for the exotic with the capital city becoming a catch basin of the many cultures of its conquered peoples. But instead of being a mélange of a little bit of this culture and that, the Babylonian personality was already hammered from its early years under Hammurabi in the eighteenth century B.C. and the new prominent natives, whom the Israelites and the Greeks identified as Chaldeans, struggled to keep the old fires of tradition alive. But alas, the best that this new Babylonian Empire could revive are the trappings of formality, a renascence of the form without its living substance. In spite therefore of all the towering buildings, shiny marbled public courtyards, sparkling monuments, and rising ziggurats, the ashes of a dead aimless religion blew across the empire desperately collected by the Chaldeans into their urns of withered pride. In this land of the living dead, who would have guessed that life would emerge for the Israelites in a chance to be themselves again and call this land their home away from home?

The Israelite learned the Babylonian ways of refinement and grace; he learned language without unlearning and unloving his Hebrew heritage. He was given the freedom to live peaceably, be productive by utilizing his talent and skill in a strange society that gave him a place alongside its native citizen. Unlike in Egypt where he was seen as nothing more than a slave, Babylon dressed him up as one of them, educated him as one of them, gave him a name that made things easy for him to function, do business, and, yes, to make friends, in the new society. The Empire where walked people from different lands gave the Israelite the dignity to be who he was and be who he wanted to be, all to build and reinforce the power and spirit of the new Babylonia, for which he was deported. And build the Empire he did. The wide and complex trade routes made him into a man of commerce and business, and with talented effort he pumped financial power into the kingdom to uplift the Babylonian standard of living into stellar heights. Through this, the Israelite fortified himself, built himself erect with wealth as he built the wealth of the kingdom, and his renown spread in this foreign land. Thus, out of the dust of captivity emerged the Israelite aristocracy.

The Israelite donning himself with Babylonian trappings and getting rich with Babylonian money was actually him doing a favor for the Babylonians. Forget not that it was for this condition that he was kept alive when the Mesopotamians swooped down into the holy kingdom and carried him away. Nebuchadnezzar saw this Israelite fit enough, intelligent enough, adaptable enough to work for him and his kingdom. So when the rewards of the favor began descending, some of the successful Israelites decided to plant themselves in the land of their newfound wealth.

But there was also a favor the Israelite did for himself. In spite of the wealth, in spite of the welcome, two things that defined him remained a distant star: the land of God’s Promise and the Temple, the center where God and he met. The first one was set to be fulfilled, but that was as far as the prophecy of Daniel was concerned; and until a return to Jerusalem comes to pass, the second one will never materialize. And deducing from the sentiments among the Israelites during that time, the prospects of going home was just a specter born either out of physical nourishment or night shades playing tricks to the eyes. In addition to this, the rising aristocracy among the Israelites were abandoning the idea of returning to Jerusalem. Hope was dwindling.

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Not all people wanted to stay in Babylon. Those who found little or no luck in harnessing the opportunities of Babylonia longed for the security of their real home. Of course, there were also the successful who viewed their wealth futile when not invested in rebuilding their land and culture.

That was the bad news. The good news for those wanting to go home was that though the prospects of repatriation were nowhere in sight, there was a way to keep their hopes up and find comfort in the words of the Torah and the Prophets who supported the Torah. Because Israelites were scattered in communities throughout the empire, each was told to designate a place where the members could gather in prayer and the study of God’s word. It was called a synagogue, an invention that addressed the Israelite’s desire to seek God’s face in repentance for the ultimate restoration of Jerusalem.

The synagogue became the symbol of the new look of Judaism as it adapted to the conditions of the Babylonian captivity. It was the Israelite tugging at the hem of God’s garment in repentance, responding to the commitment God had made in 2 Chronicles 7:14—

“if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”

The libraries of Babylon instilled in the Israelite a keen creative spirit to face his limitations in a new perspective. It was a given that the Temple religion was tied to the land which the Israelite was dispossessed of. Without the land God had given him as an inheritance, there could be no Temple, even if the Babylonian government would allow him to rebuild it in their land between the Tigris and the Euphrates. What he could do was to seek God with all his heart. In this, the Israelite’s intention to do what was right became his greatest tool. Without the devices prescribed in Mosaic-Aaronic worship, he had to make use of his own humbled and contrite conscience to find his way back home, this time guided by the ideas supplied by the Prophets. What resulted was an ultimate experience that liberated him from the obligation of any priesthood or country. He aimed straight at the heart of the matter letting past the religious trappings and symbols to discover the real meaning of devotion, love, and sacrifice and how they all mesh together in God’s will. Instead of bulls and lambs roasted on a fiery altar, the Israelite offered up praise and prayers in ideally the same way King David poured his soul out to the Lord every morning (Psalm 5:3; 59:16) and meditated on Him at night (16:7; 17:3; 22:2; 42:8; 63:3; 77:2,6; 119:55). It was an attitude Jesus later alluded to in one of His parables in Matthew 13:45 to 46:

“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.”

While some successful Israelites made headlines with their wellsprings of wealth and no longer found any reason to return to Jerusalem, Jesus cited those who knew what was more important, those whose heart serenaded the mercy of God with a sincerity and hunger for a move of His mighty Spirit. When Jesus taught about storing treasures, He was merely stating a fact seen in human nature:

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:19–21).

It was a fact that changed the priority of the Israelite who once wept by the rivers of Babylon when he remembered Zion. When he found the chance to reach for the substantial promises of Babylon, the treasures that Jesus considered as easily corrupted corrupted Mr. Wealthy Israelite, beginning and manifested in his desire to return to Jerusalem—the measuring stick of genuine repentance.

To those who sought the will of God, to those who wanted to go back, prayer became the universal symbol of devotion to God in this foreign land. Jesus, again, may have referred to those who longed for God’s move to restore the fortunes of Israel when He taught His famous Beatitudes to His disciples:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:3–10).

To those who chose to remain with their riches, however, Jesus had this to say:

“But woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort. Woe to you who are well fed now, for you will go hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep. Woe to you when all men speak well of you, for that is how their fathers treated the false prophets” (Luke 6:24–26).

Alongside prayer, an ardent effort and excitement to search for God in the Holy Scriptures was rising; and for the first time, the words of the Prophets were being studied as the Torah was being rediscovered. This renaissance can somehow be likened to the time of King Josiah around the mid-seventh century B.C. when his priests accidentally dug up the Book of Deuteronomy. And in very much the same way, the Scriptures were seen in the lens of repentance and a return to the “ancient paths,” as the Prophet Jeremiah called the ways taught by the Lord to His people. But though the Jewish heart left traces of its fingerprints all over the scrolls, there was something strangely Babylonian in the way the Word of Truth was divided. An explanation for this lies in the tendency a culture develops in a Diaspora. According to Jewish historian Max I. Dimont (1912–1992), it was doubtless that the Babylonian captivity produced new Jewish cultures (Jews, God and History, page 124); but though the core of these cultures remained distinctly Jewish, “each took on the dominant trait of the host civilization” (Ibid.). “When a civilization was philosophic,” Mr. Dimont continued to explain, “the Jews became philosophers” (Ibid.). By the time the Jews were flourishing in captivity, Babylonia was a center of learning and philosophy; and it was this learning and philosophy the Jews absorbed to approach their spiritual dilemma.

Through philosophy, Jewish scholars learned how to generalize; and through generalization, concepts were simplified. Thus, simplicity marked this new religious renovation. Jesus, about five hundred years down the road, seemed to remind the generation of His time of what it was like when the faithful in Babylon streamlined devotion. From “lengthy prayers” (Mark 12:40, Luke 20:47), Jesus showed His disciples the beauty and accuracy of one sincere and unembellished with “many words” (Matthew 6:7):

“Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one” (6:9–10).

Simplicity was what the new Judaism was all about, and with it, Jesus and some of the Pharisees saw eye-to-eye on some points. There were times when Jesus silenced them with a direct answer born out of the doctrine of simplicity:

“…an expert in the law, tested him (Jesus) with this question: ‘Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?’ Jesus replied: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and the greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments’’” (Matthew 22:35–40).

Jesus understood how the mind of this school of thought born in Babylon worked, for He too was all for simplicity. In the version the Book of Mark presents, “one of the teachers of the law” could not help containing his respect when he heard Jesus argue with the Sadducees. In the twenty-eighth verse of Chapter 12, the teacher noticed that Jesus had given them “a good answer,” propelling him to ask which of all the commandments was the most important one. In this account, the gospel author continues to record the response of delight from this teacher, even calling Jesus “teacher” in verse 32. Let’s let the Scriptures speak:

“’Well said, teacher,’ the man replied. ‘You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him. To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.’ When Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, he said to him, ‘You are not far from the kingdom of God.’ And from then on no one dared ask him any more questions” (Mark 12:32–34).

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Somewhere down the road, however, the Pharisaic doctrine got lost in the complications of its own weaving and Jesus was there to bring them back to their roots. In the incident when He healed a paralytic, commanding him to “Get up and walk” (Matthew 9:5), and pronounced forgiveness for his sins, Jesus slapped simplicity on some of the teachers of the law who were present:

“Which is easier: to say, ‘You sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk’?” (verse 5, emphasis mine)

Now that is some bed! And looks like Jesus was taken aback when the guy suddenly does a superman! "Piece o' cake, Lord! Thanks!"

Back to Babylon. For prayer and the study of God’s word, there was a place designated for the Israelites in a community to gather; it was called a synagogue. Now the term merely covered one purpose of the place: to gather. To the Jew, however, it was a house of prayer as he called it Beth Tephila; a house of study, Beth Hamidrash; and a house of assembly, Beth Haknesseth. From the final term we can glean the root by which the present Israeli parliament is named after: the Knesseth [Max I Dimont, Jews, God and History (Mentor: New York, 1994; p.75].

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The synagogue became an instant success. As soon as the guidelines were drawn, the Jews of the captivity almost immediately founded synagogues in every city of the Babylonian Empire. It became the social center where the Jews of a city congregated every week. Through the synagogue, the Jewish community of a locality was effectively supervised to follow the Law. Through the synagogue the children were properly raised in the ancestral faith. Through the synagogue the Jewish faith was restructured, rebuilt with reinforced walls against the corroding influences of Babylon compounded by the restless and careless curiosities of various human stages. About five hundred years later, it would be through the synagogue where Jesus would begin His preaching ministry (Matthew 4:23; Mark 1:21–22, verse 39; Luke 4:15,16,20) and frequented thereafter if He was not conducting one of His open-air crusades (Matthew 9:35; 13:54; Luke 4:44; John 6:59; 18:20). The synagogue would also witness its share of His ministry of deliverance (Matthew 9:18; 12:9–13; Mark 1:23–2, verse 39; Mark 3:1,5; Luke 4:33; 8:41,49; 13:10–13). After Jesus ascended into Heaven, certain followers of His continued to see the synagogue as among the best venues to reach the lost sheep of Israel. Standing up for Christ in a synagogue was risky, as seen in the story Stephen the Deacon and the madness stirred by the members of the Synagogue of the Freedman(Acts 6:8–10); and, of course, there was Paul who made it customary to share Christ in the synagogue (Acts 17:2) from the time God restored his sight after his experience on the road to Damascus (Acts 9:20), sometimes accompanied by Barnabas (Acts 13:5,14,15,42; 14:1), or Silas (Acts 17:10), or sometimes he’d do it on his own (Acts 18:4).

About three thousand years ago, the Israelite Kingdom, the nation God chose to be a vessel to contain His House, fractured into two pieces. It could have shattered right there and then if not for His mercy, His constant reaching out to the Jehovah in the people’s conscience, and their response to turn from sin and return to Him, albeit at few and intermittent times. The first piece deliberately doomed itself to judgment and was pounded into fine dust; it took to the winds and was gone forever. The second piece was preserved and deported to a land God chose to be its vessel that His people would be sheltered and cared for as they considered their faults and repented of their ways. In their yearning to do what was right, they devoted themselves to the lessons of the prophets, and in their repentance they restored themselves to their old ways but in a slightly new likeness—a new Judaism that took on the shape of their Babylonian vessel. This new image of an ancient spirit became the vessel that contained God’s new wine. In this concept can we find an application of Jesus’ illustration of the “new wineskins”:

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“No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch will pull away from the garment, making the tear worse. Neither do men pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved” (Matthew 9:16–17).

By the time Jesus began His earthly ministry, the synagogue was already five hundred years old, ripe in its age to contain the new move of God that was Jesus and be taken along the new a-borning road of Christianity. His frequent target was the synagogues as He brought His goodness to where the people were. In these He preached, healed, rebuked demons away, and forgave sins. But though many of the synagogues loved His words and deeds, a number were hostile against Him, beginning with the one in Nazareth whose members drove Him out to a nearby cliff to push Him off (Luke 4:28–29). It was in the synagogue of Capernaum where occurred the great falling away of His followers after hearing Him teach about “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood…will live because of me” (John 6:56–57). Notice in these instances that so long as Jesus kept His Divinity hidden in His teachings everyone in the group enjoyed His presence. But when He began establishing a straight line between Himself and the Messiah prophesied by Isaiah, the people began to be filled with wrath. The synagogue proved its inflexibility and therefore its inability to contain the new wine of God when it finally chose the favor and manipulation of the Pharisees. In John 12:42, it says that “many even among the leaders [of the synagogues] believed in him (Jesus). But because of the Pharisees they would not confess their faith for fear they would be put out of the synagogue.” It was a bastion of rabbinical control and disbelief. In Acts 7:57–60, one called the Synagogue of the Freeman declared its support for the rabbis by murdering the Christian deacon Stephen, a Greek Jew like themselves. Let it be said that the establishment of the synagogue was not to insulate the people from God’s will. On the contrary, the simplicity of its doctrine had the potential to instill a greater expectation in people’s hearts for the Messiah. Somewhere along the road, legalism, nationalism, even Hellenism came into the picture and cluttered the focus.

The existence of the synagogue became the barometer of the strength of the Jewish will to survive. In times of trouble, they stood strong in the expressed hope of assembly, study, and prayer that one day, the Savior would appear and deliver His people from oppression. And He did appear and come in their midst doing good, finally offering the helping hand they had been hoping for. There were those who believed, those whom He later referred to as the sheep (Matthew 25:22 and 23); and those who did not, whom He spoke of as the goats (Ibid.), those whom in the Day of Judgment He will not acknowledge:

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’” (Matthew 7:21–23)

When the time came for the Apostles to take over where Jesus left off, the synagogue made it very easy for the Jews, now dispersed throughout the Roman Empire, to be located. The Book of Acts accounts that there were more numerous conversions of Jews into Christianity than there were resistance. Nonetheless, history would not see the synagogue awarded to Christianity. In the same way as the synagogue respected the Temple when Palestine was resettled after the Babylonian Captivity, the Christians would establish their own house of prayer, study, and assembly, the format of which from core to trappings, would be heavily derived the Jewish synagogue.

While the Church would gain strength in the centuries to come so would the Jewish synagogue. While the Church would stand for the Christian power to advance, the synagogue religion would be the single guiding star that would keep the Jewish identity above corruption in the centuries of dispersion.

When the Babylonian Empire of a wineskin aged and met its end in 538 B.C., the new wine of Judaism was poured into the new wineskin of the Persian Empire. Contrary to what some historians say, the transfer of power into the hands of its new master was relatively peaceful and in peace, this new master poured God’s people back into the land of their peace.

When the Babylonian Empire met its end in 538 B.C., it fell as a trophy in the hands of a man whose rise seemed to have been forged by the hand of destiny itself. According to the words of the Great King Cyrus himself, known to us better as Cyrus the Great, he entered Babylon without a fight. Historical facts imply that he experienced little opposition from the Chaldeans, these people having joined forces with the Medes in the destruction of Assyria, particularly in 612 B.C. when they formed a powerful allied assault, along with the Scythians, in destroying Nineveh. With the incorporation of Babylonia, Cyrus' Medo-Persian Empire became the greatest the world had yet seen. It was just fitting that Daniel's prophetic vision would depict this new empire as a voracious bear that was told to "Get up and eat your fill of flesh" (Daniel 7:5)! Also known as the Achaemenid Empire, the prophetic bear raised by Cyrus the Great covered almost 3.5 million square miles, stretching from the borders of India in the east all the way to the Aegean Sea in the west.

Unlike the Babylonians, the Persians were latecomers in the race of culture bearers, the unlikeliest, and among the few most mysterious to ever secure the title of world superpower. When the Babylonians stood at the height of their power in the sixth century, the Persians were yet unheard of. Historians can only surmise that this Aryan people were the early Medes who lived in the northeast of Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylonian Empire. The Bible, however, already knew about the Persians years before their rise out of obscurity and into power. The Prophet Daniel twice envisioned the future world rulers, first as a great bear munching on three ribs (Daniel 7:5) and as a ram with one horn longer than the other (8:3). Yet a most amazing passage in the Bible prophesying about the rise of one “shepherd” and “anointed” of God named Cyrus appears in Isaiah 44:28 and 45:1, spoken about a hundred years before his birth:

“who says of Cyrus, ‘He is my shepherd and will accomplish all that I please; he will say of Jerusalem, “Let it be rebuilt,” and of the temple, “Let its foundations be laid.”’ This is what the Lord says to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I take hold of to subdue nations before him and strip kings of their armor….”

It was as if the emergence of Cyrus the Great was for the single purpose of sending the Jews home. As far as we Bible readers are concerned, all the other accomplishments of the Persian empire paled in just this one success; and probably because of this just one obedience to God’s mandate, or expectation, the Persians were not forgotten in the coming opportunity to declare the advent of God’s kingdom. In the Second Chapter of Matthew, “Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked. ‘Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews?’"

Now, only one place comes to mind when we say “magi”: Persia. The word is the plural form of where we ultimately get the term “magic.” They were the priests of Zoroastrianism, the Persian religion. Their learning was connected with astrology and enchantment, in which they became so renown that to this day that their title was applied to the orders of magicians and enchanters. The practice of magic became popular in the centuries leading up to Jesus’ birth when Mithraism, a fragment of Zoroastrianism, and the Egyptian worship of Isis were taken to the West and marketed as alternatives to the state religions of Greece and Rome.

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One of the greatest contributions of the Mesopotamian civilizations was their belief in astrology which later transformed into the scientific study of astronomy. Egypt, on the other hand, was celebrated as a cradle of magic. Remember how the Egyptian priests tried to copy, with some measure of success, the miracles Moses performed before the pharaoh? “The finger of God,” however, prevailed as He later surpassed the capabilities of their magic tricks. But magic did not die when the gates closed behind the departing Israelites, and it has time and Hellenization to thank for that as it opened and cultivated the western mind to the novel and the exotic ideas of the Orient.

During the time of Jesus’ birth, the glory of the Persian Empire had already been reduced into a much inferior tapestry of its remnants ravaged after the conquests and dominance of Alexander the Great and his generals. But the spirit of its culture prevailed as it was allowed to live through the permissive policy of Hellenization. Zoroastrianism, therefore, was welcomed to come to the discussion table and reason with the cerebral Greeks. The highways that carried commerce were even broadened and lengthened, as they reached to the borders of India, to accommodate religious and cultural exchange. Because of this, Zoroastrianism found its way to some parts of the world unified by Hellenization, in places as far as Greece, Asia Minor, and even Palestine.

But even the Jews somehow contributed to the Persian civilization before they departed for their homeland in 538 B.C. when they were allowed to rebuild their nation. Notice that in the passage in Matthew 2:2 that the Magi knew about the “king of the Jews” and His birth and His entitlement to be worshiped; and through their arcane system, they knew this ahead of the Jewish authorities themselves who merely knew “where the Christ was to be born” (verse 5). After this, the Magi would not be heard from again. They would slip out the backdoor and forget about returning to King Herod and informing him where the Christ child would be found. This decision, however, would cause a panic in Bethlehem as Herod would order to kill all the boys in the vicinity who were two years old or under (verse 16), fulfilling the prophecy spoken by Jeremiah hundreds of years before in Jeremiah 31:15. On the day of Jesus’ trial, the words of the Magi would occur once again, though not to anyone’s recollection—save Herod’s.

When Jesus was sent into the Praetorium to be tortured by the Roman soldiers, He was clothed with a scarlet robe, crowned with a wreath of thorns, given a staff in His right hand and mocked, “Hail King of the Jews” (Matthew 27:29). Then by the time of His crucifixion, an inscription was hung above Him that wrote: “This is Jesus, the King of the Jews” (verse 37).

If there was something about the Persian Empire, it had a great deal to do with prophecy. The Prophet Isaiah predicted the rise of its greatest king, Cyrus the Great, a man who was pronounced to be God’s shepherd (Isaiah 45:28). He would also be foretold that by him Jerusalem and its Temple would be rebuilt (Ibid.). The physical dimensions of his kingdom was also prophesied to shock the world of its time that the Prophet Daniel would see it as a mighty bear masticating on three ribs and even encouraged to "Get up and eat your fill of flesh" (Daniel 7:5)! On a general scale, we envision the Persian Empire as a benevolent empire that did good with the least violations to human rights. The last passage we have, however, shows how ruthless it was. Spiritually, it was ruled by a spirit called “the prince of Persia” (verse 13 King James Version), a being so powerful that it resisted God’s angelic messenger for twenty one days that the Archangel Michael had to intervene for the messenger to fulfill his mission. On one hand, the Persian Empire brought life to a dead land in Palestine, but also brought death later on the other hand. In the New Testament, the Persian Magi appeared as a spiritual herald that warned of death: to the children of Rachel in Bethlehem (Matthew 2:18) and to Jesus.

Picture source: http://gamentrain.com

Honestly, guys. But remember the old DOS game? Just can't figure out how I finished the game without any cheats! Playing it again now, I just can't figure out how to finish the game without them cheats!

Even Cyrus’ birth also echoed with the prophecy of his people. According to the legend told by Herodotus, Cyrus’ grandfather, the Median king Astyages, became so alarmed after a dream that seemed to portend that his grandson should be master of Asia. Committing the child to his noble Harpagus to kill it, Harpagus instead preserved Cyrus’ life by delivering it to a shepherd’s wife to be reared. Ten years later, knowing the truth, Cyrus reappears in the royal court and shows proof of his descent. His presence gathers the support of the Magi and the tribesmen of his father, the Persians. With their help, he usurps the throne in 559 B.C., defeats and takes Astyages prisoner. The Medes accept Cyrus’ supremacy, ironing his might to forge a mighty empire the world had yet seen. On his last campaign against the Massagetae, a Scythian people of Central Asia, he was defeated and slain in battle in 529 B.C. Tomyris, the matriarchal leader of the Massagetae, severed Cyrus’ head and plunged it into a bag filled with human blood that he might satiate himself with blood.

Guys, no. Before "I just don't think you understand," get over the Cyrus, we're done here.

Okay, that's it! I'm declaring a Cyrus attack! Love their songs, by the way. Hey, it's a countdown, what can I say?

Countdown to Destruction: 2

2012-01-18T02:32:00.000-08:00

The Book of Psalms delivers a poignant picture of the exiled Israelite: slumped down by the rivers of Babylon in 586 B.C., weeping when he looked far to the west remembering Zion (137:1). But as soon as he was settled in this land between the Tigris and Euphrates, he realized that, except for a few snags in the beginning when Nebuchadnezzar attempted to impose his religion on him (Daniel 3:1–30), a generally lenient policy to self-improvement welcomed him through exposure to the kingdom’s culture of learning and opportunity to generate wealth. According to experts, the Babylonian Empire was later taken over by a series of enlightened rulers who treated their captives with tolerance. Even the Bible in 2 Kings 25 testifies to this assertion when—

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“In the thirty-seventy year of the exile of Jehoiachin king of Judah, in the year Evil-Merodach became king of Babylon, he released Jehoiachin from prison on the twenty-seventh day of the twelfth month. He spoke kindly to him and gave him a seat of honor higher that those of the other kings who were with him in Babylon. So Jehoiachin put aside his prison clothes and for the rest of his life ate regularly at the king’s table. Day by day the king gave Jehoiachin a regular allowance as long as he lived” (verse 27–30).

But even during the days of Nebuchadnezzar, there was a distinct Babylonian favor apportioned for the Israelite. This fact is further documented in the Bible. Years before King Nebuchadnezzar fatefully torched and leveled Jerusalem in 586 B.C., the Babylonian Emperor raided the city and took with him articles from the Temple of God and an elite group of captives:

Brooklyn Museum/Corbis

“…some Israelites from the royal family and the nobility—young men, without any physical defect, handsome, showing aptitude for every kind of learning, well informed, quick to understand” (Daniel 1:3–4).

These were the high born of Israelite society personally handpicked by the Nebuchadnezzar to serve him in the palace, not the poor of the land whom not even the Babylonian commander of the guard believed to deserve exile or death (2 Kings 25:12):

“Nebuzaradan the commander of the guard carried into exile the people who remained in the city, along with the rest of the populace and those who had gone over the king of Babylon. But the commander left behind some of the poorest of the people of the land to work the vineyards and fields” (verse 11 and 12, emphasis mine).

Among the Israelite elite was a young man named Daniel, chosen for royal scholarship to later serve as one of Nebuchadnezzar’s advisers. He and others like him were to be trained in “the language and literature of the Babylonians…for three years, and after that they were to enter the king’s service” (Daniel 1:4 and 5).

It was supposed to be an uneventful predictable three years for Nebuchadnezzar and his staff who would be providing the education, training, and the food—“a daily amount of food and wine [assigned to them] from the king’s table” (verse 5)—if it weren’t for Daniel and his three friends standing up for what they believed was righteous and holy. In the story, Daniel and his friends Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refused to defile themselves of the royal food and wine apportioned to them so he requested the chief official to serve them instead “vegetables to eat and water to drink” (1:12). It even came as a challenge to the official who worried that such a request could cost him his head.

“I am afraid of my lord the king, who has assigned your food and drink. Why should he see you looking worse than the other young men your age? The king would then have my head because of you” (1:10).

Daniel answered: “Please test your servants for ten days…. Then compare our appearance with that of the young men who eat the royal food, and treat your servants in accordance with what you see” (verse 12 and 13).

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The official agreed and at the end of ten days, “they looked healthier and better nourished than any of the young men who at the royal food” (verse 15). Daniel and his friends were given the courtesy to exercise their cultural and religious right. In the sixteenth verse of Daniel 1, after proving the astounding results of Daniel’s request, “the guard took away their choice food and the wine they were to drink and gave them vegetables instead.” Nebuchadnezzar marveled at the wisdom of these guys who were found peerless “in every matter of wisdom and understanding about which the king questioned them” (verses 19 and 20). “The king talked with them,” says the nineteenth verse; and in the twentieth, “he found them ten times better than all the magicians and enchanters in his whole kingdom.” For this these four became the Fab Four, commanding the respect of their Babylonian masters from Day One. The honor and trust the Babylonians gave to the request of Daniel and his three friends later paved the way for a gradual measure of religious autonomy with the right to worship their God as indicated in Daniel 3:29 and 4:37.

©National Geographic Society/Corbis

Yet if there were some prophets paying attention to the trend of Israelite events at that period, they may have seen Daniel and his friends as a prefigure of what was to be handed down to the entire Israelite captivity in the years that came ahead: the chance to learn and enhance their lives so that their fortunes almost matched those of a privileged citizen of the Babylonian Empire.

In great humility but with an equal intensity of excitement born out of a love for learning, the Israelite entered the open doors of Babylonia’s libraries and unlocked a treasure trove of new manners, grace and refinement that changed him from Israelite to Jew. The Babylonian education worked for the new Israelite a distinct identity that the known world started to get acquainted with; at the same time it found him ways to worship his God without the need to exit captivity. Unlike in their days with Moses, there was no need for the Israelite of the Babylonian captivity to head on out to the wilderness to hold a feast for his God (Exodus 5:1), to serve (7:16), or to sacrifice (8:28). The people decided that the absence of the Temple did not mean they stopped worshipping God. They had to move on and formulate ways to humble themselves, seek His face, and turn from their wicked ways until He remembers them and brings them back to the land of His promise (2 Chronicles 7:14).

Picture courtesy of: samicherkaoui.blogspot.com

Among the first steps of repentance was to assess what they took for granted in the past and is now lost. In the days of kings Saul, David, and Solomon, they had a solid kingdom. Everything they needed was within a border of about the same size of present-day Israel and Jordan combined, about 47,000 square miles (118,900 square kilometers). The freedom to run around anywhere within this territory protected and unharassed was a privilege sanctioned by the kingdom. It is with this freedom God blessed His people with to worship Him and celebrate His goodness in feasts and sacrifices. From the time they had secured the Land of Promise from the Canaanites to the days of the kings, it was customary for the people of the land to flock to Jerusalem to celebrate major feasts like the Passover, Pentecost, and the Tabernacles. The farthest distance one traveled to Jerusalem was from the northernmost city of Dan, less than 120 miles (193 kilometers). A territory of their own was an entitlement that chiseled and enrooted the people’s identity. A land of their own meant a world of their own, a world that they could control, a world that had everything they needed within their reach. It was a world where every man could found a home where God could rain down His blessings in, and if some of these heavenly delights fell out of the bounds of his domicile, they would still be his for he knows that the blessings would have fallen within the borders of national territory. The land represented their freedom from bondage, their freedom to be a distinct people, their freedom to worship the Lord who delivered them from bondage, their freedom to control their destiny, their freedom to survive and rise above survival, their freedom to celebrate, their freedom to be who they wanted to be. But while God would continue to bless His people with everything they needed and wanted in Him, the time came when the people wanted in their land whatever the other lands had, primarily their gods.

Photo source: www.christianwalks.org

It may have been comparatively small against the physical size of Babylonian Empire but it sure was easier traveling to Jerusalem and celebrating important feasts than being scattered in a foreign nation many times bigger than their Palestinian homeland.

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With the entrance of foreign gods, corruption in the land became irreversible. Unfaithfulness to their God came very subtly then manifested full-blown only in a generation. The spiritual change of the Israelite people whether from faithfulness to backsliding or vice-versa manifested after an average of one generation. From the time they left Egyptian bondage, it took a long forty years, one generation, before the Israelites could possess the Promised Land (Numbers 14:28–35; 32:13). In the Second Chapter of Judges, “After [one] whole generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation grew up, who knew neither the Lord nor what he had done for Israel…[and they]…did evil in the eyes of the Lord and served the Baals” (verse 10–11). A generation was also measured in the length of years a judge or king took charge in the land. In the Book of Judges, we find that as long as a hero lived the people were faithfully hemmed in on God’s Ways until he died. When no one took over the mantle of leadership immediately after the hero dies, the generation that followed was virtually doomed to idolatry and alien incursion, an entanglement of corruption of their own choice, just as their desert-wandering forefathers chose to cast and adore a golden calf in Moses’ prolonged absence in the community.

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Two hundred years of spiritually see-sawing between faithfulness and unfaithfulness in the Promised Land proved that the people God saved were not ready for a Theocracy; so when they asked for a king to rule over them (1 Samuel 8:5,6,19), which God knew they would demand beforehand (Deuteronomy 17:14–15), there were no angry buildup of dark clouds bursting with thunder and lightning and the sore roar of a furious God. In the Eighth Chapter of the First Book Samuel, God simply told His Prophet Samuel to “Listen to all that the people are saying…but warn them solemnly and let them know what the king who will reign over them will do” (8:7 and 9). Thus ended the Theocratic years of the Twelve Tribes. It was as if God, in a way, was withdrawing His Spirit all over again as He did in the time of Noah, when He said He would no longer “contend with man forever, for he is mortal” (Genesis 6:3). God by this time would hand His people to the one whom He would anoint, with the hope that one of flesh and blood possessing a stepped-down delegated authority from Above will lead a people rebellious and corrupt back to Him.

©Werner Forman/Corbis

The people proved faithful to their first king, though this first king proved unfaithful to his Anointer. The Israelite kingship went through a rough start with Saul, the firstborn of all the Israelite kings, falling into corruption. The real success was not realized until the rise of David who looked to God as the “Shepherd of Israel” (Psalm 80:1), from whom he also drew the inspiration for his leadership style. With the third king, Solomon, the kingdom reached a zenith of prosperity and spiritual devotion with the completion of the Temple of the Lord.

It can be said that the Temple symbolized the converging point of the feeling of permanence that both God and the Israelite nation have mutually desired. The very choice of word used in 2 Samuel 7:1, when the inspiration of the Temple came to David, reveals this:

“After the king was settled in his palace and the Lord had given him rest from all his enemies around him…” (emphasis mine).

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For the first time in more than four hundred years of being settled in the Promised Land, no one but King David ever dreamed of “sheltering” the Lord in a house of stone. As far as he was concerned, there was no logical point for God to live in a portable dwelling when the traveling days of the nation was long past. There was an uncomfortable feeling when David, walking atop his palace penthouse one day (as he always did) and probably beholding the Tabernacle canvas blowing in the afternoon gust. Very boldly but with all the sincerity in his heart, he finally catches the audience of the Prophet Nathan and lets go a suggestion:

“Here I am, living in a palace of cedar, while the ark of God remains in a tent” (2 Samuel 7:2).

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Apparently, the Prophet Nathan, possibly a renegade thinker just like David, loved the idea. God likewise loved the idea and even allowed His king to detail the plans needed to accomplish His “house of cedar” (verse 7). But not one nail would be hammered under David’s rule in seeing his plans realized, for it was Solomon to see these plans lifted out of paper and physically established on Mount Moriah, the site David bought from Araunah the Jebusite (2 Chronicles 3:1). The Temple was largely made of timber from the cedar forests of Lebanon:

“So he (Solomon) built the temple and completed it, roofing it with beams and cedar planks. And he built the side rooms all along the temple. the height of each was five cubits, and they were attached to the temple by beams of cedar. He lined its interior walls with cedar boards, paneling them from the floor of the temple to the ceiling and covered the floor of the temple with planks of pine. He partitioned off twenty cubits at the rear of the temple with cedar boards from floor to ceiling to form within the temple an inner sanctuary, the Most Holy Place. The inside of the temple was cedar, carved with gourds and open flowers. Everything was cedar; no stone was to be seen (1 Kings 6:9–10,15–16,18, emphasis mine).

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Though David’s plans included dressed stones carved out to secure the building’s foundation (1 Kings 5:15–17; 1 Chronicles 22:2), a large portion of the Temple structure was made out of wood overlaid with gold. What was the inspiration behind the major employment of wood? We may immediately understand gold, an element purified by fire, as symbolizing the Godhood of the Messiah or of Heaven itself; and wood, a material corrupted when incinerated, His human frame or of earth. For wood we can also grasp the type of death He would suffer—"Cursed" and "hung on a pole" (Galatians 3:13). In almost the same way, the stones stand as an ever-present reminder of a certain end should a condition of faithfulness fails to be met by the very nation that built His Temple.

As we have studied in past articles, stone was believed to be a piece of the earth which may have been related to death and decay. From the Book of Genesis the ground represented the lowest point of a creature’s corruption:

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To the serpent, “Cursed are you above all the livestock and all the wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life” (3:14, emphasis mine).

To man, “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return” (verses 17–19, emphasis mine).

Psalm 104:29 later reiterates the basic belief that “when you take away their breath, they die and return to dust.”

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When the ground was taken in its context of death, the Psalmists also drove their illustrations deeper into the bowels of the ground—as if the ground itself was not enough—and depicted the human flesh in its incorporated, horizontal, state with the earth:

“Like sheep they are destined for the grave, and death will feed on them. The upright will rule over them in the morning; their forms will decay in the grave, far from their princely mansions” (Psalm 49:14, emphasis mine).

When the piece of the earth is vertical, however, what was a symbol of death became a picture of hope. When man, for example, who is a piece of the earth, is upright, he represents resistance to death:

“He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand” (Psalm 40:2).

©Lauree Feldman/Photolibrary/Gettyimages

When earth is gathered into an edifice—a wall or a building—just like with man, the element of life takes over death, although the idea of death and corruption pervades like an ever-present dark cloud in the horizon.

The edifice of a wall is a picture of supreme survival: it preserves the life within it while fending off the threat at the other side (Isaiah 26:1; 60:18). But that understanding of the wall is much too basic, a given. The aspect which makes walls a favored tool for survival is the prosperity it invites through the peace and protection it creates within its confines; references in the Scriptures suggest this:

“’Let us build up these towns,’ he (King Asa) said to Judah, ‘and put walls around them, with towers, gates and bars. The land is still ours, because we have sought the Lord our God; we sought him and he has given us rest on every side.’ So they built and prospered” (2 Chronicles 14:7).

“May it please you to prosper Zion, to build up the walls of Jerusalem” (Psalm 51:18).

“Peace be within thy walls, and prosperity within thy palaces” (Psalm 122:7).

©Adam Burn/Gettyimages

When a people surround themselves with a wall, an identity gathers them into one being. In Isaiah 49:16, the very walls of Jerusalem remind God of His people:

“See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are ever before me."

A people behind walls almost become a force to be reckoned with. In Deuteronomy 9:1, the walls were used as proof of a people’s greatness:

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“Hear, Israel: You are now about to cross the Jordan to go in and dispossess nations greater and stronger than you, with large cities that have walls up to the sky.”

When the Israelite spies returned to camp in the Desert of Paran to report on their quest to explore the Promised Land, the disheartened majority made this statement:

“The people are stronger and taller than we are; the cities are large, with walls up to the sky” (Deuteronomy 1:28).

In fact, the phrase “him that pisseth against the wall” (1 Samuel 25:22, 34;1 Kings 14:10; 21:21; 2 Kings 9:8) very often used in the King James Version conveys the idea of one’s whole family. To an invading army, walls form a mystery of intimidation as it compels its contenders to consider a greater fighting force hidden behind it and waiting to spill out in counterattack. For this reason, those who launch an assault envision the walls torn down even before they begin their attack. The failure of a people’s survival is represented by broken walls—

“They will lay siege to all the cities throughout your land until the high fortified walls in which you trust fall down” (Deuteronomy 28:52).

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Right after the city of Jericho fell into Israelite control, Joshua pronounced a solemn oath discouraging future generations from rebuilding the place: “Cursed before the Lord is the one who undertakes to rebuild this city, Jericho: At the cost of his firstborn son he will lay its foundations; at the cost of his youngest he will set up its gates” (Joshua 6:26). The curse was an agreement with the primordial link between the stones, as representative of the earth, and decay; this concurrence of spiritual principles may have effected the power of Joshua’s words. Around five hundred years later, "In Ahab’s time, Hiel of Bethel rebuilt Jericho. He laid its foundations at the cost of his firstborn son Abiram, and he set up its gates at the cost of his youngest son Segub, in accordance with the word of the Lord spoken by Joshua son of Nun" (1 Kings 16:34).

The famous fall of the wall of Jericho remains the classic proof of the idea that a city’s sovereignty and survival is only as good as the walls that surround it—

“When the trumpets sounded, the army shouted, and at the sound of the trumpet, when the men gave a loud shout, the wall collapsed; so everyone charged straight in, and they took the city” (Joshua 6:20).

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Grand infrastructures like walls and stone buildings emerge out of a people’s desire for permanence. They tie their lives to the territory they claim and establish marks of ownership in the land like memorial stones to celebrate events that must never be forgotten and even ideals forever to be upheld to supplement survival and mastery over the environment. The story of the Tower of Babel attests to this. In the beginning of account we find the basic phases of city building; first, they chose a land they liked:

“As men moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there” (Genesis 11:2).

Next, technology developed out of the people’s basic mastery of the environment:
“They said to each other, ‘Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.’ They used brick instead of stone, and tar instead of mortar’” (verse 3).

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Then the people challenge themselves in founding a monument of their ideal to physically stand before them as their devotion compels them:

“Then they said, ‘Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth’” (verse 4).

We all know what happened next. In the eighth verse, it says that “they stopped building the city” because the Lord “came down to see the city and the tower that the men were building” (verse 5) to scatter them over the face of the whole earth (verse 9).

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As for the people of Israel, their venture for their own mighty monuments came out of King David’s dream of building a Temple of the Lord; and it was his son Solomon who accomplished it in the eleventh year of his reign (1 Kings 6:38), four hundred and eighty years after the Israelites won their freedom of out Egyptian slavery (verse 1). In 586 B.C., the Babylonians descended upon Jerusalem, broke down its walls, torched the Temple into rubble, and deported the Israelites to Mesopotamia. Fifty years later, several waves of migration brought the Jews back into Palestine and under a Davidic prince named Zerubabbel rebuilt the Temple. Five hundred years later, however, the Messiah Jesus Christ was drawn to the “beautiful stones” (Luke 21:5) when He predicted the fall of Jerusalem in the hands of the Roman General Titus. This prophecy He pronounced right after the incident with the Temple moneychangers who were violently driven away by our rampaging Jesus when He saw how His Father’s “house of prayer” was transformed by the chief priests into “a den of robbers” (19:46).

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“Some of his disciples were remarking about how the temple was adorned with beautiful stones and with gifts dedicated to God. But Jesus said, ‘As for what you see here, the time will come when not one stone will be left on another; every one of them will be thrown down’” (20:5–6).

The Temple Solomon built became understood by the generation of its time as a signature of Divine approval, a stamp of permanence of their residence in the Promised Land. With Israel’s enemies trampled on all sides, its wealth overflowing (1 Kings 10:14–25,27,29), and the attention and awe it has been receiving from the world for the great wisdom of its king (verses 24 to 26), the fear of exile was reduced into a distant threat hidden in the haze blown by celebration and excitement of the Israelite Golden Age.

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But like the Golden Age of other lands, unfortunately, the Israelite reached its decline. As far as God was concerned, the Golden Age did not have to end; by abiding in Him, there is such a thing as being “changed…from glory to glory” (2 Corinthians 3:18, King James Version) even as He walks His children through the fires of time until the likeness of the Israelite earthly kingdom matches that of His in Heaven, where His will is enforced one hundred percent.

But alas, because of unfaithfulness to the commands of God, this kingdom splintered into two: ten tribes forming the Northern Kingdom of Israel while two uniting into the Southern Kingdom of Judah. While the latter generally adhered to the Mosaic Law, the first one deliberately erased everything Jehovah in its identity.

The Northern Kingdom kept its people away from Jerusalem by establishing its own religion that no longer required them to travel to the Holy City and celebrate certain feasts, like the Passover, Pentecost, and the Tabernacles. Before the split of the kingdom, In 722 B.C., after two hundred years of political and religious independence wasted in apostasy and debauchery, God gave the Northern Israelites what they had always dreamed for: the greatest distance away from Jerusalem and a permanent pilgrimage to Mesopotamia, the cradle of the religion they adopted in place of the ways of the Lord. Now, they really did not need to visit Jerusalem—even when they wanted to!

In the Southern Kingdom of Judah, traveling to Jerusalem was not a problem; its farthest settlement was Beersheba, a scant 40 miles away from the Holy City. What God had against His faithfuls was a king named Manasseh who “shed so much innocent blood that he filled Jerusalem from end to end—besides the sin that he had caused Judah to commit, so that they did evil in the eyes of the Lord” (2 Kings 21:16). Although this reprobate came to God in repentance in his hour of greatest need, God still held the kingdom accountable for “the sins of Manasseh and all he had done, including the shedding of innocent blood” which “the Lord was not willing to forgive” (24:3,4). In around 620 B.C., the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar, along with Aramean, Moabite, and Ammonite raiders descended upon Jerusalem and plundered its treasures, including the articles of the Lord’s Temple. “These things happened,” as said in 24:3, “according to the Lord’s command, in order to remove them from his presence because of the sins of Manasseh and all he had done.”

Except for some intermittent periods of disobedience, which gradually gained frequency in the years of their final kings, the Israelites of the Southern Kingdom proved to have kept to the ways of the Lord longer than their backslidden brethren in the north. While the Northern Israelites either dispatched or deported the Lord’s prophets sent to them with messages of repentance and reconciliation, the Southern folk, in spite of their disobedience and obstinacy, went down with the words of the holy men of God ringing in their ears. It was thus easier for the exiles of Judah to recall and return to their old ways in that though they have lived the last three decades of their national life in idolatry and depravity, Throughout the story of the Israelites, the only difference that can be seen between the Northern and the Southern kingdoms was the chance for each to return to God in repentance.

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The Northern Israelite Kingdom, on the other hand, was established out of rebellion against God (1 Kings 12:28–33) and the insatiable vindictiveness toward the House of David (verses16–24, 26–27). Though the Israel of the north knew God, it never acknowledged Him in any more of its lifestyle; though its kingdom was rooted in a fierce resolve to eradicate Him from its conscience, God continued to reach down in mercy to deliver its people from the consequences of their hostility toward Him:

“The Lord had seen how bitterly everyone in Israel, whether slave or free, was suffering; there was no one to help them. And since the Lord had not said he would blot out the name of Israel from under heaven, he saved them by the hand of Jeroboam son of Jehoash” (2 Kings 26–27).

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There was even a time when one of its Godless kings, Jehoahaz “sought the Lord’s favor, and the Lord listened to him, for he saw how severely the king of Aram was oppressing Israel” (2 Kings 13:4). During the time of Jehoahaz, around 820 B.C., the evil of his kingdom had reached up to heaven that “the Lord’s anger burned against Israel, and for a long time he kept them under the power of Hazael king of Aram and Ben-Hadad his son” (verses 2 and 3). Fortunately for the people, Jehoahaz was someone whom his royal forefathers might have called a cultural and religious weakling, for he was not strong enough to hold on to the ideals of his nation—that it would stand up against the Lord no matter what the oppression or enticement He may bring upon them!—but reverted even just for a moment to the God of David for deliverance. And so: “The Lord provided a deliverer for Israel, and they escaped from the power of Aram. So the Israelites lived in their own homes as they had before” (verse 5). Needless to say, but we say it anyway, that after this, the Israelites “did not turn away from the sins of the house of Jeroboam, which he had caused Israel to commit; they continued in them” (verse 6).

©Alinari Archives/CORBIS

In its two hundred years of existence, the Northern Israelite Kingdom had proven, and paid with its life, that none of the greatness of civilization seen in the times of David and Solomon could have ever been achieved by any man apart from God. For two hundred years, its kings had tried to achieve the same greatness apart from the element of God. The kings of the Northern Kingdom disregarded the plain fact taught and sang by King David that it was God who “puts the nations under me” and “gives his king great victories” (2 Samuel 22:48,50). In David’s life there were so many things that he thanked God for, including victories in battle (2 Samuel 22:33,35,40) and God’s promise to make his name great and forever have a descendant of his seated on the throne (7:18–19). This was because David was a spiritual man ever in tune to the voice of God (Psalm 18:6; 29:9; 40:8; 61:2; 62:8; 95:7–8). The kings of Israel, on the other hand, have molted and regurgitated everything that would identify them with the very God who led their forefathers out of Egypt and performed all the miracles from the time of their desert wanderings right down to the time when God descended upon the Temple in Jerusalem during its dedication, but yet they still wanted the rewards of wealth, greatness, and prestige that David and Solomon were rewarded with—without the help of God. And they made a culture running after the blessings of obeying God without obeying God! They thought that if the pagan nations around them could rival what David and Solomon had in their lifetime, the Northern Israelite Kingdom could have the same with no Jehovah to hand them! What they never figured out was that the fortunes and destiny of a backslidden people are different from those of a nation He had never chosen from the start.

©Werner Forman/Corbis

When the Assyrian army descended upon the Northern Israelite Kingdom in 722 A.D., the people who were supposed to be a divine peculiar race was interspersed among other conquered exiles into an amalgam population that was then broken into small groups and then flung throughout the vast Assyrian Empire. With no unique culture, no distinct religion to set the Israelites of the Ten Tribes apart from the other people—for the religion they adhered to was an adaptation of what the other fallen nations had—they were forced to mingle among, they forever disappeared through intermarriages and assimilation.

[Whoa! Carpal tunnel syndrome. Gotta go an crack some knuckles; but I'll be back, and so will you! You wanna stay tune when the Countdown continues. Hey, that almost sounds like Kasey Casem!]

Countdown to Destruction: 3

2011-12-31T10:41:00.000-08:00

Romans 9:6 states that “not all who are descended from Israel are Israel.” The next verse even takes it further to specify that not all of Abraham’s descendants are his children. What the Apostle Paul was talking about was the house, or family—later, the kingdom—that God has established as a separate people, with a family tree that reaches back to Adam and Eve. And through the ages, this family has grown into a nation as it extended its membership outside the physical borders of the nation that claims its origin. Through simple invitation, God offers one proposition to all He calls out to: to be His child and co-heirs with His Only Begotten, Jesus Christ.

From Old Testament times, God has maintained the integrity of His house through a policy of obedience to His laws; to the delinquents, He reached out in reconciliation, urging them to repentance; to the rebellious, He warned of pruning, truncating, and, in extreme instances, uprooting. These principles are markedly taught and symbolized in the Holy Scriptures, and expressly lived as a cultural cornerstone of God’s people. Years before Jesus’ birth, for example, His cousin John the Baptist held a preaching ministry in the Judean desert, urging the nation of Israel to “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near” (Matthew 3:2).

According to Biblical historians, the particular period that covered the life of John the Baptist, Jesus Christ, and the early days of the Christians in Israel was considered as the most corrupt episode of religious Israel. For one thing, the office of high priest, which God prescribed for only one person, was held by several persons of unscrupulous and formidably terrifying political reputation. But the most despicable aspect of this controversy was that none of these pretenders were in any way, shape, or form descended from the house of Aaron, the brother of Moses.

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In Exodus 28:1, God handpicked Aaron and his sons to minister before Him as priests. In the fortieth chapter, He commanded Moses to anoint Aaron first, then his sons, in their sacred garments, for the service. “Their anointing,” God said, “will be to a priesthood that will continue for all generations to come” (verse 15). No other family in the Bible was awarded the office of priesthood
aside from Aaron’s. In the twenty-fifth chapter of Numbers, Aaron’s house gets blessed with a covenant of lasting priesthood, through the zealous act of Phinehas that turned the anger of God away from the Israelites. The priesthood recognized by the Mosaic culture, therefore, was the Aaronic priesthood. It was a mandate straight out of heaven shamelessly disregarded in the last fifty turbulent years before Jesus’ birth, when an aristocrat named Annas was appointed high priest in Jerusalem. The nation, probably tired of reacting against their foreign oppressors, tolerated the appointment further when Annas maneuvers to swap and share the office with his son Caiaphas and another relative to accomplish a unique multi-headed mutation of an originally Divine design. Very often in the gospels, the controversial plurality of “chief priests” is confirmed in many passages, beginning in Matthew 2:4 to John 19:21; then from Acts 4:23 to 26:12.

What was meant to be a single-headed leadership with the high priesthood on top turned into a religious council patterned like a Greek-style oligarchic supreme court. It was almost the four-headed, four-winged leopard monster in the Prophet Daniel’s vision (Daniel 7:6).

In 586 B.C. King Nebuchadnezzar and his Babylonian army swept down into the Kingdom of Judah and sent the entire nation into exile. As prophesied by the holy men of Israel, the buildings dedicated as monuments of religion and political kingdom were torn down, including the Temple in Jerusalem built by kings David and Solomon. With the Temple gone, the aspect of Judaism anchored to it went into a period of dormancy. It was in this time when the exiles of God developed the portable system of worship in which the synagogue came into existence.

Photo: ©American Colony Photographers/National Geographic Society/Corbis

The synagogue is one of the symbols of the Jewish cultural and religious will to survive and flourish on foreign soil. Its system took over the Jewish religious culture when there was no Temple to fulfill God’s Mosaic mandate in rites and rituals. It took over the requirement of religious assembly as every community in different localities could conveniently set up one its own. The “rabbi,” or teacher, took over the role of the priest. And instead of sacrifices, prayers were offered up to God.

The synagogue form of worship was based on the message of the Prophets who called for the repentance of the Northern Kingdom of Israel and then of the Southern Kingdom of Judah until both succumbed to their respective judgments. In order for their message to be remembered, great men of God like Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Amos, Hosea, Haggai, and others, left behind documentation, known to us today as books, which were gathered by the faithful who believed their words. Those who later realized the truth as they wept by the waters of Babylon learned from the prophetic books and letters that the people of God must set an example for the rest of the world to follow. This was therefore how the books of the Prophets were added to the Mosaic Pentateuch and provide the foundation of the synagogue way of life. It was the religious system that saved Judaism from deteriorating during the Babylonian captivity and especially in the 1,800-year Diaspora that lasted from 135 A.D. to May 14, 1948, when the Jewish people lived a life of exile after exile from one nation to another, from Western Europe to Eastern Europe and then back again to the West.

©Brooklyn Museum/Corbis

This new religious order went with a top council of elders of who were considered the wisest and most experienced men of all the tribes of Israel. This was later called the Sanhedrin, a leadership body that ideally possessed the functions of a senate and a supreme court. Traces of its framework goes back to Israel’s slave days in Egypt when there already existed “elders of Israel” whom God told Moses to gather and speak to regarding the people’s coming deliverance (Exodus 3:16). Moses and Aaron often gathered the elders when they needed something coursed to the people—probably a command from God (Deuteronomy 27:1), an instruction (Exodus 12:21), or a provision (17:6); to gather every single Israelite in worship (Leviticus 9:1); or to have fellowship with (18:12; 24:11). God consecrated this body of elders to assist Moses in governing His people:

“The Lord said to Moses: ‘Bring me seventy of Israel’s elders who are known to you as leaders and officials among the people. Have them come to the Tent of Meeting, that they may stand there with you I will come down and speak with you there, and I will take the Spirit that is on you and put the Spirit on them. They will help you carry the burden of the people so that you will not have to carry it alone. So Moses went out and told the people what the Lord had said. He brought together seventy of their elders and had them stand around the tent. Then the Lord came down in the cloud and spoke with him, and he took of the Spirit that was on him and put the Spirit on the seventy elders. When the Spirit rested on them, they prophesied, but they did not do so again. However, two men, whose names were Eldad and Medad, had remained in the camp. They were listed among the elders, but did not go out to the tent. Yet the Spirit also rested on them, and they prophesied in the camp” (Numbers 11:16–17,24–26).

Either joining the membership or along with this body of elders were judges, “capable men from all the people—men who fear God, trustworthy men who hate dishonest gain” appointed as “officials over thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens” (Exodus 18:21).

This addition was suggested by Moses’ father-in-law Jethro when he once witnessed how Moses officiated specific disputes among the masses.

“Have them serve as judges for the people at all times,” said Jethro in verse 22, “but have them bring every difficult case to you; the simple cases they can decide themselves. That will make your load lighter, because they will share it with you. If you do this and God so commands, you will be able to stand the strain, and all these people will go home satisfied.” (verses 22 to 23).

The body of elders continued to function as designed alongside Joshua’s leadership (Joshua 8:33; 23:2). In the time of the Judges, they proved to be the most consistent human leadership that kept Israel a standing nation despite the sporadic raids and vulnerability to foreign domination. By holding faithful to their role of overseeing their respective tribes, they succeeded in buttressing national independence or tribal power until the rise of a Judge, such as Deborah and Barak, Gideon, and Samson. They served as the political and cultural adhesion that kept Israel from breaking apart. It was a job that wore out those in position during the turbulent uncertain period of the Judges so that by the time of the Prophet Samuel, they came to him as one man and finally asked for a king. Their demand in the Eighth Chapter of 1 Samuel bears the exasperation of the pressures that entailed their office during that time:

©Roger Wood/CORBIS

“Give us a king to lead us” (verse 6), who would “go out before us and fight our battles” (verse 20).

Right: Yeah, "a king to lead us, to go out before us and fight our battles," just like how the Egyptian monarch Ramses had gone out and humiliated the Nubians, as depicted in the relief, and how he shelved the Philistines in coastal Palestine to pester the Israelites from the time of the Judges till King David tamed them in his reign.

Below: What the queen that sent the great Prophet Elijah running for his life might have looked like: Cybele, the Near-Eastern cult goddess that may have inspired the fertility deities of Classical literature.

©Araldo de Luca/CORBIS

This frustration is also seen in the Prophet Elijah when he took to flight when the godless Queen Jezebel threatened to take his life. The Book of 1 Kings stated that he “went a day’s journey into the desert” where he sat down under a tree and prayed that he might die (19:4). “All at once,” said the fifth verse, “an angel touched him and said, ‘Get up and eat.’” Here, it may be safe to assume that God was pampering His prophet for “there by his head was a cake of bread baked over hot coals, and a jar of water” (verse 6). The same verse said that Elijah finished it all up “and then lay down again.” The angel came back a second time, again with food and drink for him, and said, “Get up and eat, for the journey is too much for you” (verse 7). God understood what His prophet was going through, but forty days of running away may have crystallized his resolve to quit his calling:

“I have been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, broken down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too” (verse 10, and also 14).

God graciously respected Elijah’s resignation. He gave the outgoing prophet his last mission: the anointing of two men who would be kings of their nations—Hazael of Aram and Jehu of the Northern Israelite Kingdom; and the commissioning of Elisha, his replacement.

And with the elders of Israel who clamored for a king to lead them, God complied by giving them what they wanted: a king and a reflection of their spiritual relationship with God.

For several hundred years after the Prophet Samuel the council stood by its king until the twin kingdoms of the Northern and the Southern were hurled into exile. But even in Babylon, it did not take long when the people of God were allowed a gradual measure of self-government, and it was at this chance when the council was revived. Without a Jewish king to advise, however, the council could only function in the religious and cultural, not in the political as the imperial authority they were under would prevent them from establishing their own king lest the people of God be independent.

©Macduff Everton/CORBIS

There is speculation regarding the people of God establishing their post-exilic king in a prince named Zerubbabel (Haggai 2:23), a descendant of the royal house of David. He was among the first wave of re-settlers in Jerusalem along with a Zadokite priest named Jeshua. Unfortunately, Zerubbabel never made it to the throne, making it only as far as “governor of Judah” (Haggai 1:1, 14; 2:2). Though the Bible is silent regarding this, some scholars hold that the people of Israel attempted to crown Zerrubbabel king. Learning about this, the Persian authorities arrested, tried, and executed the prince on the grounds of high treason. On the other hand, as the Persians had no objections to a high priest being king, they passed on the administration of Judah to Jeshua, the Zadokite priest. The prophecy spoken by the Prophet Zechariah thus came true:

“Take the silver and gold and make a crown, and set it on the head of the high priest, Joshua son of Jehozadak. It is he who will build the temple of the Lord, and he will be clothed with majesty and will sit and rule on his throne. And he will be a priest on his throne. And there will be harmony between the two” (Zechariah 6:11,13).

A high priest as king became the shape of things to come, for even in the days when the Greeks came Hellenizing the world which they later won from the Persians, they maintained sitting a high priest in charge of Judah. As with the Persians, the Greeks trusted the Jews to self-government because of the outstanding check-and-balance they maintained in their leadership through the function of the Sanhedrin. Any abuse of power by invoking Divine will was controlled by the Sanhedrin’s expertise on the Mosaic Law.

The Sanhedrin’s membership, as discussed earlier, came from the leading families, scholars, and intellectuals of Israel. It had in all seventy-one members; in the time of Moses, there were seventy. Twenty-three judges composed a committee judging cases involving capital offenses. A minimum of three members formed a body handling civil cases and lesser criminal offenses.

The rabbis of the Sanhedrin adhered to a legal system based on the dignity of man and individual equality before the law. The law, they believed, was a vehicle for justice; laws without justice were regarded as immoral (Max I. Dimont, Jews, God and History [Mentor: New York, 1994], p.84).

For the next five hundred years, the Sanhedrin played an unparalleled role in an age when the High Priest was ruler in the Jewish realm. Yet because of the counter-balancing presence of the Sanhedrin the theocratic aspect of the Jewish government represented High Priest would only remain a shell of an actual secular core (Ibid., p.72). Then one day after the Seleucid kings wrested power from the Ptolemaics in 198 B.C., a sudden crack in the theocratic shell would send the nation into a tailspin of misery and corruption.

[Aaaaaand...we ain't done! Happy New Year from Manila! I live in the noisiest part of the Metro at the noisiest time of the year, New Year's Eve. The fireworks were awesome; the firecrackers were deafening. Thank God the firecrackers are over! Happy New Year, folks—God bless us all!]

Close Encounters of the Lethal Kind

2011-12-24T08:45:00.000-08:00

It was a universal fear for the people of God during Old Testament times to behold the face of God. God warned Moses and the children of Israel about this in Exodus 19 where He commanded them to “Put limits for the people around the mountain” and telling them to “Be careful that you do not go up the mountain or touch the foot of it” (verse 12). Moses then had to consecrate the people (verse 14), common man or priest (verse 22), and warn them not to “force their way through to see the Lord [or] many of them [will] perish” (verse 21). Yet to the people God designated to come up to Him—Aaron (verse 24); his sons Nadab and Abihu (Exodus 24:9); and the seventy elders of Israel (verse 10)—no harm came to them. Exodus 24:9 to 11 says:

“Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and the seventy elders of Israel went up and saw the God of Israel. Under his feet was something like a pavement made of sapphire, clear as the sky itself. But God did not raise his hand against these leaders of the Israelites; they saw God, and they ate and drank.”

spiritsrevealed.com/PhotoAlbums/Worship/ArkDagonFallsZm-1898.--5

The incident was very different in 2 Samuel 6:6 to 7 when a man named Uzzah “reached out and took hold of the ark of God, because the oxen stumbled.” In this story, it has been some forty years that the Ark of God’s covenant had been absent from Jerusalem; how this came to be is told in 1 Samuel 4:1 to 11. After wreaking havoc in Philistine territory for seven months (1 Samuel 6:1), the Ark was set on an ox-drawn cart and sent to meander toward the border of Judah. The Israelites of the town of Beth Shemesh alerted their nearby brethren in the city of Kiriath-Jearim, some ten miles away, regarding the precise handling of the ark after seventy of the men of Beth Shemesh had been struck dead “because they had looked into the ark of the Lord” (verse 19). It turned out that the handling experience of those from the city only brought the ark as far as the home of a Levite named Abinadab in Kiriath-Jearim.

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For almost half a century, the Ark was sheltered in Abinadab’s house. Abinadab’s son Eleazar was consecrated to guard it. When King David came into power, one of his first objectives was to bring the Ark into Jerusalem. In 2 Samuel 6:3, the king prepared a new cart and set the Ark upon it in the same manner the men of Kiriath-Jearim decades before managed to transport the
holy artifact. This is when it happened. Uzzah, one of Abinadab’s sons, who grew up considering the Ark as some trifling furniture that had been in his house all his childhood days, disrespectfully grabbed the Ark when the cart threatened to rock it off. The Bible says that, “The Lord’s anger burned against Uzzah because of his irreverent act; therefore God struck him down and he
died there beside the ark of God” (2 Samuel 6:7).

While it was prevalent in the Old Testament that looking at the face of God or being exposed to His Presence would kill a man, it seems in our examples that God was rather selective on those who would die and those who would not. Was it God playing favorites?

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Concerning the Ark of the Covenant, it was a major rule that no one was allowed to touch it except for God’s authorized personnel. In the Third Chapter of Numbers, it was not the High Priest Aaron who was given charge of the Ark’s care but his tribe folk, the Levites; indicated in Deuteronomy 31:25, they were also the ones to officially convey the Ark when the entire Israelite nation headed out in the desert or when the fighters went out for war. Anyone else that touched the Ark was dead flesh.

In the New Testament, the Presence of God traveled all around Israel preaching, teaching, and healing and nobody died; in fact, people lived with total pardon of their sins. This was because the Presence of God was housed in a specially designed device called a human body that facilitated Jesus to function harmoniously in the material world. And even after His resurrection when He rose with a body imperishable—that can suddenly materialize in a locked room (John 20:19,26), disappear into thin air (Luke 24:31), and get lifted up to the sky in plain sight (Acts 1:9)—no living human being was reported to have been struck down for too much of His Presence. Except for two people: the Apostle John in Revelation 1:17, whom we will deal with in a moment; and Saul of Tarsus, later known as the Apostle Paul.

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There are those who say it was the "Light of God" that shown around Saul that got him blind. There are also those who don't sell out to this proposition. When God showed Himself in a burning bush, Moses noted that "though the bush was on fire it did not burn up" (Exodus 3:2), a phenomenon that prompted Moses to "go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up" (verse 3). It would make no sense, therefore, why God, who is "the same yesterday, today, and forever" (Hebrews 13:8), would want to scar Saul of Tarsus with blindness when He showed Himself on the road to Damascus. It would make more sense to speculate that he lost his sight through an accident.

In Acts 9:4, it says that "he fell to the ground." Some people believe that his blindness came as a result of him falling off his ride. It would be more logical, they say, that Saul hit his head on a rock and lost his sight, instead of saying that the Light of God blinded him. I heard this taught by a faith advocacy group that held that a Perfect God will never be the source of sickness, disease, or infirmity. Instead, they believe that all infirmity among His children can result out of the several factors: their own doing, the Devil—who certainly comes to "steal, kill and destroy" (John 10:10)—and natural laws. As a backgrounder, this faith group was once composed of members who had in their habit to blame God for every sickness or misfortune that befell them. To curb this attitude, their leaders ingeniously developed the sub-doctrine of an unscourging God, who merely allows misfortune to befall His people in times of obstinate disobedience instead of directly causing it. And I must admit, the doctrine has great merits. I agree that we live in a world where physical corruption affects the righteous and the unrighteous in the same way as the rain falls upon the righteous and the unrighteous (Matthew 5:45). The difference standing between the righteous and the unrighteous is God who rewards each man according to the good works he performs (Matthew 6:2,4,6,16,18; 10:41,42; 16:27; Mark 9:41; Luke 6:23,35; 23:41); and then, of course, there's the mercy of God that silences both the righteous and the unrighteous on whomever He wants to bless or not to bless (Exodus 9:16; Matthew 20:13 to 16; Romans 9:15 to 16, verse 18). I also believe that there is an ugly Devil running around the face of the earth casting dirty and serious tricks on the righteous and the unrighteous (1 Peter 5:8). And I also believe that you and I ain't perfect, that at some point of our lives we get to let go of good judgment and we just pay for it!

Ariel Skelley/CORBIS

For years I believed the proposition promoted by the particular faith group I mention above, of which also I was affiliated with. I myself have lost my sense of smell through a road accident ten years ago, when I got side-swiped by two motorbikes. Oftenly complaining about it, the doctor one day asked me, "Would you have rather lost your sight than your power to smell?"

Well, I still tell my 7-year-old daughter that the flowers smell great, based on what I remember of how they smell. Then I'd tell her that Daddy can no longer smell; does that stop her? No. She just drives that flower at my nose and says, "C'mon, Daddy, just try!"

So this personal experience reinforced my understanding of Saul's blindness as something acquired from falling off his horse. Or his carriage. And I don't mean he was drinking, in case some reader would seriously consider that! There are, however, some passages in the Bible that the Unscourging God doctrine comes diametrically in conflict with. One of them is in the Fourth Chapter of Exodus, where God stated:

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"Who gave man his mouth? Who makes him deaf or dumb? Who gives him sight or makes him blind? Is it not I, the Lord?"

This was said in the time of Moses' calling when God appeared to him in a burning bush. Here, Moses' hand turned leprous after plunging it into his cloak at God's command (Exodus 4:6 to 7). In addition to this, we can find great men in the Bible who were afflicted with impairment or great physical debility when bleached in the manifest Presence of God.

In Luke 1:20 we find the priest Zechariah, father of John the Baptist, being stricken dumb until the eighth day after his son's birth for doubting the message of the Angel Gabriel.

Muhamed Gaff/Corbis

In the Tenth Chapter of Daniel in the Old Testament, the Prophet Daniel fell extremely weak—"I had no strength left, my face turned deathly pale and I was helpless. Then...I fell into a deep sleep, my face to the ground" (Daniel 10:8,9).

The same was experienced by the Apostle John in Revelation 1:17 when, upon beholding Jesus in all His heavenly glory, "fell" at His feet "as though dead."

The power that surrounds God's heavenly Presence has been said to be so strong that man's earthly body could not withstand being around Him. Later in Saul's life, by then his name changed to Paul, he wrote a study on the principle of why the human flesh falls infirmed before God. He said in 1 Corinthians 15:50, "...flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable." If interpreted with the lens of 2 Corinthians 6:14 to 18, we begin to understand that the basic absence of fellowship between a corrupt flesh and the heavenly incorruptible Presence of God causes the first one to crumble before the latter:

"For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? Touch no unclean thing and I will receive you" (2 Corinthians 6:14–16,17).

Like oil is to water, the latter recoils in the presence of the first one.

Writing in the context of the resurrection, Paul taught that there are "earthly bodies" and there are "heavenly bodies" (1 Corinthians 15:40). "But," he continues, "the splendor of the heavenly bodies is one kind, and the splendor of the earthly bodies is another." The earthly body of man, he further remarked in 2 Corinthians 4:16, is "wasting away"; it is a part of the visible world which is merely "temporary," as opposed to the "unseen" which is "eternal" (verse 18). The only way, therefore, for flesh and blood to withstand the subduing power of God's Presence is to be in fellowship with Him:

Hemis/Corbis

"For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: 'Death has been swallowed up in victory'" (1 Corinthians 15:53,54).

In other words, flesh and blood has to die, to "come out...and be separate" (2 Corinthians 6:17), to be clothed with the imperishable. Years before Paul, Jesus alluded to the same principle when He told of the parable of the wedding banquet, the "imperishable" of Paul here represented by His "wedding clothes":

"But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. 'Friend,' he asked, 'how did you get in here without wedding clothes?' The man was speechless. Then the king told the attendants, 'Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth'" (Matthew 22:11–13).

©The Gallery Collection/CORBIS

The purpose of God's visitation upon the great men of the Bible, ironically however, had nothing to do with their deaths. He did not appear before Moses, for instance, and informed him that his time had come; or to Saul of Tarsus to tell him that it was payback time for the lives that he made suffer! He, instead, told the Prophet Daniel to "stand up" (Daniel 10:11); to "write" (Revelation 1:19) in commanding John; to "go and tell" (Isaiah 6:9) to the Prophet Isaiah; to "stand up on your feet" (Ezekiel 2:1), when He spoke to the Prophet Ezekiel. Each of the people mentioned here experienced the touch of God. It was as if God, through His touch, returned the life that was ebbing away from the prophets' physical bodies. It was as if God plugged a bit of His imperishable nature upon perishing flesh to save the life from hemorrhaging away.

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With the Prophet Ezekiel the Spirit of God came into him and raised him to his feet (Ezekiel 2:2). The glorified Jesus came and placed His hand upon the Apostle John (Revelation 1:17). The Prophet Daniel received his strength back through the touch of the man he saw in a vision:

"So I was left alone, gazing at this great vision: I had no strength left, my face turned deathly pale and I was helpless. Then I heard him speaking, and as I listened to him, I fell in to a deep sleep, my face to the ground. A hand touched me and set me trembling on my hands and knees. Then one who looked like a man touched my lips, and I opened my mouth and began to speak. Again the one who looked like a man touched me and gave me strength. When he spoke to me, I was strengthened and said, 'Speak, my lord, since you have given me strength" (Daniel 10:8–10, 15–16, 18, 19).

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This reminds us of the blood of the spotless lamb God prescribed the people of Israel to smear on the doorposts of their homes during the first Passover night, to spare them the death of the firstborn when the Angel of Death came prowling the land of Egypt.

In the New Testament things got a little different in that Jesus, through His Spirit, empowers His people to advance His purpose. In this principle, He appeared in a vision to the disciple Ananias and told him to head for the blinded Saul and restore his sight (Acts 9:10 to 12). Ananias obeyed, went to the house God singled out—“the house of Judas on Straight Street” (verse 11)—placed his hands on Saul, and “Immediately, something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes, and he could see again” (verse 18).

Only a handful of men in the Bible had experienced the lethal close encounter with God. God, however, made sure all of them lived to tell about it, and in perfect health! Because of the fatal nature of the encounter, we may be tempted to question the integrity of the beholders—what was it about them that led God to bleach them alive in His Presence? Was it because of Isaiah’s unclean lips, or Saul’s misplaced zeal against the believers? If such were the case, what problem of character did the Prophet Daniel have that we can read about?

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A close look into the accounts of these powerful manifestations reveals that they ultimately introduced a call in the beholder’s life, a call of monumental proportions. Moses, for example, was designated to lead the children of Israel out of their 430-year Egyptian bondage. The prophets Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Jeremiah were sent on a life-long and life-threatening mission of prophesying—almost preaching—God’s mercy for the rebellious Kingdom of Judah as its years neared judgment. The Prophet Daniel, on the other hand, was called to a ministry of prayer in that his people would face extraordinary ordeal and spiritual decline when he saw the events unfolding after the Jews return to Jerusalem until the birth of the Messiah. Then in the years after Jesus ascended into heaven, it was the Apostle John’s turn to do a Prophet Daniel when he witnessed the events from the apostolic years of Christianity to the return of the Messiah. Paul was given the task to surgically cleave the Church away from Judaism, in the same way as God used Moses to extract the Israelites away from Egypt, to facilitate the survival and growth of the Christians in a hostile world they would nonetheless be reaching out for Jesus.

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God had designated the people whom He believed were cut out for job. In Jeremiah 1:4, God said to the prophet:

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”

He also understood that it would not be easy for these individuals to accept the mere verbal assurance, “I will be with you” (Exodus 3:12). Continuing the account of the Prophet Jeremiah, he replied: “Ah, Sovereign Lord…I do not know how to speak; I am only a child” (verse 6). It can be recalled that even the Prophet Moses made a somewhat similar reply in his inclination to dodge his calling:

“O Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue” (Exodus 3:10).

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We know what God’s response to Moses was. At least with Jeremiah, there was not so much display of anger, though the reader today can imagine some smoke rising when God answered, “Do not say, ‘I am only a child.’ You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you” (Jeremiah 1:7 to 8).

Donatello's Habakkuk

For this reason, He unclothes Himself in all His awesome glory to show His chosen who is really the one to fear. Jesus pointed this out in Matthew 10:28 where He taught:

“Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in hell.”

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To some of His beholders, like the Prophet Daniel and the Apostle John, He allowed them to experience what it was like to be close to being dead probably to remove their fear of death. It can be recalled that the prophet had been through a brush with death when he was thrown into the lion’s den (Daniel 6:16), an experience which, though ending in God’s supernatural deliverance, had sent unforgettable shivers up and down his spine. The Apostle John, some time in the span of 60 to 96 A.D., was known to have survived execution and exiled to the isle of Patmos. For such experiences, God may have found it necessary to reach out to them with His touch and comfort the terror away from their souls. It might be in this context that prompted how the glorified Jesus introduced Himself to His former disciple:

“Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last. I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades” (Revelation 1:17 to 18).

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The Apostle John was afraid and the Prophet Daniel could not stop trembling that it took several times for the man in his vision to touch him and calm him down, gradually.

God had it in His agenda of meeting to comfort His beholders with His touch perhaps to make it clear that He wished no death to come to them. When God purposed to show Himself a second time to Moses, He chose to cover His prophet’s eyes with His hand, and not with any other device like a dark cloud or some heavenly blanket, to keep Moses’ gaze away from His holy face lest he dies.

“And the Lord said, ‘I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you…. But…you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live. When my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by” (Exodus 33: 19,20,22).

With Paul, God’s agenda did not change. After striking him with blindness, the Bible showed a man headed for death. In Acts 9:9, it stated that “For three days, he was blind, and did not eat or drink anything.” In those three days, God informed Ananias that Saul was praying and having a vision of a man named Ananias placing his hands on him to restore his sight (verse 11). When the obedient Ananias came to the exact location God had given him, he laid his hands on Saul as he said these words:

“Brother Saul, the Lord—Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you were coming here—has sent me so that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit” (verse 17).

It was almost similar to when the risen Jesus visited His disciples and “breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit’” (John 20:22). It was the New Testament way of touching those who came to God. With “Brother Saul,” something like scales fell from his eyes immediately, and he could see again (Acts 9:18). And just like the Prophet Daniel gradually felt his vigor restored, Saul ate and “regained his strength” (Ibid.).

[Hey, I didn't know it would go this long! But I'm glad it did! Another thing: MERRY CHRISTMAS! Manila time—well, at least it's 12:26 am on my PC. MERRY CHRISTMAS! Next up: a longer one! MERRY CHRISTMAS!]

The Heavenlies

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In our past study we learned that the elements of both the natural and the spiritual were originally arranged to occupy one sphere. From the start, one was meant to be part of the other, and that is the way we still see it today. Spirit beings crossing over were not uncommon. God came down from His holy mountain in the cool of the day and spent time with Adam and the rest of His creation. Angels likewise were welcome to come across and intimately savor the beauty of God's creation, even to mingle with God incarnate likeness. We have also seen the probability that God's ethereal abobe of heaven may not really have been that semi-transparent floating city in the sky that we common picture after modern media's rendition, but as a very high mountain peak way above the clouds as several verses in the Bible support. From the pinnacle, God views His creation; from that point, He beholds the stars which the ancients believed then were attached to the clouds. So when Lucifer aspired to raise himself "above the stars of God" (Isaiah 14:13), there was no doubt he was planning to topple God from the highest point of the sacred mount of heaven, or "the mount of assembly." At this point we take off to venture into a world just below heaven but immediately right above the earth; a world represented by the clouds, known to some as the gateway to heaven. It is called the Heavenlies.

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The modern notion about two worlds invisible to yet intersecting each other is principally based on the corruption of sin that God’s presence can and ever will not endure. This was how the Spirit of God drew away from man “for they are only mortal flesh” (Genesis 6:3, New Living Translation), which if translated loosely means, “because they have chosen the path of corruption.” Yet even now in earth's corrupted state, the world continues to be a home for spirits and a crossroad of visiting spirits good and malevolent. And among these spirits of the latter type, one seized the heavenlies and turn it into his throne room.

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In a prophetic narrative given by Ezekiel, this Guardian Cherub was in Eden (Ezekiel 28:13), adorned with “every precious stone,” his “settings and mountings were made of gold.” But “wickedness was found” (verse 15) in this “model of perfection” (verse 12). He filled his heart with rebellion and sought to overthrow God from His throne (Isaiah 14:13), raise himself above the other angels of heaven (Ibid.). The attempt failed miserably and, according to the Prophet Ezekiel, the Guardian Cherub was cast to the earth (Ezekiel 28:17), out of his heavenly position forever. Despite his fallen state, this spiritual being maintained his access traversing the physical sphere. In fact, he later successfully established a virtually permanent residence on the planet shortly after his fall. From then on, he had been able to found certain bases of his sinister operation in specific regions in the globe. Pergamum, for example, was singled out in the Bible to be one of these places (Revelation 2:13).

Though this angel failed in his ambition to overthrow God out of heaven, he settled for the next best thing of effectively wresting away from man his God-given authority to rule “over all the earth” (Genesis 1:26). In Adam’s failure to secure his Divine commission, the entire natural sphere was corrupted and the title of prince of the earth transferred from him to the Guardian Cherub (John 12:31, 14:30, 16:11). Out this ancient right did the Cherub derive his audacity to offer Jesus Christ “all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor” if He but just bow down and worship him (Matthew 4:9).

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Because of this change of management in the natural world, the exchange of love, goodwill, wisdom, and joy between the spheres was vexed. What was like a thick cloud of sweet-smelling incense of devotion rising from man to heaven thinned into a faint mist, almost undetectable; and instead the stench of rebellion and corruption crept upward and saturated the pure white clouds of the sky. If heaven shut its windows in contempt on what was happening on the natural sphere, the former
Guardian Cherub whose name he changed to Satan, or “slanderer,” in his undying dream to make himself “like the Most High” (Isaiah 14:14), seized the skies and made them his own heaven, just like the Most High.

The Heavenlies

It can be said that the skies became Satan’s fake heaven. Was there in any way a dethronement of Godly authority? Here is what happened.

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Satan, then known as Lucifer, the “morning star, son of the dawn” (Isaiah 14:12), learned a humiliating lesson about messing with the Most High. In Ezekiel 28:17 to 18, he was hurled to the earth, along with a third of the angelic host which made its choice of believing his delusion of becoming “like the Most High” (Isaiah 14:14). In their fallen state, however, this angel of ambition somehow found his wish granted. According to his strategy in Isaiah 14, he would first “ascend to heaven” (verse 13) which he did, for a brief moment. Next, he would “raise [his] throne above the stars of God” (Ibid.) which, as we have mentioned, became a fact. In Revelation 12, John the Revelator noted “an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on his head” (verse 3) that he identified as “the devil or Satan”(verse 9), with this historical detail: “His tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth” (verse 4). In the Bible, angels were often referred to as stars. With this fallen third, Satan’s wish to rise “above the stars” was fulfilled.

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Then in the fourteenth verse of Isaiah 14, he determined to “ascend above the tops of the clouds” to “make [himself] like the Most High.” According to the Bible, God Most High sits enthroned in a place called heaven, spiritually located “above the tops of the clouds.” The psalmist of Psalm 113 was very specific when he pinpointed God’s throne “above the heavens” (verse 4) or “above the sky,” even describing how He “stoops down to look on the heavens and the earth” (verse 6). Two chapters ahead in Psalm 115:16, King David declares: “The highest heavens belong to the Lord.” With God officially and undisputedly owning heaven, Satan, being regurgitated from his position and his holy place, had to settle for the next best thing: the clouds.

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The earth has its imitation of heaven. Since ancient days, man’s earliest understanding of heaven was aided by the sight of the sky. Its vast stretch and inaccessible height was believed to have hidden a riddle of grandeur and of goodness that touched the earth and appreciated his existence. The rain, for instance, touches the ground and cools his world; brings the growing green to life; and floods the empty trenches with that which revitalizes flesh and blood. Because of this, mankind has learned to spiritually expect a wealth of good things from the sky called miracles, pleasant things of grace that benefited his chances to survive a brutal earth. This gratitude seems to be expressed in James 1:17 where the writer cited, “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of heavenly lights….” Then as soon as the heavenly miracles were began to be seen as gifts, his curiosity shifted to this heavenly giver.

The Greek god Uranus is an example of the ancient peoples' appreciation and attempt to understand the sky by personifying it.

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The realm of the clouds was a very fertile dimension to establish domination. Being the most transcendent component of the natural sphere, whoever controlled it has conquered the earth, in spite of a higher heaven. In fact, the sky’s situation proved vitally strategic as it perfectly lay sandwiched between heaven and earth. This meant total control of anything exchanged between the natural and the supernatural. Satan seized this high region and remodeled it into a stronghold, a bastion to continue his campaign of defiance against God whom he swore to overthrow; against man who was favored with the authority to rule an entire creation; and against the earth, the world that has now served as his dead end. Unlike the radiant and festive atmosphere of heaven, the skies of the natural world were remote, silent, and lonely; yet it provided the fallen angels a convenient mock-up of the indigenous abode that they have lost in their unfaithfulness. This enthronement in the high place of the earth garnered Satan the title “ruler of the kingdom of the air,” as coined by the Apostle Paul in Ephesians 2:2, and his minions, “thrones…powers…rulers…authorities” (Colossians 1:16), “the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Ephesians 6:12).

Mayan Serpent ©Boris Vallejo 1983

The Apostle Paul made numerous references to the spiritual skies ruled by the demons calling it the “heavenly realms” or the “heavenly places” (mostly in the King James Version). It was a realm the ancients perceived as bustling with supernatural activity and conflict against the heaven of God, the result of which manifested in the natural either as a triumph for good, righteousness, and justice, or as a hostile usurpation of wickedness and perversion. The most vivid account of this ethereal struggle can be seen in the tenth chapter of Daniel, featuring an angel of God waylaid and overpowered by a demon named the “prince of the Persian kingdom” (verse 13):

“Then he [the angel] continued, ‘Do not be afraid, Daniel. Since the first day that you set your mind to gain understanding and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come in response to them. But the prince of the Persian kingdom resisted me twenty-one days. The Michael, on of the chief princes, came to help me, because I was detained there with the king of Persia’” (verses 12 to 14).

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The story introduced several figures of the spirit realm. Besides the angelic messenger, there was a prince (or principality, as used in Ephesians 1:21 and Colossians 2:10) who, apparently by his name, held a key sway over the affairs of the Persian kingdom; another divinity called the “king of Persia”; and the archangel Michael who was known to guard the people of Israel (12:1). Moving on to the twentieth verse, the angel tells the Prophet Daniel that his journey back to heaven will entail another fight with the prince of Persia, the result of which will bear a greater significance than an angel’s unhassled trip back home: the entrance of another spiritual official known as the prince of Greece (10:20). Daniel’s life at this period was at a twilight, and so was the Persian kingdom. He had seen how Jerusalem fell into Babylonian hands. Later, he witnessed the Persian invasion of the Babylonian Empire. All of these events the Prophet had lived through were prophesied before they occurred. This means that they were decided by colliding forces in the heavenlies long before their appointed time of fulfillment. Now a new prince from the west was about to enter the imperial race, as spoken to him by God’s angel. Daniel never lived to see the very day this prince stepped in, but in 323 B.C. the Macedonian Alexander the Great rose to power and proved to be the goat of Daniel 8:5.

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The question whether battle was the only way of deciding things in the heavenlies seems to be a great big yes. It was through battle that Lucifer attempted to secure his ambition and it was through battle that he lost his status as God’s anointed status, along with the third of the angels he deceived:

“And there was war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. But he was not strong enough. The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil or Satan…was hurled down to the earth, and his angels with him” (Revelation 12:7 to 9).

In Judges 5:20, the Prophetess Deborah sang of how “from the heavens the stars fought…against Sisera,” the mighty Canaanite general that fell by the prowess of the Hebrew judge Barak and finally by the cunning hand of the woman Jael.

After Lucifer failed to secure his place in heaven, the only purpose for him left to give meaning to his worthless existence was to battle every move of God that originates out of heaven. The ancient believers may have known this so well that it was in this respect in which they found a very special aspect of God's omnipresence. If all God's activity originated out of heaven, they might have believed, then not all what God had intended came to fruition in that the malevolent layer of the heavenlies may have filtered the rising and descending traffic of prayers and bequests between God and His earthly believers. What was therefore needed was to establish multiple and separate points of the Divine spiritual exchange as an alternative to the first Godly base just above the demon-populated heavenlies. Through God's unique attribute of omnipresence, the intervening power of the heavenlies was rendered irrelevant, obsolete.

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So based on His omnipresence, God established multiple locations where prayers can be processed into answers. In Psalm 139:8, King David sang of this principle: "If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there." Before this, in Psalm 135:6, he declared, "The Lord does whatever pleases him, in the heavens and on the earth, in the seas and all their depths." So David cited several locations where God's prayer-processing branch offices could be found, other than from His original base: the earth, the seas, and the depths. In Psalm 95:4, he even saw "In his hand...the depths of the earth, and the mountain peaks [which] belong to him." So wherever man was he can be sure God was there to listen to him, hear him praise Him, fill his needs, and bless him with success.

Jesus later built further on God's omnipresence: "For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them” (Matthew 18:20).

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Solomon, in his wisdom, contemplated on the logic of localizing God into a Temple in Jerusalem other than heaven for not even "the heavens...the highest heavens" could contain Him (1 Kings 8:27, 2 Chronicles 2:6, 2 Chronicles 6:18). This meant that wherever man spun his head, there was God to meet him! And process his requests! And have fellowship with him! And have a good time with him!

Even before the time of the father and son kings, God was way ahead in demonstrating His anti-localization policy and strategy to phase out the influence of the heavenlies. During the time of Moses, God made good His expressed intention dwell among His people once they hit the sands of freedom. He ordered a sanctuary made for Him so that He may dwell among them (Exodus 25:8). In Exodus 29:45, God was full of anticipation when He said, "Then I will dwell among the Israelites and be their God." In Exodus 29:46, we see in His own words the very reason why He imposed the freedom of Israel from Egyptian bondage:

"They will know that I am the Lord their God, who brought them out of Egypt so that I might dwell among them. I am the Lord their God."

In the fifteenth chapter of Exodus, Moses and his sister Mirriam sang how God, "By the power of [His] arm" (verse 16), would bring the Israelites "in and plant them on the mountain of your inheritance—the place, Lord, you made for your dwelling, the sanctuary, Lord, your hands established" (verse 17).

And God did physically in all His glory descended upon the earth and dwelled in a tent pitched in the middle of all the tribes of Israel (Exodus 40:34–36, Numbers 9:15–17, 2 Samuel 7:2), made by human hands but under the specific guidelines of His Spirit (Exodus 25:9,33:9–11, 39:32). Here, Moses and Aaron the High Priest would meet God and carry out an active conversation (Numbers 7:89) where instructions, consecrations into office (Numbers 11:16–17), and reprimands (Numbers 12:4–9) were carried out—without the intervention of any ageny from the heavenlies.

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But the most outstanding proof of God's sincere and determined mission to rid the barrier of the heavenlies getting between Him and His people was the incarnation of Jesus Christ, His Son. For thirty-three years, by the Holy Spirit and power, the Son of God "went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil" (Acts 10:38), honest-to-goodness acts of God unfiltered by any ghost of the heavenly realm. The three and a half years of His ministry of "doing good" was a festival of deliverance and miracles imparted directly from the hand of God to the person who precisely asked for it. It was like God was making sure the person making the request got what he needed.

And before Jesus ascended into the right hand of the Father, He promised "another Counselor to be with you forever—the Spirit of truth" (John 14:16–17), the Holy Spirit. If Jesus came to teach, so the Spirit would also "teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you" (verse 26), "guide you into all truth" (15:13), as well as "bring glory" to Jesus "by taking from what is mine and making it known to you" (verse 14). And if Jesus came to heal the sick and raise the dead, likewise, the Spirit will perform the same good deed, as St. Paul explained in Romans 8:11:

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"And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you."

El Greco's interpretation of the unforgettable day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit descended in the form of "tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them" (Acts 2:3), them being the believers holed up in the Upper Room.

Yet aside from the sending the Holy Spirit after Him to safeguard the believers, Jesus' work did not end after He lifted His feet from the earth when He ascended to heaven. In the Book of Hebrews, the writer stated that Jesus our High Priest (4:14) and "mediator of a new covenant" (9:15) entered a sanctuary not made by human hands such as the Tabernacle built by Moses or the Temple created by David and Solomon, both of which the writer called "copies of the heavenly things" (9:23), and cleansed the original and heavenly Most Holy Place with His own blood (verse 12–14). Cleanse it from what? If this Most Holy Place was in heaven, why did He need to cleanse it with His blood? Did anybody sin in heaven? Remember the angelic rebellion, which resulted in the takeover of the heavenlies. When Jesus ascended to the Father, His quest by then was to retake the heavenlies from the enemy. In Colossians 2:15, the Apostle Paul explained how Jesus "disarmed the powers and authorities" and made a "public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in him."

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According to the Scriptures, Jesus "was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight" (Acts 1:9). It may have been that the demons of the realm attempted to overwhelm the ascending Christ and give Him a part two of the cross; or it may have been His momentous stopover to execute the next part of His plan and cleanse the heavenlies once and for all.

The Apostle Paul used an analogy from the victory march held by a conquering Roman Caesar who entered the Imperial capital and chained behind him were the humiliated throng of vanquished foes paraded on the streets of the city for all Romans to see and further humiliate as well. In this fashion, Jesus, risen in power, invaded the heavenlies corralled its denizens and marched them all over the universe in the sight of the holy host of heaven to humiliate. What Jesus did next seized all demondom by surprise: He took over the heavenlies. In Ephesians 1:21, it is said that Jesus took His seat at the right hand of God—we all know this, but what we don't is that the "right hand of God" is—"in the heavenly realms." So what was once a treacherous layer of the spiritual atmosphere which for a long period stood for frustrating the hand of God in blessing His people, had finally become an extension of heaven through Jesus Christ who had finally taken over and open its gates to pour out "every spiritual blessing" in His name (Ephesians 1:3). In this same place will His saints be seated, beside Him, as stated in 2:6:

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"And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus...."

The generations that followed Adam and Eve never knew God as well as their First Parents, aside from an exempt few, because of the incessant intrusion and meddling made by the heavenlies to frustrate the dynamic relationship between man and God. Through the ages, the devil and his horde stood in the middle of both heaven and earth and did their insidious best to block prayers rising from believers and arrest the gifts from God descending to His people. These enemies hidden in the clouds also deceived believers by frequently visiting man through various means seducing away their faith as they posed as the One True God. This was the reason for the unanswered prayers, the poverty, the hopelessness, the death of the innocent. One great reason for the widespread destruction and Satanic activity before and during the time of Christ was due to the demonic control of the heavenlies. As an example, ever notice how rampant demonic possession was during the time of Jesus that every now and then we read of a demoniac being delivered from the dark side?

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The demonic control of the heavenlies did not entirely render God impotent until Jesus came along. In fact, great miracles and promises were imparted during Old Testament times that are still being upheld in our days as without equal in feat. God continued to speak through His prophets, making His promises, approvals, disapprovals, warnings, and judgments known. Hebrews 1:1 states that God spoke through the prophets "in various ways"; this means that God never found it a problem delivering to man His intentions even when it passed through the thickest concentration of heavenly demons in the air. That was when He did it Himself. But when He sent a messenger to do it, there was a problem, like in Daniel 10:12–14 when the angel God sent with the answer to the prophet's prayer was detained "twenty-one days" in the heavenlies until the Archangel Michael arrived to overpower the ruling Prince of Persia and send the imprisoned angel free to finally accomplish his task. In Old Testament times, we read of demons presenting themselves before the LORD along with all the holy angels of heaven, as in Job 1:6 and 2:1; in 1 Kings 22:21, a lying spirit—a spirit of the heavenlies—appeared before God and volunteered to confuse the prophets of Ahab to lead this Godless king to his death. During those times, the demons, though no longer sharing a part in God's presence seemed to just casually stroll back into the pearly gates and hang out with the guys up there! The access may have been provided by the heavenlies in which its role may have had something to do with being a gate (Matthew 7:13–14), a door (Luke 13:24), or a "narrow road" to heaven (Matthew 7:14). But when Jesus came, their happy days abruptly came to a crashing end. Revelation 12:8–9 tells the story as seen by John the Revelator:

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"But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him."

Now it does appear that John was recounting the old story of how Satan fell from heaven on his bid to rise "above the stars of God." But the following verses suddenly speak about the authority of the Messiah:

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"Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Messiah. For the accuser of our brothers and sisters, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down. They triumphed over him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony" (verses 10 and 11).

The Apostle John may have been referring to the past, but after the ninth verse his focus had raced several thousands of years later when Jesus, after His resurrection, came along and kicked down heavenly doors, hammering the plain reality to the rebel angels that angels were not meant to rule, not in the heavenlies, not in heaven, not elsewhere! Not even in hell. Being kicked out of their cool places in the heavenlies, the demons came crashing upon the earth, according to Revelation 12:12:

"Therefore rejoice, you heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has gone down to you! He is filled with fury, because he knows that his time is short."

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Jesus grabbed this piece of authority Adam surrendered to Satan when he sinned the sin of disobedience and gave substance to His words in Matthew 28:18, "Then Jesus came to them and said, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.'" And them disenfranchised demons sprawled to the earth like a bunch of homeless rats scurrying here and there finding a place to hide their scared little heads because the One with the "iron scepter" is in town and here to stay, eager to "dash" His foes "like pieces of pottery" (Revelation 2:27). This is why when we command a demon to relinquish its grip upon its possessed, it has no choice but to obey in Jesus' name. This is why the Apostle Paul stated in 2 Corinthians 1:20 that "no matter how many promises God has made, they are 'Yes' in Christ. And so through him the 'Amen' is spoken by us to the glory of God." Because Jesus had finally taken over the heavenlies—that vast symbol of God's authority, ubiquitously and eternally looking down upon the earth without slumber or sleep—He was able to assure the signs enumerated in Mark 16:17–18 to anyone who believes in His name:

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"they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well."

And now that Jesus sits enthroned in the heavenlies, what He said in John 14:6 may be understood in this "heavenly" light: "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." After the age of the ruling spirits, it is just an encouragement to know that every prayer, every praise, every inquiry, and even every complaint no longer passes through a demonic filter, but through the Son of God Himself! And we can be sure whatever we send to God in faith gets sent to Him fast, whole, and easy. In another verse, Jesus taught about some "narrow gate" (Matthew 7:13 and 14) which anyone aspiring to enter eternal life must enter. In quite the same analogy presented in Luke 13:24, He speaks about a "narrow door." Again, Jesus seemed to speak about His second mission to retake the heavenlies and make it the gate of heaven as it was truly meant to be.

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[Whew! Good stuff! And there's gonna be more, so be here!]

Spirit World

2011-11-09T19:10:00.000-08:00

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In our modern understanding we fancy the spirit world as an invisible plane intersecting our carnal world, inhabited by magical powers exerting a compelling influence on human affairs. Through modern influences we treat the spirit world as a sort of science fiction dimension, potent yet devoid of any knowledge of the natural world that exists just next door to theirs. This attitude of looking at the spiritual as something separate, obscure, and indifferent comes from the modern illusory need to rationalize whatever the curious mind touches, including Biblical faith. Until the modern sciences of reason, with all their impressive intellectual trappings, the believer needed no further proof of the existence of the spiritual and the supernatural. Faith and the Scriptures were all that was necessary to prove it and the disciplines of philosophy, logic, and science were nothing more than complications born out of skepticism designed to fortify inferior assertions. There was no standing up against the issue of faith until the Hellenization of ideas in the eighth century B.C., then during its revival in the sixteenth-century A.D. in the form of the Renaissance, and finally when then Age of Reason took shape in the eighteenth century. During each of these periods, an incremental deadening of the natural sensitivity to the spiritual had been manifest. What had started as a successful stage of departure of Greek thought from the influence of the gods had ultimately come up face to face with Biblical faith. And in a few hundred years, this rift of has now become a chasm. If the children of Israel elected God as their King (Numbers 23:21, Deuteronomy 33:5), now we have the separation of church and state. Back in the days of the Bible, education was made mandatory for the people to “meditate” on “the Book of the Law…day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it” (Joshua 1:8); today, a short prayer to start a day’s school class can become a national controversy.

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The challenge of doubt can be traced way back to the Garden of Eden when the serpent enticed Eve into disobedience with the introductory line, “Did God really say…?” (Genesis 3:1) The result was banishment from the Garden (verse 23). In the same way, the mistrust initiated by the natural world against the very reality of the spiritual ended in estrangement of the two worlds.

The first verse in the Bible features an introduction of these two worlds: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth” (King James Version), two dimensions that were meant to be alike. The ninth chapter of the Book of Hebrews, in this matter, spoke about an “earthly sanctuary” (verse 1) and the “greater and more perfect tabernacle…not a part of this creation” (verse 11). The writer provided an ancient principle that God adopted in creating the earth: the replication of heavenly things (verse 23). This bears great significance when we consider Psalm 115:16 which testifies that God has given the earth to man, while heaven He keeps for Himself. Man himself is a copy of his Creator as he was formed in His image (Genesis 1:26 to 27). As God rules heaven, He gave the entire earthly dimension to man to “fill… and subdue” (verse 27). In this context is the Eighth Psalm understood when the fourth and fifth passages explore the wonder why God made man “a little lower than God” (New Living Translation) “and crowned him with glory and honor.” This will be the first lesson to be gleaned in our study of the spirit world: that the natural was never intended to be an inferior version of the spiritual.

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God has afforded great respect for His creation even before the seventh day when He rested from all His work. At certain points during the creative six days, the Bible notes several periods when God would seem to step back, behold His accomplishment so far and see that it “was good.” In the third verse of the Genesis 1, after creating the light, God steps back to see “that the light was good” (verse 3), then He goes on to call the light “day” and the darkness “night.” In the ninth, after God finished marking the seas and the dry ground, He again steps back to see “that it was good.” In the twelfth, after the land blossomed with the green, God “saw that it was good.” In the eighteenth, God appends the sun and the moon then “saw that it was good.” In the fifth day, God delighted in the sight of the aquatic, arboreal (verse 21), and the terrestrial animals (verse 25), which followed on the sixth day. Then in the thirty-first verse, “God saw all that He had made, and it was very good.”

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Mount Heaven?

What made God descend upon the earth “in the cool of the day” (Genesis 3:8) was that He was as much at home in an earth that looked and felt no different from the heaven. We can even further claim that God dwelt in Eden with His creation for no Biblical account makes mention of God selecting heaven as His permanent abode prior to the invasion and corruption of sin. The idea of God seated in the clouds above all He has made comes from our imagining of Genesis 1:31, where He surveyed “all that he had made” to see that “it was very good.” Though the illustration given by the Prophet Isaiah speak of a “heaven” (Isaiah 14:13) and a place “above the tops of the clouds” (verse 14), he states that the Divine throne was situated “on the mount of assembly, on the utmost heights of” what was coined as “the sacred mountain” (verse 13). With God enjoying and savoring the work of His hands, He chose the highest point of the planet—the mountain—to survey “all that he had made.” The Prophet Ezekiel seconds this setting with the mention of “the mount of God” in the sixteenth verse of the twenty-eighth chapter of his book.

Sandro Vannini/CORBIS. Mount Zion today.

The matter may be trivial to begin with, but we have never considered if God originally ridged the earth with an uneven elevation of hills and mountains at all. Yet whether or not the earth’s horizon was meant to be beheld in an uninterrupted line running from the east to the west, there was one height that had risen on earth so high to surpass the clouds, exceeding the firmament where it was once believed the stars and the two great lights were supposed to have been hooked upon. King David alluded to this in prophetic song in Psalm 113:5 to 6:

“Who is like the Lord our God, the One who sits enthroned on high, who stoops down to look on the heavens and the earth?”

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The Biblical writers saw the sky as a vault as did any ancient observer. Back in their time, the idea that the heavenly bodies actually surpassed the earthly clouds by light years was out of the question. What was firmly established then was that the sun, moon, clouds and stars were parts of the sky. The sky, which to them may have been understood as the blue may in turn have been part of the vast canvas of heaven. Yet the complexity did not end there. In 2 Corinthians 12:2, the Apostle Paul wrote of a “third heaven" ruled out any possibility of God’s sacred mountain being scaled by even the most physically enduring. Jesus hinted on this in one of His parables where it took several angels to assist the departed beggar Lazarus in flight to “Abraham’s side” (Luke 16:22). But the seclusion of heaven came after the visitation of sin.

Heaven is representative of the vast authority of God; the sky, heaven’s earthly depiction, illustrated God’s dominion over the earth. Heaven, as pictured by Jesus in His prayer pattern in Matthew 6:10, is a place where God’s will is fully enforced. So when Jesus declared, “your will be done on earth,” He may have almost been alluding to Eden, for it was the most perfect place where God and man communed. Eden was a place of delight; its very name meant “pleasure,” used figuratively to speak of a voluptuous life. Later in the New Testament, Jesus and the Apostles Paul and John the Beloved referred to it as “Paradise” (Luke 23:43, 2 Corinthians 12:2, and Revelation 2:7, respectively). Its foundation was God’s expression of His desire to be in the company of man and all His creation. Yet to keep it from the defilement of sin, He had to withdraw it from man’s and the earth’s corruption and share it with him at a later period in man’s after-death existence when he had shed away his “corruptible” mortality and put on “incorruption” and “immortality” (1 Corinthians 15:54, New King James Version), for “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does corruption inherit incorruption” (verse 50, New King James Version).

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Before the fall of man and all creation, God spent His days on His uncorrupted earth. He dwelt with His creation and took great pleasure in beholding His masterpiece whether closely at the unique intricate detail of a humble organism or from atop His sacred mountain that provided the grand vista of all the earth. Contrary to the common impression, God, when He finished creating, did not withdraw to His throne in heaven behind the clouds and leave the earth to wind in its cycles of perpetuity. Albeit on a limited scale, any human artist who had ever stepped back to view and fall in love with the work of his hands can understand the love and awe God felt, and still feels, for His creation. But while the human artist can only dream for his creation to come to life, it was only God who inspired life into His work. For this delight, He communed with His masterpiece. Back in the days before sin, man and God—the natural and the spirit—shared one world, one dimension.

The Interdependence of Worlds

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Corruption changed everything for the spirit and the natural. Principles changed. But God’s will proved sovereign. Where there was a chasm, God maintained a point, a bridge where He and man could commune. And in the matters He redesigned, He outlined a pattern that reminded Him of unity and reconciliation.

The human creation is of two most basic components: the body and the soul. The body, or that which is made up of flesh and blood, is primarily the result of the physical ability to reproduce. Its precise and awesome design is a network of interdependent parts developing, protecting, and maintaining each other in a perfectly orchestrated concerto of survival. But mere parts minutely assembled together do not produce a living organism. In somewhat the same extent as the complexity of the physical body, the human being is also a system of urges that drives the further equipping of the body and impels for more survival. This is where the soul comes in, to power the physical apparatuses into action.

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The soul is the seat of man’s consciousness, his psychology, his will, his intellect, and his ability to distinguish sensations. The soul also contains the emotions, the ambitions, the power to decide, the conscience—the storehouse of morals, the ability to recognize and weigh right and wrong. By Biblical principle, the soul holds the life the physical body is endued with. Without the soul, the body in all its intricacies will cease to function. This relationship is illustrated in Colossians 2:19 regarding the connection of every believer—“the whole body”—to Christ, the soul or “the Head” of the Church:

“He has lost connection with the Head, from whom the whole body, supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows as God causes it to grow.”

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In the Old Testament, the Hebrew word used for “soul” is nephesh which is widely employed to speak of desire, lust, pleasure, will, and even the body. “Life,” however, would be the best word to abridge the variety of specific applications. Two of the world’s most reliable Bible translations will demonstrate this in their rendition of 1 Samuel 24:11:

“…there is neither evil nor transgression in mine hand, and I have not sinned against thee; yet thou huntest my soul to take it” (King James Version).

“…I am not guilty of wrongdoing or rebellion. I have not wronged you, but you are hunting me down to take my life” (New International Version).

It doesn't matter what anybody tells you. Without the soul, the body is just as dead as the coffin it lies upon or this awesome funeral mask of the Egyptian boy king Tut.

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In the same way, the sustenance needed by the natural world to function and exist comes from the spirit world, from Christ essentially:

“The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word” (Hebrews 1:3).

And, "He is before all things, and in him all things hold together” (Colossians 1:17).

Jesus Christ, therefore, is the soul of the material world. At a very vital point, survival is the position at which the natural and the supernatural crisscross. In such a condition, it may appear that a perfect yet precarious balance of power will exist between the two worlds. Throughout the Old and the New testaments, there seems to be a pairing of the two worlds with every occurrence of “heaven and earth,” suggesting an interdependence that must not be severed.

But it shall never be severed, for as far as Jesus is concerned, the natural world shelters the Church which He desires as His “bride,” His chosen city Jerusalem, and “all things” created simply because He loved them (Revelation 4:11):

“Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created” (King James Version).

The natural world needs Jesus Christ, its Soul, for without Him, it would cease to exist. Jesus, however, needs nothing from us, the natural world, except for the extreme delight He gets from beholding “all things” which He had been “appointed heir of” (Hebrews 1:2).

Worlds in Marriage

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Another idea that will perfectly illustrate the unity of the spirit and the material worlds is that of marriage. It was, in fact, from which the principle of the marriage was derived. The prophetic psalmist sang of this wedding in Psalm 85:10 to 11:

“Love and faithfulness meet together; righteousness and peace kiss each other. Faithfulness springs for from the earth, and righteousness looks down from heaven.”

Based on the song, it is clear that God lavished the natural world, or “the earth,” with
love and righteousness, while the latter offered her faithfulness and her peace. This principle of marriage between the natural and the supernatural was very much applied to the indivisibility of the soul and body and the intended inviolability between man and wife. In these marriages, it is not hidden to us that any separation that occurs meant the involvement of death.

The concept of marriage has been the most precise depiction of God’s relationship with His people, a harmony manifested between the natural and the supernatural spheres as well. The Bible repeatedly alludes to this. In the sixteenth chapter of Ezekiel, the prophet composes an inspired allegory of God’s love as He courted a personified Jerusalem in the hope to elicit her peace and faithfulness:

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“…I spread the corner of my garment over you and covered your nakedness. I gave you my solemn oath and entered into a covenant with you, declares the Sovereign Lord, and you became mine” (verse 8).

What follows next is a wonderful attention of a supernatural Lover presenting His mistress to the stars. It was in this same and unadulterated manner how the supernatural world looks after its physical half:

“I bathed you with water and washed the blood from you and put ointments on you. I clothed you with an embroidered dress and put leather sandals on you. I dressed you in fine linen and covered you with costly garments. I adorned you with jewelry: I put bracelets on your arms and a necklace around your neck, and I put a ring on your nose, earrings on your ears and a beautiful crown on your head. So you were adorned with gold and silver, your clothes were of fine linen and costly fabric and embroidered cloth. Your food was fine flour, honey and olive oil. You became very beautiful and rose to be a queen. And your fame spread among the nations on account of your beauty, because the splendor I had given you made your beauty perfect, declares the Sovereign Lord” (verses 9-14).

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Many centuries after the Prophet Ezekiel, John the Revelator saw the same sight of this transcendent natural earth in the form of “the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband” (Revelation 21:2).

And being the loving husband to a lovely bride, God delightfully descended into the natural realm and personally shared with her His undivided time and attention, “walking in the garden (of Eden) in the cool of the day” (Genesis 3:8). Until Adam and Eve gave in to the sin of disobedience, God, after the creative six days, did not spend the rest of the days seated on His throne on lofty heaven merely surveying the work of His hands. This spiritual Deity enjoyed a dynamic relationship with His son Adam and his wife Eve in the natural realm, feeling the grass, the smell of the flowers, the rippling sound of the river of Eden, the awesome sight of His flocks aflight even as they blocked the daylight sun with their mighty numbers.

[There be more, folks, thar be morrre!]

Tale of Two Brothers

2011-11-08T23:20:00.000-08:00

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Knowing the incident that highlights this character, like Judas Iscariot, we are predisposed to the impression that Cain had always been a black sheep, and his younger brother, a gentle, saintly, quiet-as-a-lamb, skinny little nipper. Notwithstanding his being the Bible's first murderer, the value judgment we pass on his reputation has been stretched quite too far.

Nowhere in the Bible does it designate Cain being a rebellious son from the beginning. As a matter of fact, he, as his young brother Abel, was raised in the strictest obedience to Adam's Godly tradition. This is manifest in his deliberate adherence to the pre-mandated ritual sacrifice of their firstfruits. Here is where the controversy started to simmer.

There is a popular notion that Cain actually offered up the rotten portions of his farm produce. This is downright impossible on the account that the sacrificial rite needed to take place at a time shortly after harvest time, if not at the onset of harvest itself, to ensure freshness of the yield. There is no known problem the Bible makes mention prior to the sacrifice that would connect Cain into committing the unprecedented first murder. Cain was, in fact, the unlikeliest person to fall precipitously from the grace of God. Being the firstborn of the earth's first man, it is all so possible that Cain felt great responsibility in taking Adam's culture of worship beyond his father's lifetime. It is almost doubtless that Adam instilled to his firstborn the solemnity of his call. Cain was seriously aware that his title as the firstborn male of God's firstborn male lay beyond the concept of privilege. Yet if this sentiment brought him to believe that it was up to himself to prove his worth, to do something to match his father's credit, his life then lay in harm's way. If this ever was the case, then it is here where Cain's downfall takes root, not in the day of the sacrifice.

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Cain was a hard worker; and he delighted in the sacrifice he always gave. He surrendered to God what was due God, and every time he did, he did it with a hilarious heart. It is not difficult for us to surmise this, for God, according to the Bible, "does not change" (James 1:17, also in Malachi 3:6, New International Version). The writer of the Book of Hebrews, in asserting Jesus Christ's equality with the Father, claims in effect that God "is the same yesterday, today, and forever" (Hebrews 13:6). When it comes to sacrificially giving to Him, therefore, such an act would not be complete if it were not given by a "cheerful giver" (II Corinthians 9:7, New International Version). Note that this blessed joviality was the first thing to vanish when God one day looked with favor at the younger sibling Abel's immolated lamb, and not at the rich crops freshly picked from Cain's arduously plowed farmland. Cain was a farmer. It was no doubt that hard work was the only kind of work he knew. Giving his best and his physical and intellectual fullest became a lifestyle for him. As far as he was concerned, he toiled harder than Abel, who was mostly seen merely standing among the flock or sitting rested under the spreading canopy of a tree in the heat of the day. Back then, predatory beasts were unknown or unheard of for both man and animal lived under a heavenly mandate that limited food consumption to only vegetables and fruits (Genesis 1:29–30). Slaying flesh-bound beings for food was called bloodshed, a practice that later dragged all creation into corruption.

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Abel’s Sacrifice

What was it then about Abel's sacrifice that caught God's attention and not to afford any affection for the firstborn's? The concept of the younger brother's offering can be traced back to the Garden of Eden on the day God delivered unto Adam, Eve, and the serpent the judgment of the Fall. Adam and Eve partook of the fruit of the forbidden tree to corrupt all creation with the sin of disobedience. To restore all that was lost, God promised the arrival of a Deliverer, a Messiah. Genesis 3:15 contains this promise, including the specific measure the Christ would take to consummate the re-purifying task: a sacrifice of earthly death.

"And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel" (New King James Version).

The sight, therefore, of a slain lamb being offered in holy sacrifice gripped the Creator's heart, since it vivified the idea of His very prophecy. And the only spectator to behold this ritualized interpretation of the Christ's sacrifice was God. It was to Him a unique, creative, and unexpected realization of His promise carved by a flesh-bound child of finite days. The typology was perfect. He took the "firstlings of his flock" (Genesis 4:3 NIV), a concept that established the lamb as the everlasting symbol of the Christ. Three instances in the Book of the Revelation (5:6, 12, and 13:8) was Jesus Christ pictured as a "Lamb, looking as if it had been slain" (NIV). In John 1:29 and 36, John the Baptist called Him "the Lamb of God." At that point, Abel was able to accomplish for the first time since the expulsion from Eden what Adam, Eve, and Cain had endeavored: to capture the heart of God. It was the beginning of the blood sacrifice, adopted much later into the Mosaic worship pattern for sin offering. It was also the beginning of Cain's spiritual downfall.

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As far as Cain was concerned, touching the heart of God was his privilege as firstborn, after all, being such not only entitled him to grip the torch of worship leadership after his father but also to raise it to even further heights. By the younger's sacrifice, however, that dream was apparently washed away from "rightful" hands to one so unsuspectingly least. There was a new form of worship born into the Adamic house, approved by God, and Cain had nothing to do with it.

Did Cain feel his authority and privilege slipping from him to his young brother? He will continue to be firstborn, yes; but in the ensuing event, only as one in the order of birth. The substance of Cain's life-long envy, as felt at the very moment he watched God savour the bloody sacrifice, will be that his birthright will be transferred to Abel. For this not to happen there must be no Abel to receive this blessing. It was a plan Cain thoroughly laid out, totally drenched with the spirit of bitterness.

Significance of the Brothers’ Conflict:

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The Old Testament is no stranger to sibling rivalry gone lethal, that of Cain and Abel merely being one of them. We are all so familiar with the story of Joseph in Genesis who was hated by his brothers (Genesis 37:6) because of a vision for his life shown to him by God. Some commentators criticize Joseph for impulsively verbally spilling his secret to antagonists. Yet down does one expect of a seventeen-year-old boy (verse 2), the least in a family of over a dozen brothers, who was given a vision from the God loved and feared by all? In this story, the spectre of death did hover over young Joseph’s life. In verse 18, his brothers “plotted to kill him.” In the verse that follows, it was almost agreed by the seething brothers that this young and harmless “dreamer” be killed and thrown into a cistern. Fortunately for Joseph, the plan took on a different course: Reuben, the firstborn, discouraged any bloodshed; dropping the boy into the cistern alive, however, was concurred.

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Before the story of Joseph, his father Jacob also had a life-and-death situation with his brother Esau, also involving the destiny of a birthright. The futures of Jacob and Esau had been discernible from their time in their mother Rebekah’s womb. In Genesis 25:32, it says that “the babies jostled each other within her.” Distressed, Isaac inquired of the LORD in behalf of his wife as to the significance of this turmoil.

“The LORD said to her, ‘Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you will be separated; one people will be stronger than the other, and the older will serve the younger’” (verse 23).

How this was accomplished almost destroyed the family. Esau became his father Isaac’s favorite. It is suggested that Esau became a hunter, “a man of the open country” (verse 27), a sportsman. With an image that could be arrayed with the likes on an Orion, he was physically the stuff that a hero was made of. Adorned with a six-gun and a lasso, he would look no different from the cowboy of western legend. He was the best candidate to establish a “stronger people.” Probably every time he came home, he had a gift of wild game for his daddy, who had a taste for it (verse 28). He was everything his father was not, and therefore became the latter’s favorite.

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Jacob, the twin, on the other hand was everything his brother was not. He was smooth of skin while his brother was hairy (27:11). He loved to cook (26:29). He was “quiet…staying among the tents” (verse 27).

The story of the brothers’ fate is so rich with significance that many of us have given up exploring what has yet been unravelled. And among these is the typology drawn of the relationship between the Christian church and Judaism.

Throughout the Bible, a curious trend sweeps its stories, and is eventually explained by Jesus Christ to be a principle to God's chosen nation and the church: the first will be last, and the last will be first. And it begins with Cain and Abel. Did the brother's offerings reflect the death of the old form of worship, embodied by Cain, to give way to the new, as typified by Abel? In most instances, we cling to the more obvious lesson of the fallen brothers: carnality versus spirituality. Never have we seen the principle of a worship cycle's rise, ebb, and rebirth depicted by Cain and Abel. What is more chilling is that Cain's murderous reaction to the new trend pictures, in fact, a disposition that resides in the heart of any God-worshiper. It lies dormant and hidden until the opportune time, when God's attention is drawn to "another favorite."

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Evangelical Bible scholars speak of the periods and stages of church revivals in history as "moves of God." And in every "move of God," there has been displayed a hostile welcome by the very body that birthed it. Christianity, for instance, faced several attacks by its mother, Judaism, until achieving independence by enrooting its membership in Europe's gentile population. At this time, St. Paul, in his epistles, vehemently taught and instructed various churches to reject the doctrine of certain "Judaisers": infiltrators and "false brothers" (Galatians 2:4 New International Version) who came to spy on and convince the Christians in fellowship regarding the importance of the circumcision rite in order to ensure spiritual salvation. In essence, what the Judaisers wanted was for Christian’s gentile members to adopt Jewish religious customs, beginning with the vital rite of circumcision: the first Jewish rite established by Abraham. This was one of the three decisions made by the Apostle Paul to distance Christianity from Judaism.

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Since its inception, it seemed in the least that Christianity had always longed for the acceptance of Judaism, as a child yearning for its mother's smile and embrace. Almost none, however, was afforded the new spin-off faith. What it received instead was the death of its greatest teacher and unrelenting persecution. In its defense, survival, nourishment, and right to growth, Christianity's greatest and most unexpected convert, St. Paul, decided on three major factors that spelled independence from Judaism's standard: extending its membership to the pagans, or "Gentiles"; the abandoning of the customary Jewish dietary laws and the indispensable rite of circumcision; and the replacement of the Torah for Jesus Christ as the most vital link between man and the Father.

What If Abel Survived?

At this point, we cannot resist supposing what would have been if Abel survived at all. Would have he retaliated? Again, the Bible presents instances of warring kin where the chosen of God neither dies nor raises a finger against the aggressor.

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One is seen in Genesis 28:2–3 where an aged Isaac charges Jacob to flee to Padam Aram to escape the murderous wrath of his brother Esau. Another is in the First Book of Samuel where David, newly anointed to be the second king, is relentlessly pursued all over the Palestinian by a bloodthirsty and incumbent King Saul. David could have waged a counterattack against the King but chooses to flee believing that Saul was “the LORD’s anointed” (I Samuel 24:6 New International Version). Twice, David resists the opportunity of slaying the King, once in a cave where the latter to relieve himself (I Samuel 24:3) and another at the King’s very camp (I Samuel 26:7). It is amazing that these two instances had been prearranged by God, as expressed by David in 24:10 and by the Bible itself in 26:12, wherein it says that it was the LORD that had put Saul and his men “into a deep sleep,” so David and Abishai could sneak into the camp unnoticed and steal away the spear and water jug near Saul’s head.

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Therefore, instead of standing his ground in defense, David opts to seek asylum among Israel’s archenemy, the Philistines (I Samuel 27:1–28:2). And as if David’s running days were not over, in II Samuel 15:14, he—already crowned the King of Israel, the champion of many battles—decides to flee Jerusalem instead of suppressing the coup d’état launched by his son Absalom. This usurping son and King Saul met the same gory fate, but not by David’s hands or through any of his clandestine directive. Absalom was killed by David’s commander Joab because of a swollen personal grudge, and Saul in a war against the Philistines, where twice he attempted suicide and finally orders a complying armor-bearer to kill him.

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In the New Testament, Jesus declined in a number of instances to prove his Godhood, from His temptation in the desert to His death on the cross. St. Paul enumerated some life-threatening sufferings he faced from his enemies: “From the Jews five times I received forty stripes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods; once I was stoned; in journeys often …in perils of robbers, in perils of my own countrymen, in perils of the Gentiles, in perils among false brethren” (II Corinthians 11:24–26 New King James Version). Fighting back was never in their list of options.

Only a few people in the world know what it's like to be at the ugliest end of persecution. Among them are the Christians. And the Jews.

Finally, in the driving the examples closer to home, the Jewish people also chose to run—worse, to run and hide—first from their homeland in Palestine, then from almost every country they have sought refuge in. In the last two thousand years until May 14, 1948, a Friday at 4:00 P.M., the Jewish people had been adopted and then spewed from Western to Eastern Europe, then back to the West where they ran into the holocaust. The amazing thing was that they never fought back. Throughout two thousand years after the Roman siege of Masada, the Jewish diaspora was characterized with peaceful co-existence in an alien land and compliance to its laws, including edicts of banishment. Instead of putting up a fight, a Jewish enclave would almost immediately pack up and leave in choosing the best possible alternative to promote peace. Yet even before the Romans, the Jewish captive life under the Egyptians, Romans, Babylonians, and Persians prioritized peaceful co-existence and cooperation without being assimilated to the majority’s culture and gene pool.

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Being a typology of the Christ, Abel would not have retaliated at all. Rather, it must have been he who became “a restless wanderer on the earth” (Genesis 4:14 New International Version), and not Cain. Abel would have been the one to found the first city mentioned in the Bible, and it certainly would not have been named Nod. And, again, being a typology of the Christ, there must have been no Cainite culture replacing the God-oriented Adamic. Instead, the latter would have been reinforced and taken into new heights of glory than being later debased by Cain’s line. Abel’s calling would have been sooner fulfilled in that he becomes the new generation priest of God to lead the world into a renewed and improved worship of the One True Creator.

But what of the Cainite culture? Though we may be primarily geared to believe that it would have gone better for the world without this decadent generation taking over the aging dominant Adamic culture, the suggestions given by our alternate scenario unfortunately bring something no less foreboding. The continued existence of Cain might have meant a successful turnover of leadership from his father, and this fault might have dealt an ignominious blow to Adam’s righteous house in the course of time. Again, this view can be justified by the example of King Solomon.

Who would have thought that the wisest and most-loved King in Israel was able to develop adversaries? I Kings 11:14 is clear that it was “the LORD” who “raised up an adversary against Solomon” by the name of Hadad the Edomite; then Rezon the son of Eliadah in verse23; and Jeroboam, whose story is told throughout verses 26 to 40. With Jeroboam, not only did God raise him up, but through a prophet he was told: “Behold, I will tear the kingdom out of the hand of Solomon and will give the ten tribes to you” (verse 31).

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Being a leader of a society and of a culture, Adam was in effect a king, Cain a prince. And should have Adam successfully bestowed his authority to Cain, God would have surely disapproved and most certainly did something about it, during the course of Cain’s reign if not before the actual bestowal. Yet there may have been a twist to this: what if Cain truly repented of his act and searched for Abel for forgiveness?

Such a situation will truly warrant forgiveness, knowing the character of the God they served, being of everlasting mercy (Psalm 100:5). Being the king of the Adamics, however, remains a different matter. Let us remember that, back during the momentous sacrifice, God had made the decision in favor of Abel.

This final matter on forgiveness is a basic matter fondly pondered by every believer of the Bible: what if he actually asked for forgiveness? It is a noble thought, credit given. But did Cain truly ask for forgiveness?

"Then the LORD said to Cain, ‘Where is your brother Abel?’ ‘I don’t know,’ he replied. ‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’” (Genesis 4:9 New International Version)

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The Authority of God: To Save Lives

2011-11-02T19:59:00.000-07:00

The Biblical prophet-writer Zechariah and Jesus Himself expressed this principle to warn of the threat of a society's disintegration should its leader disappear or lose his competence:

"Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered, and I will turn my hand against the little ones" (Zechariah 13:7); and in predicting Peter's denial on the night hours before it occurred, "“This very night you will all fall away on account of me, for it is written: ‘I will strike the shepherd and the sheep of the flock will be scattered’" (Matthew 26:31).

According to Romans 13:1, “there is no authority except that which God has established.” Man is born with an inclination to leadership as naturally as his need for food, sex, and shelter. And because this is a basic need, God provides for it. As man survives through the challenges of his environment and his imitations, he openly leaves behind a trail for others to follow. He has in effect become a leader. And because he believes that the opportunities that had brought him to a far stage of his survival cannot be explained without the context of the Divine—that life is a gift of favor from God—he then believes that his existence at that point has been elevated into leadership by the same Giver of life. Leadership, therefore, is a device of God that ensures the survival of a people and their graduation into the greater opportunities above basic subsistence. Joseph, the son of the Hebrew patriarch Jacob, applied this principle when he revealed himself to his unsuspecting brothers:

“And now do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here because it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you. For two years now there has been famine in the land, and for the next five years there will not be plowing and reaping. But God sent me ahead of you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance” (Genesis 45:5-7).

Joseph first survived being thrown into a pit, then his Egyptian slavery. With his life, he defended his integrity in the face of temptation and never did he give an inch to compromise his reputation as one trusted of Potiphar (Genesis 39:4), even when it meant death. Fortunately, it must have been a process that Potiphar was compelled to comply with and Joseph landed in prison alive (verse 20) than being chopped into bits in a crime of passion! Through all the twists and turns of Joseph’s life, prison was the very critical for it was here where he would get his renown as one who interprets dreams, the key that would lead him from the prison dark to the heights of Egyptian political power. One day, the Egyptian pharaoh had a dream that distressed him greatly. His cupbearer, who was a former convict in the king’s prison, recounted to the king how his freedom was foretold by a Hebrew inmate through the interpretation of a dream (41:9-13). The great monarch wasted no time in summoning this foreign dream-master, heeding him, and placing him in charge of all Egypt regarding the matter of surviving the predicted famine.

The chain of survival in Joseph’s life headed towards leadership that saved many people, including his family, “by a great deliverance” (34:7). In the forty-seventh chapter of Genesis, we see how leadership serves survival as the people of the Nile and the Canaanite region turn to Joseph as the famine grew more intense. And as it did, the human will to live gets expressed through devotion to leadership. In the fourteenth and fifteenth verses, the people bought Egyptian grain until all their money ran out. In the sixteenth, they offered their livestock for food. In the year that followed, conditions remained harsh, and household subsistence deteriorated. The people offered their land for seed to plant and in this respect, gave their lives into the Pharaoh’s service (verse 21). On top of this, it can be seen that it was out of the people’s willingness and pleasure to offer themselves into the Pharaoh’s bondage (47:25):

“’You have saved our lives,’ they said, ‘May we find favor in the eyes of our lord; we will be in bondage to Pharaoh.’”

And who would not find great pleasure in offering themselves in the service of Egypt at that time? Joseph, in his great wisdom, had made an outstanding representation of the Egyptian crown during his years of service. Joseph’s God-given understanding not only possessed interpreting dreams, but a systematic insight to assess and implement measures to insulate the imperial economy from an impending calamity. This Hebrew acumen that impressed the pharaoh was displayed when Joseph offered his unsolicited recommendation to "…look for a discerning and wise man and put him in charge of the land of Egypt. Let Pharaoh appoint commissioners over the land to take a fifth of the harvest of Egypt during the seven years of abundance. They should collect all the food of these good years that are coming and store up the grain under the authority of Pharaoh, to be kept in the cities for food. This food should be held in reserve for the country, to be used during the seven years of famine that will come upon Egypt, so that they country may not be ruined by the famine” (41:33-36).

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The pharaoh did not need a committee to plan for the coming famine; as far as he was concerned, before him stood a Hebrew who had virtually volunteered himself by presenting a scheme that could save his kingdom. During the seven years of Egyptian prosperity, Joseph efficiently managed the stockpiling of food in preparation of the coming disaster. Had the pharaoh given this task to an all-Egyptian team, the entire country would have been subject under an austerity plan that could have famished a part of the Egyptian household even during a rich seven-year harvest period. As our Bible passage above shows, Joseph instead adopted a “one-fifth policy” in that a carefully measured fifth—not half, not even a third—of Egypt’s harvest during the coming seven years would go to storage for consumption in the time of famine. This allowed the entire empire a wide breadth of reserve for the people to celebrate with over the abundance of each of the seven years’ harvest. With the system that he maintained, he could have already been the most popular person in the kingdom from the pre-famine years; and his renown made the pharaoh look good. Later on, he would apply his “one-fifth policy” on the crop harvest of the empire during the famine period to further replenish the calamity stock that by then had continued to flood the Egyptian depots.

During the famine, it may appear that Joseph opportunistically devoured the peoples’ belongings and later their souls as they groaned and groveled at his feet for food. The forty-seventh chapter of Genesis attests that the entire region of Egypt and Canaan wasted under the brutal famine. Lives perished—plant, animal, human. And as much as Joseph wanted to provide food to everyone who came begging at the Egyptian gates, he had a responsibility to preserve his stock above dwindling. Selling grain was therefore the most effective measure to keep survival levels afloat. With the money that they profited out of the grain sales (47:14-15), Egypt boosted food import from trade partners. When money was all used up, the people traded their livestock, which was the most logical emergency commodity to traffic because animals die needlessly during a famine and it took the God-given and compassionate genius of Joseph take these live items and redistribute them back to the people as food. The last item to be offered was the peoples’ lands, and with it, their lives. Again, it was a wise trade that benefitted both the people and the Egyptian nation. Joseph held all the grain and seed; the people the manpower and the element of earth to nurture seed into crop. Why not indeed form a partnership by keeping the people alive from starvation while they till the land they have offered in exchange and apportion a fifth of every harvest to the Egyptian government? It was a policy that remained in effect several hundred years after Joseph had passed away (47:26), a remembrance and a gift left behind by the One True God as gratitude to a great nation that opened its leadership to His intervention to “save lives.”

The Humiliation of King Saul

2011-10-11T20:38:00.000-07:00

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Almost everyone we know will agree that King Saul was not entirely bad. He started out good, an obedient yet timid young man chosen by God to lead His people. He was blessed with the Spirit of God in such a way that he was immersed in power to be a victorious king. It was then a phenomenon strikingly similar to today’s baptism of the Holy Spirit. Saul accomplished for God victories that delivered the Israelites from those who plundered them and violated their borders in the past (1 Samuel 14:47 to 48). He became the people’s champion they dreamt of. His “impressive" look (1 Samuel 9:2) made him look the part that inspired hope in his people some time before he began to actually play the part. But the moment he disobeyed, the entire part of hero and king was taken away from him.

"He who is the glory of Israel does not lie or change his mind; for he is not a man, that he should change his mind” (1 Samuel 15:29).

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One important detail that Saul might have forgotten was that the Lord would still maintain to call the Israelites His people. He had no plans abdicating His being Lord and leave His precious possession in the hands of flesh and blood, these hands of flesh and blood, as prophesied by the Prophet Samuel, would subdue His people instead of serve them (1 Samuel 8:11-18). Israel would still belong to God; He would still be the Lord whose approval would install the people’s king. The king would serve as the human political intermediary to consolidate all the tribes of Israel. Through Saul, this was accomplished in 1 Samuel 11:7 to 9 where “the terror of the Lord fell on the people, and they turned out as one man” (verse 7), three hundred thousand men from Israel and thirty thousand from Judah (verse 8).

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Because of His love for the Israelites, God’s plan for them had been nothing less than a Theocracy. God allowed the Hebrews to roam the Near Eastern region in their early days, sharing the shelter of lands of people with whom they have formed alliances of mutual protection—until the last one, Egypt, threw its friendship out its royal window and entrenched the Hebrews into four hundred and thirty years of slavery—to show the Hebrews the want of the world, the desire and fear of the people that struggle to survive. Like them the Hebrews became survivors and learned about how they coped through the leadership of a being like them—of flesh and blood, the best species that their race had to offer, a hero who had carried their ideals through the most trying challenges of life and proved that the ideals were right—the king. The Hebrews came to understand the concept of the king, the best things about it and its shortcomings. At this ended the lesson of having a king who was not God, the Lord. Indeed, it had been a learning guided by God with a promise to give:

“The whole land of Canaan, where you are now an alien, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you; and I will be their God” (Genesis 17:8).

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And in that closing phrase God was, in effect, telling Abraham that his children will never need a king, for “I will be their God.” If a pagan nation had to rely on a king whose flesh and blood weakens, just like anybody else, without food, water, and rest, and expires at a time of life, Abraham’s descendants have a King far unlike any man, a Keeper who “will neither slumber nor sleep” (Psalm 121:4) to watch over each life precious in His sight:

“He will not let your foot slip—he who watches over you will not slumber, indeed, he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord watches over you—the Lord is your shade at your right hand; the sun will not harm you by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord will keep you from all harm—he will watch over your life; the Lord will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore” (verses 3-8).

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In the time of Moses, God offered the Israelites a unique proposal to be their King (Numbers 23:21; Deuteronomy 33:5). He offered them the invincibility that the pagans could only dream of, with full demonstration. From the time of the plagues in Egypt, God saw to it that Goshen, the region where the Hebrews inhabited was safe (Exodus 8:22, Exodus 9:26). When the king of Egypt, with a temper as volatile as nitroglycerine, launched out full force against a defenseless throng of Israelites who just left his gates, “the angel of God, who had been traveling in front of Israel’s army, withdrew and went behind them…coming between the armies of Egypt and Israel” (Exodus 14:19 to 20). The monumental parting of the Red Sea alone was enough to drop every jaw of any man, far and wide, who hears of the miracle. The phenomenon spurred the psalmist out of his seat to celebrate:

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“No king is saved by the size of his army; no warrior escapes by his great strength. A horse is a vain hope for deliverance; despite all its great strength it cannot save. But the eyes of the Lord are on those who fear him, on those whose hope is in his unfailing love, to deliver them from death and keep them alive in famine” (Psalm 33:16 to 19).

The promise and the constant reminder to fulfill bringing the Israelites to a land flowing with milk and honey, to make them great, had the absence of a catch. He took a people He called His, brought them “out into a spacious place” and rescued them simply—very simply—because He "delighted in [them]” (Psalm 18:19). All God wanted in return was that His people seek Him (Psalm 14:2; 53:2; 69:32). This is where the betrayal begins, for in the lavishness of God’s grace and the fulfillment of His end of the bargain, His people channeled the devotion that they pledged to offer Him and gave it to the “various gods of the peoples around them…and served Baal and the Ashtoreths” (Judges 2:12,13).

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Why does the word betrayal seem to bear more weight than unfaithfulness when in reality they are one and the same? With unfaithfulness we get the impression of a couple bound by a verbal promise to have and to hold, to love and cherish each other for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, till death do they part; with betrayal, however, we dig up the likes of all-time uglies Judas Iscariot and King Saul. What about Adam, who was made by the hand of God then given authority to rule over all the earth but go on and disobey God (there’s another synonym: disobedience)? Shouldn’t he be in the list too? He is. God created Adam perfect; He breathed the Spirit into his nostrils to give life to a lifeless sculpted clay and immediately he became a living soul (Genesis 2:7). Because God saw His image in Adam, He delighted in this “living soul” and told him to take dominion over all of creation.

God created man in His own image, in His own likeness, by His Holy Spirit. Though it was through His Spirit that He accomplished all creation (Genesis 1:2), it was only into man whom He breathed in His Spirit (2:7). It was a creative process unique from the rest of creation, for which other than Adam did God form from the dust of the ground and breathe into its nostrils the breath of life? In the spiritual realm, such was the process used by God to transform Saul for the kingship:

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“The Spirit of the Lord will come upon you in power, and you will prophesy with them; and you will be changed into a different person” (1 Samuel 10:6).

The change in Saul was inconspicuous at first. His uncle noticed nothing special about him after the Spirit came upon him as foretold by the Prophet, though the relative would have strained to study some suspected change in Saul if the latter told him what the Prophet had said about the kingship (1 Samuel 10:16). In the twenty-seventh verse, there were those “troublemakers” who “despised” Saul and “gave him no gifts” while all Israel hailed him their new king. Nevertheless, the transformation of Saul began from the very time he “turned to leave Samuel” (verse 9), even before the Spirit of God descended upon him in power in the presence of the prophets (verses 5 and 10) to perfect the change.

But as we have seen further in the story of Saul, not even the Spirit of God could keep this many away from the will to regress into spiritual corruption. The erosion of Saul’s devotion to God instantaneously took his and his posterity’s anointing away as king.

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“’You acted foolishly,’ Samuel said. ‘You have not kept the command the Lord gave you; if you had, he would have established your kingdom over Israel for all time. But now your kingdom will not endure; the Lord has sought out a man after his own heart and appointed leader of his people, because you have not kept the Lord’s command’” (1 Samuel 13:13-14).

Saul’s disobedience on Gilgal foreshadowed his greater backsliding years later when he would be sent to deal with the Amalekites (1 Samuel 15). Gilgal proved to be a costly forewarning that revealed to Saul a vulnerability of his spiritual life he was predisposed to succumbing to; and it was his responsibility to discipline himself in the obedience to the One who had anointed him into kingship. Just like Jesus who had to subdue the weakness of the human flesh, Saul had to deal with the fear that twisted his senses. And with the power of the Spirit of God who right after his baptism told him to do whatever his hand found to do, Saul was more than equipped to execute God’s righteousness on earth, and in his life, for God was with him (1 Samuel 10:7). Similarly, Matthew 4:1 says that Jesus plunged into the wilderness in the power of the Holy Spirit and in this power humiliated His humiliator.

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The name Satan comes from the primary Hebrew root sâtan which means “to attack or accuse.” In Revelation 12:10, the Apostle John noted the voice coming out of heaven calling this spirit “the accuser of our brethren, who accuses them before our God day and night.” And the chief objective why an accusation is hurled is to humiliate. In the wilderness, however, Satan’s quest to humiliate the Faultless One backfired and got blown out of Jesus’ presence in a windstorm of His righteousness.

But at the end of the challenge, Luke 4:13 explains that the devil left Jesus “until an opportune time.” Jesus’ righteousness may have blown Satan out of the water that time, but the humiliator had plans of returning. It was the same with Saul. It was not enough for the devil that Saul’s dynasty would begin and end in his reign. It was not enough for the devil to rob the posterity of Israel’s first king of the opportunity to be “established…over Israel for all time” (1 Samuel 13:13). If the future held the end for Israel’s first king, then the humiliator would make sure this mighty man of God would live out the rest of his days suffering the humiliating consequence of his disobedience.

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It is flatly a misnomer that this aged evil should be called the humiliator in that he himself had faced great frustration in his main objective to dishonor God. He failed in his goal to take over the throne of heaven with the Lake of Fire waiting for him in the end for him to spend the rest of his eternal judgment (Revelation 20:10).

But it was not enough for the humiliator to allow the fallen king to live out the rest of his days. In John 10:10 Jesus laid out the calling Satan took on to accomplish the humiliation of God and His believers: “steal, kill, and destroy.” Satan had robbed Saul of any chance for any of his descendants to assume power over the throne; he had stolen the right to be heard, answered, and be assisted by God (1 Samuel 28:6). He had succeeded in destroying Saul’s reputation as the firstborn of all the Israelite kings. In the midst of all the elders of Israel’s tribes, his right to be king was torn from him the very day he disobeyed God’s mandate (15:28). Satan destroyed Saul’s sanity and wiped out all logical, emotional, and moral sense to live a normal life, let alone perform his duties as king.

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The story in 1 Samuel 16:14 to 23 shows that the haunting crippled Saul mentally drawing the sympathy and unsolicited advice of his attendants which providentially opened the door for the future king David to behold the royalty he would later assume.

The fear he had succumbed to early in his career upon witnessing the great Philistine army at Micmash had never left him. When his men panicked at the sight of the Philistines in Micmash, so did he (13:11 to 12); when his men felt dismayed and terrified at Goliath’s constant taunting, so did Saul melt away in his tent for forty days (17:11,16). And when he caught the sight of the Philistine army gathered at Shunem, 28:5 says that “he was afraid; terror filled his heart.” Fear, however, was not the only devise the devil used to break Saul. In 1 Samuel 18:8, we find another controlling emotion that was born out of Saul’s greed, ambition, and paranoia: “Saul was very angry.”

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As the Israelite women celebrated Israelite victory in open singing, the refrain that went, “Saul has slain his thousands, and David his tens of thousands” galled Saul (verses 7 and 8), prompting him to keep “a jealous eye on David” (verse 9). He entertained the thought in his heart of “what more can [David] get but the kingdom” (verse 8). At this, the gate of his heart flung all the wider to welcome “an evil spirit... [that] came forcefully” upon him (verse 10), compelling him to take the spear in his hand and attempt twice to pin David to the wall (verses 10 to 11). It would not stop there. This blind rage would take him across the Israelite landscape and relentlessly chase a victim who refused to fight back and choose to seek refuge in the company of an archenemy than cast a malicious eye upon the “Lord’s anointed” (24:6,10; 26:9,11,16,23; 2 Samuel 1:14,16). It would almost get Saul killed twice on opportunities that first had been exposed by his own lapses in tactical security and later by Divine intervention, when the Lord put Saul’s entire camp into a deep sleep (1 Samuel 26:12). Through this blind rage, Saul would attempt to kill his son Jonathan in an expression of the revulsion he had for David (20:33). And through this unremitting hatred he would resort to the murder of an entire town of priests—an act that no normal, God-fearing Israelite would even think of doing (22:17) on suspicion that they had agreed to conspire against him and choose to side on David (22:13 and 17).

It was no doubt Satan had a sadistically swell time detonating Saul’s unstable mood swings between the heights of horror and fury. But nothing would give the devil his most crucial thrill than killing the Lord’s anointed. And in planning Saul’s death, he made sure the basic element of humiliation would be executed in the sight of all his subjects in methodical cruelty.

Pinned on the wall. What Saul tried to do to David and his very son Jonathan finally happened to him.

The death of Saul did not come by a simple shot of an arrow or gash of a sword or goring of a spear. It was not as how King Ahab and his son Joram had died by a single arrow cleanly fired between the sections of their armor (1 Kings 22:34, 35; 2 Kings 9:24). The thirty-first chapter of 1 Samuel recounts that he called for death by commanding his armor bearer to strike him down for fear of Philistines humiliation (verse 4). In horror the armor bearer refused and instead stood by and watched Saul take matters into his own hands by driving the sword into himself. For a while Saul lay on the ground as if dead, probably unconscious, which to the armor-bearer was suicide consummated, so he does the same (verse 5). But the armor-bearer assumed wrong. Something happened between the fifth and the sixth verse, which was told in 2 Samuel 1:6 to 10. An Amalekite young man, who happened to be on the site where Saul lay, reported that the king survived his miserable attempt to take his own life.

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“’Then he said to me, ‘Stand over me and kill me! I am in the throes of death, but I’m still alive’’” (verse 9).

Death did not come easy for Saul and undoubtedly the devil delighted in the pain that baptized him. Then he leads an Amalekite into the king’s convenient service to finish where his attempt had failed. In the tenth verse, the Amalekite confessed:

“’So I stood over him and killed him, because I knew that after he had fallen he could not survive.’”

At a time when the feared Philistines were about to overrun the Israelite camp, the Amalekite had the luxury to be rational and take time to make a precise “objective” notes about the king’s mortal wounds: “…because I knew that after he had fallen he could not survive.” Wow. Observe, on the other hand, how the armor-bearer reacted to the king’s charge: “…the armor-bearer was terrified” (verse 4). It was an aversion that more or less overtook Saul’s soldiers in I Samuel 22:17 when they were told to execute the priests of Nob. The Amalekite, however, held no fear or respect for anything Israelite in the same was as the Edomite Doeg would hold any reverence for the priests of Nob as he singlehandedly put the entire town to the sword (22:18 to 19). The very race God ordered Saul to obliterate had instead gained the upper hand to slay their slayer.

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Saul did not survive the hand of the Amalekite. With Amalekite hands, the royal Israelite crown and arm band were taken and carried to the next king staying in Ziklag (2 Samuel 1:1). It was a good thing, though, that this Amalekite had the sense to take these relics away than to be found and plundered by the Philistines who returned to the battlefield the next day (1 Samuel 31:8). As God had promised, the kingship through the symbol of the crown was safely and successfully handed over to David, the man after God’s own heart (1 Samuel 13:14). Yet Satan was not done humiliating Saul. It probably mattered not for the Philistines that the crown was found, though that would have been such a great prize if ever the Amalekite had not taken it away from Saul’s corpse. What they did instead was desecrate the body of this archenemy, this Israelite king who surprisingly organized and solidified a first ever Israelite standing army that withstood foreign invasions on every side. For forty years, Saul was a bitter rival to the Philistines (1 Samuel 14:52) and brought frustration to the Philistine plans of completely dominating the Israelites. At the end of four decades, however, Saul and his three sons finally fell dead on Mount Gilboa; and in a mad frenzy, the Philistines “cut off his head and stripped off his armor” (1 Samuel 31:9). Through messengers they broadcasted the downfall of the Israelite king “throughout the land of the Philistines to proclaim the news in the temple of their idols and among their people” (Ibid.). It was a triumph of their nation, culture, and aspirations. In the tenth verse, it says that the Philistines put Saul’s armor on display in the temple of the Ashtoreths and did the same to his body which they fastened to the wall of the city (Ibid.)—in the same way as Satan proclaimed the triumph of his power over the Son of Man by bleaching His body on public humiliation as He hung of the cross till He died. But there were those who genuinely loved Saul, who never forgot how God empowered him to deliver them from what could have been a massacre of Jabesh Gilead by the hand of Nahash the Ammonite (1 Samuel 11). In the final three verses of 1 Samuel, all the valiant men of Jabesh Gilead ventured through the night to Beth Shan, stole into the city to take down the dishonored body of Saul and his sons and gave them a fitting funeral (31:11-13).

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Despite the tragic disapproval of Saul as king, solid and secure unity came to the nation of Israel. Its neighboring invaders had to deal with this new nation of strong leadership that had the capability to repel their incursions. For two hundred years before Saul, the Israelite territory was the laughingstock of Near East when it came to national security. Then suddenly a valiant champion named Saul arose to fight against Israel’s enemies on every side and in his victories inflict punishment on them (1 Samuel 14:47 to 48).

Though in intermittent times the soldiers displayed defiance to his orders, the nation of Israel never rebelled against Saul, unlike what happened in the reign of Rehoboam when ten out of the twelve tribes of Israel seceded to form the Northern Kingdom of Israel. It seems that his relationship with God began as a personal matter that later manifested on how things went in the kingdom.

But the people’s clamor for a king, the very matter that sparked the rise of Saul, was in itself a disobedience, and a major one at that since it was even foretold a few hundred years before they settled in the Promised Land. Deuteronomy 17:14 to 20 was a prophecy that carried the convention to be observed when the time Israel should ask for a king. The Prophet Samuel was stung when the people confronted him with this demand. In 1 Samuel 8:10 to 18, Samuel attempted to dissuade the people from asking for a king but God was there to put in His judgment on the matter:

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“Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you that have rejected as their king, but me. As they have done from the day I brought them up out of Egypt until this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are doing to you. Now listen to them; but warn them solemnly and let them know what the king who will reign over them will do” (8:7-9).

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And the people refused to listen to Samuel (verse 19). “’No,’ they said. ‘We want a king over us. Then we will be like all the other nations, with a king to lead us and to go out before us and fight our battles’” (verses 19 to 20).

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Until Saul, Israel was under a unique form of government called a Theocracy with no one less than God as the Head of state. To us presently, it seems unthinkable that a people under the care of a King who would ensure “no misery [to be] seen” in the land (Numbers 23:21) would reject this King and opt strongly for one like them, understandably of flesh and blood who is subject under the same needs and wants as they. It was as if the people said, “No offense, God, but You’re God and we’re people; You’re up there and we’re down here, and we’ve got some things that you won’t understand.” If it was needs they were talking about, this King made sure that His subjects would not burn in the hostile wilderness environment by providing a pillar of cloud during the day, which by night, to keep them from freezing in the nocturnal temperature, turned into a warming pillar of fire. And if it was wants, this King rained down “bread from heaven” (Exodus 16:4), “angels’ food” as described in Psalm 78:25, at the grumbling of the Israelite community:

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“If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death” (verse 3).

Throughout the desert wandering of the Israelite nation, it was a daily routine for the people to gather this substance at a measure that would be enough for a day’s consumption (verse 4). The thirty-first verse described it as “white like coriander seed and tasted like wafers made with honey,” appearing like “thin flakes of frost” (verse 14) introduced by a layer of dew on the ground. The people called it “manna,” which meant, “What is it?” If God were to answer that He could have said, “It’s my answer to all the ‘pots of meat and…all the food [you] wanted’ in Egypt!” For the “meat” part, He sent flocks and flocks of quail descending into the Israelite camp in the evening (verse 13). So: the people had bread for the entire day and quail for dinner.

And for national security, there was “the angel of God” (Exodus 14:19), the same One who appeared to Moses in the burning bush (Exodus 3:2) believed to be the pre-incarnate Christ Jesus Himself, leading the way, “traveling in front of Israel’s army” (Ibid.), as God intended:

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“My angel will go ahead of you and bring you into the land of the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hivites, and Jebusites, and I will wipe them out. I will send my terror ahead of you and throw into confusion every nation you encounter. I will make all your enemies turn their backs and run” (Exodus 23:23 and 27).

During the encounter at the Red Sea, however, this angel changed tactical position and went behind the people, followed by the pillar of cloud, “coming between the armies of Egypt and Israel” so that “the cloud brought darkness to the one side and light to the other side” throughout the night “so neither [army] went near the other all night long” (Exodus 14:20). This King fought for His people but yet His people chose against Him for one like them who will “lead us and to go out before us and fight our battles” (1 Samuel 8:20).

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Yet the idea for a king blared loudly in their consciousness as if hypnotically that it was by then all that they could hear or see. Despite having a Divine hand that lovingly led them, the best government above and beyond what the world of flesh and blood could ever offer, the carnal tendency to gravitate toward the seduction of immediate perception was overwhelming. Could this be what the Apostle Paul had in mind when he wrote: “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable” (1 Corinthians 15:50)?

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From the time the Hebrews burst out of Egyptian slavery, God had by then established His kingdom. The unique and peculiar aliens held as slaves in the greatest empire in the world of that time were called more than the children of Abraham; very sparingly, in fact, did God refer to them as Hebrews. That was their Abrahamic name, their ancestral name, their nomadic name, their name while they dwelled in a land they were to inherit but not yet. Abraham came from Mesopotamia, a land east, across the Jordan and farther from the twin rivers of the Tigris and the Euphrates; by this he and his family came to be known. But when God appeared to Moses in the burning bush, it was clear that matters had gotten much more personal with “my people” (Exodus 3:7).

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For those who have seen The Ten Commandments, the line, “Let my people go,” will never be forgotten. Bear in thine mind, however, that Moses never claimed initiative for the statement. Every time he stood before the Pharaoh, he preceded the demand with “Thus saith the Lord” (Exodus 5:1 King James Version).

And if there was someone who was excited about the set up, it was God; not the people. And as we read Genesis 17:8 where God for the first time proposed the set up to the Hebrew father Abraham, we discover the reason for the excitement—note the part I have emphasized:

“The whole land of Canaan, where you are now an alien, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you; and I will be their God.”

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And then in Exodus 29:45, God once again, under no provocation, expressed the anticipation: “Then I will dwell among the Israelites”—because what kind of leader lives not among his people?—“and be their God.” It was what God got out of the proverbial deal: to be their God. If the Bible began with the Book of Exodus, we would begin the story of a lonely God atop a lonely peak, unworshiped, unappreciated, unknown, longing to make it big in the lower world of man as a magnet of their love and affection. Yet when begin reading from Genesis, God has held this dream before Him like a luxury from the time before He created the universe, the driving force why He decided to compose a masterpiece out of His own image. The problem, however, started when His masterpiece decided to spill corruption over all what was perfectly created, including on himself. And it has been this corruption that has humiliated God in His desire to be with His people and be their God. For the reason of corruption, God’s Spirit will “not always strive with man” (Genesis 6:3 King James Version) and thus cutting his days short upon the earth up to “an hundred and twenty years” (Ibid.). And because all had become corrupt, all touched by its curse dies, because it is a universal consequence that corruption will always churn out death. This is therefore why the ones God love rebelled as they were ruled by their soul corrupted by the fall of man:

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“Those who live according to the sinful (corrupted, carnal) nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit (of God) desires. The mind of sinful man is death…the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God” (Romans 8:5-8).

When all Israel came up as one man to ask for its king, the Lord called it a rebellion, a rebellion though He was prepared to face. Israel’s refusal to be dissuaded by the Prophet Samuel was an unwitting attempt to humiliate the God who did everything to deliver, provide, protect, and call an over-sized herd of slaves His people, just for them to call Him their God. But God will not be humiliated.

To the nation who asked for a king, He gave them the king they desired: “an impressive young man without equal among the Israelites—a head taller than any of the others” (1 Samuel 9:2), just the type all the other pagan nations around them would have their monarch. A fierce and ruthless champion who would “inflict punishment” (14:47), fight valiantly, defeat, and deliver the nation “from the hands of those who had plundered them” (verse 48)—again, the ideal champion the pagan world would uphold. His heart, however, was just as corrupt as those who hailed him king. No matter how vigorously God attempted to change his heart with His powerful Spirit (10:9), the hostility of his carnal nature would eventually seek to make war against the God who chose him. It was just a matter of time until the disobedience of Saul would surge to overcome his will. And when that day came, God, “before the elders of [His] people and before Israel” (15:30), rejected Saul as king:

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“As Samuel turned to leave, Saul caught hold of the edge of his robe, and it tore. Saul replied, ‘I have sinned. But please honor me before the elders of my people and before Israel; come back with me, so that I may worship the Lord your God’” (verse 27 and 30).

Saul’s disobedience was a slap on the face of God. But God is the real King. As the Prophet Samuel testified, “He who is the Glory of Israel…is not a man” (verse 29). And He who is the Glory of Israel would not take it His face getting slapped by mere flesh and blood. Before the Israel that celebrated his ascent to the throne, God had these rebukes for the king:

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“Although you were once small in your own eyes, did you not become the head of the tribes of Israel? The Lord anointed you king over Israel. And he sent you on a mission, saying, ‘Go and completely destroy those wicked people, the Amalekites; make war on them until you have wiped them out.’ Why did you not obey the Lord? Why did you pounce on the plunder and do evil in the eyes of the Lord?’” (15:17-19)

“Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voices of the Lord? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams. For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and arrogance like the evil of idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, he has rejected you as king” (verses 22-23).

“You have rejected the word of the Lord, and the Lord has rejected you as king over Israel” (verse 26).

“The Lord has torn the kingdom of Israel from you today and has given it to one of your neighbors—to one better than you. He who is the Glory of Israel does not lie or change his mind; for he is not a man, that he should change his mind” (verse 28-29).

Many of us know what it is like to get grilled in front of others; many of us know the experience of being drilled helpless in the sight of those who look up to us as their hero. Before all Israel, God presented them the king they wanted, the king who would make them “like all the other nations” (8:20), complete with the prescribed good looks and the power to survive the bloodbath of the battlefield. God showed Israel what it was like to trust in flesh and blood, in the carnal ideals held by the nations that worshiped lifeless gods of earth and wood, than a God who can split a sea into dry land, rain manna down from heaven in the morning and quail in the evening, and bring victory in a battle no matter how big the size of the enemy army. The humiliation that was meant to be God’s turned into the humiliation of Saul which also was meant to humiliate Israel’s rebellion.

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The humiliation of Saul did not stop there. He tenaciously held on to the throne and continued to command the honor of king when he should have returned the authority to Samuel who would have later passed it to David. Because of this, the outcome of his corruption unraveled before all Israel, the Philistine soldiers, and that Amalekite servant that hacked him to death in the battlefield.

God gave Israel a king (verse 22), a king who was as defiant as the people who demanded for him. As the people disobeyed, so did their king.

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The very name of the land the Israelites inherited from God meant "humiliation." The youngest son of Noah's youngest son, Ham, the curse of humiliation fell on Canaan to become "the lowest of slaves...to his brothers" (Genesis 9:25) when Ham one day jeered on his father's drunken nakedness instead of doing the appropriate custom of covering it. Noah, upon knowing later of what Ham did, slapped a curse on his rebellious son by cursing Canaan with humiliation.

The King After God: Perdition and the Law

2011-10-07T21:22:00.000-07:00

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When considering Deuteronomy 17:18-19, there seems to be one specific king the events of whose life highlighted the conditions of the passage like fulfillment of a prophecy. Around 638 B.C. an eight-year-old child by the name of Josiah rose into power in the kingdom of Judah. Now someone coming to the throne at this age can give us the impression that the kingdom is at the verge of destruction, finding no one else fit to occupy the throne, desperately holds on to its tradition and gambles its everything on this one in whom is believed to be from the line of its best king. Yet by a slim margin there is that chance that the kingdom may be on a path to glory. Knowing the God whom the Israelites worshiped, Who split the Red Sea and delivered His people from certain slaughter, slim chances were His specialty. And with an eight-year-old Josiah, son and grandson of two of the most evil monarchs Judah has ever had, God was about to turn the tide of corruption upon itself through the relentless fury of this young king.

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Unlike his grandfather King Manasseh who prostituted the Israelite culture to the paganism of its neighbors, and his father King Amon who exceeded his father’s guilt (2 Chronicles 33:23), Josiah was raised in righteousness. In 2 Chronicles 34:2, it says that, “He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord and walked in the ways of his father David, not turning aside to the right or to the left.” And by then he was only eight. At age 16, “he began to seek the God of his father David” (34:3). This became the vital four-year spiritual foundation that would fuel his mission to wage war on the paganism that was corroding the cultural integrity of Judah. At 20, his twelfth year on the throne, “he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem of high places, Asherah poles, carved idols and cast images” (Ibid.). With such violence, he “cut to pieces,” “smashed,” “broke,” “scattered” (verse 4), “burned,” “crushed…to powder” and “tore down” (verse 7) every symbol, altar, edifice, and bone of those who served as priests of the Baals and Asheras in his entire kingdom. Six years later, to complete the spiritual purification of his land, he ordered the repair of God’s Temple in Jerusalem. Apparently years of religious-cultural mutation had added a lot of changes in the Temple. The common impression of a reader reading about the Israelite kings, like Manasseh, who “did evil in the eyes of the Lord” is that when they worshiped their false gods in the Temple of God, they merely pushed in a few altars and some variously sized statues, added new draperies and probably decommissioned some menorahs and stuck them in the Temple warehouse. This is not what happened. Manasseh alone ruled a long fifty-five years (2 Chronicles 33:1) and in that period he renovated the Temple to incorporate his pagan pantheon. This required alterations in the original Temple plan to accommodate additions, probably promote and block some “positive” and “negative energies” coming in and going out of the building. You know what I mean. For a total of fifty-eight years, half a century, the Temple of God gained a new look, starkly alien from the Temple King David planned and which his son Solomon built. And it was Josiah’s self-appointed task—as far as he was spiritually concerned, that is—to restore the Temple to its original holiness.

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It could have been that Josiah's grandfather King Manasseh and father King Amon were trying to remodel the Temple of God to resemble a Mesopotamian ziggurat as during their lifetime they tried to identify themselves with their neighbors by adopting their religious culture and push the Jehovah away from Jehovic Israel.

The account is told in 2 Chronicles 34:9 to 13. One of the expressions of faith and rededication to God was the immense unanimous financial support given by the “people of Manasseh, Ephraim and the entire remnant of Israel and from all the people of Judah and Benjamin and the inhabitants of Jerusalem” (2 Chronicles 34:9). Trust was another demonstration of their approval for their king and his mission to restore the Jehovah-centered society of Israel. According to the tenth and eleventh verses of our passage, the people entrusted the money they set aside for Temple restoration “to the men appointed to supervise the work on the Lord’s temple,” who, in turn, “paid the workers who repaired and restored the temple” and those who purchased the replacement stone and the timber. The workers worked in absolute honesty and diligence over the finances and in their specified jobs (verses 12 to 13).

The degradation of the Temple could have been externally as simple as the one on the left, with the Mesopotamian genies drawn at the facade above the door, or as massive as the Assyrian model below. In any case, alterations did take place that new materials needed to be shipped in to replace the old and add what Manasseh and Amon's specifications eliminated.

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The Temple of God had been through massive alteration and corruption that new “dressed stone, and timber for joists and beams” had to be purchased to replace the ones that “the kings of Judah had allowed to fall into ruin” (verse 11). In other words, King Josiah and his team of appointees were to undertake a great extreme makeover, spiritual edition. This was the juncture when God plays the father of the parable who runs to meet his homecoming son whom he thought he had lost forever (Luke 15:20). After an unremitting ten-year campaign that spiritually and socially sterilized Israel for God, He was about to perform His operation through a string of events that led to the rediscovery of an important artifact. Hidden somewhere in a cabinet or a niche or a chamber that had been bricked or boarded up, gathering layers of dust and forgotten in the long backslidden years, “the Book of the Law of the Lord that had been given through Moses” (verse 14) finally surfaces.

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History views this episode as the most crucial point of Josiah’s campaign. There is, however, some controversy concerning how the Mosaic volumes were applied to the cultural revolution. According to 2 Chronicles 34:30, Josiah read the Law to “the men of Judah, the people of Jerusalem, the priests and Levites—all the people from the least to the greatest” and created a wave of reawakening throughout the entire nation. Israelites came from every corner of the kingdom with a compelling heart hunger for the word of God. But the word of God that Josiah read to them, according to some scholars, was actually a new version which he had revised to match the temper of his generation.

It is agreed that the Law of Moses was rediscovered at some secluded part of the Temple. Interpretations will arise, however, in the passage where the king’s secretary Shaphan “read from it in the presence of the king” (verse 18). Here, Josiah, understanding from the original manuscripts, decided to present God’s word and culture that his generation could easily understand. With the expertise of his priests and Scriptural specialists, the endeavor was blessed in the form of a book that later came to be known as the Book of Deuteronomy.

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According to experts in Scripture history, there are four major narratives of the Old Testament; two of these are called the “J” and “E” documents. The “J” document is so named because the name “Jehovah” is used in every appearance of “God.” It is the oldest of all written documents, dating back to the ninth century B.C., during the time of Jeroboam, and was penned in the southern kingdom of Judah.

With the “E” document, God is referred to as “Elohim.” It was written in the eighth century B.C., this time in the northern kingdom of Israel, about a hundred years after the “J.” It is believed that the “E” was produced to rival the “J,” which was housed in the Temple in Jerusalem.

It was these two documents that Josiah saw the need to harmonize. If the “J” called God “Jehovah” and the “E” referred to Him as “Elohim,” Josiah’s new work formulated the new concept of a “Jehovah Elohim” for “Lord God,” thus creating the “JE” document. The king’s team also added their own expert interpretation on some portions of the document which they believed would boost new generation understanding. This may explain the fact that the passage in Deuteronomy 17:18 to 20 makes an uncanny reference to Josiah’s act and fueling principle:

“When [the king] takes the throne of his kingdom, he is to write for himself on a scroll a copy of this law, taken from that of the priests, who are Levites. It is to be with him, and he is to read it all the days of his life so that he may learn to revere the Lord his God and follow carefully all the words of this law and these decrees and not consider himself better than his brothers and turn from the law to the right or to the left.”

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The late great Jewish historian Max I. Dimont noted the “good fortune” that brought the rise of Josiah in the hour of Judah’s most critical crisis [Jews, God and History, p.65]. Before he came into power at the age of eight, Judah had been immersed in fifty-seven straight years of religious apostasy which seemed to be irreversible. The spiritual and cultural amalgamation with its pagan neighbors had buried the Israelite religion deep beneath layers of defiance and corruption. King Manasseh and later his son King Amon had deliberately torn away the Jehovah from the kingdom’s culture and spliced in His place the Baals, Asherahs, “all the starry hosts” (2 Chronicles 33:5), “sorcery, divination and witchcraft” (verse 6). During this period, a generation was born knowing “neither the Lord nor what he had done for Israel” (Judges 2:10). In this new age, the god they knew wore a pointy hat holding in one hand a slender tree that ended in a spearhead, a raised club in another, and a man dangling by his hair in another. The god they knew had a female consort who held in her hand a phallic scepter, the symbol of the life that allegedly issued from her, from her breasts where flowed eternal sustenance, and every time the three-armed god goes to bed with her—and every time meant all the time.

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In 722 B.C., Judah watched in silent horror as the Assyrians descended upon Israel and carried away whatever was left of its populace. During that time, the righteous king Hezekiah ruled the southern kingdom. For twenty-nine years, Judah depended on the Lord for protection from the threat and taunts of Sennacherib. It was a time of great fear, great obedience, and great miracles, including how an angel of God armed with a sword descended into the Assyrian siege camp and killed "a hundred and eighty-five thousand" soldiers (2 Kings 19:35), forcing the loud-mouthed Sennacherib to break camp and scamper back to Nineveh (verse 36). The Bible seems to draw some humor in this in that it even notes that he "stayed there." But it was for a reason. In the same way as he drew delight in humiliating God when he tried to bleach Hezekiah and Jerusalem with his murderous intimidations, God took His turn and determined the flow of event of his life:

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"One day, while he (Sennacherib) was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisrok, his sons Adrammelek and Sharezer killed him with the sword" (verse 37).

But after Hezekiah died, his son Manasseh ruled the kingdom for fifty-five years corrupting the land with his idolatry. It could have been worse if his successor Amon was allowed to rule longer than two years; probably God saw how bleak the future was for the kingdom so He took him out.

In a generation that knew not God, a boy king arose who began to seek God in the years when teenage sexual curiosity was supposed to be consuming that stage of his youth. Instead, he thought that if the kingdom kept on going on its religious and cultural course the way it did from the days of his grandfather Manasseh, Judah would end up with the same judgment that befell the northern kingdom of Israel. And if someone like Josiah and any righteous prophet would view Judah by that time, he would doubt whether Israel was really exiled at all, or at least its spirit of uncleanness had spilled itself crazy upon the kingdom. God was gracious to David, to Jerusalem, to Judah that He provided the kingdom with a king like Josiah.

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Josiah, the boy king who changed the course of Judah and provided the a new document for the coming generation of believers would understand and life according to: The Book of Deuteronomy.

[That was fun! All those modeling and remodeling and back to the old model. Well, didn't I tell you there was gonna be more? What disappoints me at this point is this large white space beside the last pic. Hope you don't mind, though. There's more to come, and it's gonna have more King Saul in it! Excited? You know I am! So, till then, stay tuned! Hey, that's new.]

The King After God: All the King's Wives

2011-10-05T22:07:00.000-07:00

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In the seventeenth verse of Deuteronomy 17, God’s guidelines for choosing a king, firstly stipulates that the candidate “must not take many wives.” Now, we all know of one king who had failed this law, keeping a total of “seven hundred wives of royal birth and three hundred concubines” (1 Kings 11:3). King Saul was known to have had one wife, a woman named Ahinoam (1 Samuel 14:50); and a concubine named Rizpah. Back in those days, it was more or less prevalent among kings and nobles to keep at least one partner other than the common-law wife. It was not the rule and much less was it a legal stipulation for a man to have one; but because of society’s permissiveness on the matter, the Law of Moses later regulated the practice by providing certain rights to the concubine, her children, her benefactor, including a certain protocol that must be observed in obtaining a mistress (Deuteronomy 21:10-14). Regardless, however, of the toleration and management imposed by the Law over the custom, a part of the Scriptures spoke against concubinage and it was doubtless that there were those who believed, citing it as a source of trouble based on certain cases in the lives of the patriarchs. It was from this contingent that held the incompatibility of the concubinage part of culture to Christianity.

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An Example from the Life of Abraham. Abraham, for instance, kept several concubines—Genesis 25:6, and had sons by them—but none gave him great deal of complication than Sarah's Egyptian maidservant named Hagar. The first snag that this arrangement is liable to promote is between wife and mistress. Hagar was an Egyptian maidservant who was dragged into the mess spilled by Abraham and Sarah when they attempted to facilitate God’s promise of a son and heir (Genesis 15:40). Knowing the fact that their bodies were “as good as dead” (Romans 4:19), they resorted to the custom of impregnating the Sarah’s slave (Genesis 16:3). And out of that arrangement, Hagar bore Ishmael; a development that changed the attitudes of both Hagar and Sarah toward each other. The fourth verse in Genesis 16 says that Hagar began to despise her mistress. Sarah, armed with her legitimate right as wife and Hagar’s owner, coupled with an embittered soul, it was easy for her to mistreat her and send the slave running away (verse 6). But in a desert road, God meets Hagar and tells her to “go back to [her] mistress and submit to her” (verse 9), with a promise. On account of the respect God had for Abraham, He assured to greatly increase the progeny of Abraham from her body “that they will be too numerous to count” (verse 10).

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Hagar did as the Lord commanded and returned to Sarah. She gave birth to Ishmael while she stayed with her mistress (verse 16). Little more than a decade later, Sarah got pregnant and gave birth to the awaited heir, Isaac (21:1-5). At this point, Sarah compelled Abraham to divorce Hagar and disinherit Ishmael by sending her away (Genesis 21:10). The matter, according to the Scriptures, “distressed Abraham greatly” (verse 11).

An Example from the Life of Jacob. It distressed the patriarch greatly “because it concerned his son” (Ibid.). One observable problem in ancient concubinage is seen in the conflict among the offspring. In Genesis 21:8 to 10, the sight of Ishmael teasing Isaac infuriated Sarah prompting her to banish the servant child and her mother. And that ended a sibling conflict which could have grown worse in time, such as what happened among Jacob’s eleven sons when their jealousy of Joseph sent him into Egyptian bondage. The passage in Genesis 35:23 to 26 outlines Jacob’s family. In order of marriage, Leah was the first; and from this union brought Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, and Zebulun. From Leah also came Dinah, Jacob’s only daughter (30:21). Rachel, though Jacob loved her first, fell second to give him Joseph and Benjamin. By her maidservant Bilhah came Dan and Naphtali. Leah, too, offered her maidservant Zilpah and from her came Gad and Asher.

Examples from the Life of the Israelite Kings

The first three Israelite kings were not from this contingent. King Saul was known to have kept a wife and a concubine, a fact we either know little or care little about. Saul’s wife was Ahinoam (1 Samuel 14:50), from whom came Jonathan, Ish-Bosheth (who went by the names Ishvi, Esh-Baal, and possibly Abinadab, 31:2), and Malki-Shua (verse 49); and the daughters Merab and Michal, the princess whom Saul gave to David as wife at the cost of two hundred Philistine foreskins (1 Samuel 18:27). The concubine was Rizpah (2 Samuel 3:7,21:8,10,11).While the trouble that the women entangled in concubinage could churn out is well established in the consciousness of the Israelite, Saul’s disobedience had instead created for his partners the lifelong pain of losing their sons in tragic deaths that could have well been avoided from the start. We have already known how in 1 Samuel 31, Ahinoam lost her three sons in a battle against the Philistines on Mount Gilboa. Rizpah lost her two sons, Armoni and Mephibosheth (2 Samuel 21:8), to the Gibeonites who had them immolated for a mandate defied by—you guessed it—Saul.

Rizpah, Saul's Concubine, in the Middle of Saul's Transgression with the Gibeonites

The story in 2 Samuel 21:1 to 14 tells that Saul, “in his zeal of Israel and Judah” (verse 2) attempted to do what Joshua centuries before him would not: “annihilate the Gibeonites.”

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The Gibeonites, according to 2 Samuel 21:2, were an ancient race of Amorites who, in Joshua 9, extracted Israelite protection through a cunning ruse. In verses 4 to 6 and 9 to 14, they successfully deceived the Israelites into believing that they were worn and vulnerable travelers from some far distant land drawn to where the Israelites were “because of the fame of the Lord” (verse 9). Flattered it seemed by the testimony posed by the Gibeonites that Joshua and the Israelites forgot the fundamental procedure of inquiring of the Lord (verses 14 and 15) and on went the decision to establish a treaty of peace with these people , unwittingly disobeying God’s mandate never to make any covenant with them (Exodus 23:32).

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The sanctity of their survival sealed by an oath invoking the Name of the Lord demanded the lives of seven of Saul’s male descendants with their bodies left unburied and exposed “before the Lord” (verse 6). David had five sons of Saul’s daughter Merab, along with the two sons of Rizpah, delivered to the Gibeonites and immolated (2 Samuel 21:8 to 9). When the Gibeonites were done with them, Rizpah came and stood by the bodies of her two sons, spread sackcloth on a rock, and, enduring night and day and the pouring rain, scared away scavenging birds and other wild animals that tried to approach the corpses. This prompted King David to have the remains of Rizpah and Merab’s sons gathered and given a proper burial. Along with this, he claimed from the people of Jabesh Gilead the bones of Saul and Jonathan and buried them in the tomb of Saul’s father Kish in Benjamin (verses 12 to 14).

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Her name appears four times in the Bible. In 2 Samuel 3:7, her name gets dragged into a scandal cooked up by Ish-Bosheth in an attempt to derail the growing influence exerted by Abner, the king’s general and uncle, in their clan. As we already know, King Saul by this time was already unfit to rule. His obsession to murder David through the influence of intermittent demonic oppression and possession and the Prophet Samuel’s public declaration that God had rejected him as king (1 Samuel 15:23,26,28) were factors enough for many to seek other leaders in place of Saul. One of these was David. Another was Abner, at least in Ish-Bosheth’s interpretation of how Abner had been flexing his influence in Saul’s clan. It could have been that Abner had been trying to gain the clan’s support to install him as king and thereby keep the supremacy over all Israel. Ish-Bosheth’s scandalous accusation, however, may have irredeemably shattered Abner’s delicate prospects to gain the major trust of the clan, so he opts for the next best thing: a defection over to David’s side.

Saul was a normal reflection of his society as he escaped the technicality of taking “many wives” (Deuteronomy 17:17). He had one wife and one other wife, and that was it. But how many is “many”? When God transferred the anointing as king, He was risking landing it on someone who had a starkly illicit control over his raging hormones.

Jim Zuckerman/Corbis

David's Life with his Wives

As we read of David’s story, we can notice that the stages of his life were landmarked by the women he loved. Michal, King Saul’s princess, would cover David’s early rise to popularity; Abigail would be during the stage when he was eluding Saul’s murderous pursuit; Bathsheba, who would mark the zenith of David’s life as by then the undisputed king of Israel; and Abishag, a Shunammite girl given to him by his servants during the twilight years of his life to attend and take care of him (1 Kings 1:2), since by then his senility had robbed him of the ability to basically care for himself (verse 1).

The "Abigail Age of David's Life": “This part of my life is called, ‘Running.’ And I wanna thank my wife Abigail for all of the support and prayer; and, of course, God without whose blessing and guidance my head would be stuck at the edge of a royal spear right now!”

But even aside from these ladies, David was known to have married some lesser known wives like Ahinoam of Jezreel (2 Samuel 3:2), Maacah daughter of Talmai king of Geshur (verse 3), Haggith (verse 4), Abital, and Eglah (verse 5). He was also known to have kept a harem of concubines. In 2 Samuel 15:16, he was known to have left ten of them to take care of the palace when he escaped Jerusalem before his usurping son Absalom could take over the city.

"This part of my life is called, ‘Being Stupid’!” It was the day the king came to his rooftop, saw the bathing Bathsheba, and was conquered. But to what price?

The number of the partners David kept was not exactly the direct answer to our question as to how many did Deuteronomy 17:17 mean by “many wives.” After Saul’s death, David’s life changed. The ease, popularity, and prosperity facilitated the growth of his family in a way that he added more wives who bore more children, sadly, beyond his ability to discipline. As a result, the privileged royal lifestyle and the unchecked excesses of unrestraint swelled into a deposit that encrusted their God consciousness, like what led to the chain of events involving Amnon, Tamar, and Absalom (2 Samuel 13). According to the chart provided in 2 Samuel 3:2-5, Amnon, David’s “firstborn” was born of Ahinoam of Jezreel (verse 2); Tamar and Absalom were siblings from Maacah, the Geshurite princess (verse 3).

Mimmo Jodice/CORBIS

One of the great scandals of David’s life began with his desire for Bathsheba. The lust of a night as he watched the woman bathing turned into fornication, which resulted into her getting pregnant. In his attempt to cover up his blunder, he recalled Bathsheba’s husband Uriah from the battlefield and tried to get him to sleep with her, which even in his most inebriated state would not violate the code of a soldier in a time of battle, which ignites the frustration of the king, which leads him to pen a directive to his general Joab to march Uriah into the part of the battlefield where the fighting is thickest and to abandon him there. Uriah successfully hand-carried the sealed letter to Joab and with great regret, the latter obeys. The battle ended with Uriah as casualty, a victim not of war but of a carefully meditated plot to murder him.

Alinari Archives/CORBIS

It could be considered, therefore, that the “many” expressed in Deuteronomy 17:17 is the point that goes beyond a man’s ability to control his dependents and keep them from self-destructing. In the example that involved Amnon, Tamar, and Absalom, it presented David’s family self-destructing immorally.

Mimmo Jodice/CORBIS

Abishag was one described in 1 Kings 1:4 as “very beautiful,” the result of a nationwide search for “a young virgin to attend the king and take care of him,” who “can lie beside him” to keep the king warm (verse 1). The “beauty search” proved to be a great success in Abishag as she was faithful in her task and even maintained her virginity throughout the period she took care and waited on the king (verse 4). If she had ever served a master younger and other than David at another time, that master would call that point of his life, “Being Happy.”

Solomon's Polygamy and its Possible Egyptian Origin

The penchant for the lovely ladies passed on from David to his son Solomon whose fame was built, among others, on the plain fact that he loved “seven hundred wives of royal birth and three hundred concubines” (1 Kings 11:3), maintaining an unbroken violation of God’s condition in Deuteronomy 17:17. Yet if there were any value to virtue in this aspect of his life, it was the fulfillment of the second part of the passage: “…or his heart will be led astray” (Ibid.). And true enough, “his wives led him astray” (1 Kings 11:3).

Andy Sotiriou/moodboard/Corbis

In our recent article, The King After God: All the King's Horses, we have suspected that King Solomon amassed a great number of horses and chariots in emulating the Pharaoh of Egypt, whose collection was renown for its quantity and quality throughout the region. War horses and chariots, however, were not the only array he wanted in his treasure trove. The kings of Egypt were known to have loved multiple wives and concubines. Ramses II, said to be Moses' contemporary, was reported to have kept as many as fifty wives, and from them the famed Nefertari was chosen to become his queen, the chief of all his female consorts. With the record we have available today, we may well say that Solomon surpassed Ramses II in this respect, by a great measure—try lining up fifty against a thousand wives and concubines! One comparable element the Israelite king did not adopt was the Egyptian custom of marrying the immediate family member.

After Nefertari, Ramses was known to have loved their daughter Isetnofret. From this union came her successor Bintanath. After Bintanath, the Pharaoh chose another daughter he had by Nefertari, Meritamen. Her sister by the same mother, Nebettawy, took her place. Nearing the end of his life, seeming to have run out of daughters to desire after, he chose Maathorneferure who, scholars suspect, had been either another daughter or his sister.

Roger Wood/Corbis

It is called incest, and the Israelite law which the king and his people were to equally obey severely prohibited such a practice. Leviticus 20:17 called it "a disgrace" if a man marries a sister, "the daughter of either his father or his mother." The law prescribed banishment to anyone guilty of this "disgrace," as the commission of the act discriminated the offender from his God-authored culture. If there was a law that Solomon was not as desperate to violate as gaining for himself a thousand wives, it was experimenting with incest.

Alfredo Dagli Orti/The Art Archive/Corbis

But Solomon went for the foreign gals, specifically from the very nations God warned the Israelites never to intermarry with (1 Kings 11:2). And in this matter, he not only modeled after the king of Egypt but even perfected this aspect of his foreign hero.

Unlike his father David and King Saul before him, Solomon was not known for his prowess in the battlefield. But it was during his time when the kingdom of Israel experienced great peace "on all sides" (1 Kings 4:24). Countries as far as the Euphrates River to the borders of Egypt brought tribute to Solomon and were his subjects all his life.

Lebrecht Music & Arts/Corbis

Though God never sanctioned its arrangement, polygamy and polygyny were acts that had been with man from the dateless past. Solomon's tremendous numerical buildup of wives can be understood from the diplomatic relationship he established and maintained with the nations around him. One can deduce that the peace that marked his reign, described in 1 Kings 4:23–25, may have resulted from accepting wives customarily offered by the kings who negotiated for peace. The arrangement of marriage, therefore, was a significant motion to bind an alliance between parties involved, a mutual sincere reciprocation of goodwill.

The Gallery Collection/Corbis

Even as late as the Colonial history, the marriage of King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen Isabella of Castile in A.D. 1469 united their two of their Spanish kingdoms and established their government as a world power.

The Bible's First Bigamist and his Role in Advancing the Cainite Culture

That was for peace. But the role of marriage serves more than peace. In Genesis 4:19 a man by the name of Lamech expanded the influence of the house of Cain, Adam's cursed firstborn and the Bible's first murderer, by rapidly populating the vast stretches of wild lands untamed by the people of his time. How he facilitated this was through the expedience of a bigamous marriage.

Lamech was the first known bigamist in the Bible. It was his expression of the loose sexual element that marked the Cainite culture that lured the young restless men of Adam's house, the "sons of God" of Genesis 6:2. It was also the best way to promote a counter culture. In the time of Adam, it was his house that dominated the planet. The culture which he promoted and which the world almost automatically embraced was the Godly lifestyle authored by God Himself. Except by Cain, however.

Zhou Hua/Xinhua Press/Corbis

The blessings that came with a righteous life refused to apply to Cain after he murdered his brother Abel. In Genesis 4:11 to 12, his ability to tame crops was nullified by a curse that God slapped on his life. In spite of this, God continued to be gracious by allowing him to live, though wandering the face of the earth (Genesis 4:12 and 14). It did not mean that Cain gained immortal life, impervious to hunger, thirst, exhaustion or pain. He still had to contend with these but without his talent to farm the earth. He needed a new way of living, and in the ensuing verses, it becomes apparent that he did find a way, a compromise that worked around the loss of his talent. In the sixteenth verse, he lived in the land of Nod, east of Eden. The birth of his firstborn Enoch is the first evidence that the new lifestyle he adopted was working. In the seventeenth verse, he gains a following, a considerable one as he establishes the first known city in the Bible. At this point, his pattern of survival was getting noticed and gaining the respect and renown as a workable alternative to the Adamic culture, though at this point it was not seen as an alternative but as an enhancer of certain aspects of life. Four generations later, the Cainite culture explodes from being a minor global player to end the Adamic age and the Godliness it upheld.

Historical Pictures Archive/CORBIS

The greatest exponent of the Cainite culture, next to Cain, was Lamech. The passage in Genesis 4:19 says that he was married to two women: Adah and Zillah. This multiple marriage was not only responsible for enlarging the increments of population, but out of it came the three fathers of invention that changed the way people lived forever.

"Adah gave birth to Jabal; he was the father of those who live in tents and raise livestock. His brother’s name was Jubal; he was the father of all who play stringed instruments and pipes. Zillah also had a son, Tubal-Cain, who forged all kinds of tools out of bronze and iron" (Genesis 4:20-22).

Araldo de Luca/Corbis

In Psalm 127:3, it says, "Children are a heritage from the Lord, offspring a reward from him." In the next verse it explains one benefit: "Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are children born in one’s youth. Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them. They will not be put to shame when they contend with their opponents in court" (verse 4 to 5).

Without the Lord, however, to bless with a quiver full children to contend with their opponents, it seemed like Cain's house was bound nowhere but oblivion. Cain himself took only one wife. It was Lamech who conceived of the daring experiment and accomplished by the flesh what the hand of God could grant.

National Geographic Society/Corbis

The psalmist disclosed one benefit of having a large number of offspring in your family. In ancient times, a large family meant power. Children did not survive the starvation that followed a poor man's austere condition; those, however, of a lavishly wealthy family not only did but had more to give and help their neighbor. A wealth of strong male children was a family's insurance that secured its wealth in good hands.

Fine Art Photographic Library/CORBIS

Rehoboam, the First Non-Israelite King?

If David's polygamous marriage wrought shocking scandals and disasters in his life, Solomon’s wives and concubines produced an array of interesting contenders to the throne after him, including a half-Israelite, half-Ammonite forty-one-year-old by the name of Rehoboam. It was through Rehoboam that the Israelite kingdom, which kings Saul, David, and Solomon, took painstaking care in establishing all their lives, split into two with the Northern part made up of ten tribes unilaterally slipping into apostasy, and the Southern part preserved for the descendants of David to rule.

Rehoboam too took for himself wives and concubines. But unlike the complicated marriages of his immediate two predecessors, the Bible attributes no problems stemming from his eighteen wives and sixty concubines (2 Chronicles 11:21). He did not love them equally, though, for there was one whom he treated with greater favor: Absalom’s daughter Maacah, who must have been specially beautiful if she took after her father who in his time was the most flawlessly handsome man in all Israel (2 Samuel 14:25). From his union with Maacah came Abijah, a favorite he personally groomed above all his other twenty-eight sons (2 Chronicles 11:21). Out of all the disasters that occurred during his reign, Abijah proved to be Rehoboam’s greatest success.

Mimmo Jodice/Corbis

There may be, however, some discrepancy concerning the Abijah of 2 Chronicles 11:20 and 22 from the Abijah of 13:2. Although extra-Biblical references make no difference between the two, a reader trekking the abovementioned passages may readily differentiate the first Abijah being the son of “Maacah daughter of Absalom” (verse 20) from the second Maacah of 13:2, “a daughter of Uriel of Gibeah.” The dilemma here would therefore concern Abijah’s mother Maacah. Other reliable translations render the word “daughter” of 13:2 as “granddaughter” instead. The man Uriel of Gibeah may have been Maacah’s maternal grandfather. But without looking any further than 1 Kings 15:2, Maacah was identified as the “daughter of Abishalom,” "Abishalom" a variant of “Absalom,” meaning “father of peace.” Later in the tenth verse, Maacah daughter of Abishalom became grandmother to Abijah’s successor, Asa.

But while Asa turned out to be a righteous man of God, Maacah found her niche later in life as a pagan “queen mother” (verse 13) for the goddess Ashera. In accordance to the cultural reform instituted by Asa, the king “deposed his grandmother Maacah from her position as queen mother” (2 Chronicles 15:16).

The Stapleton Collection/Corbis

Abijah, the Only Righteousness from Rehoboam's Multitude of Wrong

Rehoboam first placed Abijah in a prominent position as “chief prince” (2 Chronicles 11:22). It was not a bad decision, in fact, verse 23 says that “he acted wisely.” He spread out his sons to settle various districts of Judah and Benjamin and provided for them lavishly. Among the commodities he provided were wives: “He gave them abundant provisions and took many wives for them.”

The love Rehoboam devoted to Maacah radiated to Abijah who honored that love with a towering respect for his father. In 2 Chronicles 13:7, he defended his father’s honor when he faced Rehoboam’s archenemy, Jeroboam king of Israel:

“Some worthless scoundrels gathered around him and opposed Rehoboam son of Solomon when he was young and indecisive and not strong enough to resist him.”

Patrick Escudero/Hemis/Corbis

Abijah turned out to be a God-fearing king with an impregnable faith that held God as his leader (verse 12). He came up to Jeroboam with an army of 400,000 against the latter’s 800,000, which got subdued “because (Abijah) relied on the Lord, the God of their fathers” (verse 18). In the verses that followed it is said that Abijah wrested some important towns and villages from Jeroboam’s control and that Jeroboam, after this event, never regained power again during the time of Abijah (verse 19 to 20). The king of Judah, however, “grew in strength” and acquired for himself fourteen wives and by them had twenty-two sons and sixteen daughters (verse 21). In our explanation of “many wives,” we can have some liberty in saying that Abijah’s—and Rehoboam’s—polygamy was within the limits of his ability to control. From the family line touched by Maacah, daughter of Absalom, son of David, Abijah chose Asa, whose great reforms in Judah brought peace throughout the kingdom for three decades (2 Chronicles 11:5 to 6).

[Told you there was more. And there's more!]

[And a lot more there's been! Just finished updating the article with more inserts. Enjoy!]

The King After God: All the King's Horses

2011-10-04T21:22:00.000-07:00

Sandro Vannini/Corbis

In Deuteronomy 17:16, God warned the future king against setting his heart in amassing a great number of horses for himself. Apparently, horses had been a great obsession among ancient royalty. As history will testify, the horse by this time had just been added to military science and, oh, how it revolutionized the way man made war. It was therefore easy for a king to lose sight of God as the Source of his victory and focus instead on his array of war horses and get self-deceived and call himself invincible.

Robert Harding World Imagery/Corbis

Of all the countries singled out for Israel never to establish any trade agreement in exchange for its horses, God zeroed in on Egypt. He cautioned, “The king…must not…make the people return to Egypt to get more of them (great numbers of horses), for the Lord has told you, ‘You are not to go back that way again’” (Deuteronomy 17:16). In principle, an ancient king owned everything within the limits of his realm. But while he would dismissively allow his subjects to claim property of items within and surrounding their households, only he had the right to assert ownership of the military. And the item closest to his heart was the horses of his cavalry.

National Geographic Society/Corbis

The king of Egypt owned a cavalry so celebrated of the terror it brought in the battlefield to its breathtaking beauty that captures the fancy of romantic splendor, as sung in Songs of Solomon 1:9: “I have compared thee, O my love, to a company of horses in Pharaoh’s chariots” (King James Version). Because it owned the greatest army of fighting horses in the Near East, many nations chose to ally themselves with Egypt, among which later included Israel. Around 600 B.C. the southern Israelite kingdom of Judah decided it had enough of Babylonian dominance and sent envoys to Egypt “to get horses and a large army” (Ezekiel 17:15). In other words, Judah turned to Egypt to help trounce the proud Babylonian rising tide. Centuries before this, King David made his decision to “trust in the name of our God” than to trust in “chariots and…in horses” (Psalm 20:7). In 586 B.C. the battle-tested horses of Egypt did not prevail against the lightning hooves of the Babylonian steeds, and the kingdom of Judah came to an end.

Gianni Dagli Orti/CORBIS

The best chariots and the most powerful horses in ancient Egypt belonged to the Pharaoh. The Pharaoh was a steed collector, the kind of king God told the future Israelite monarch never to become. King Saul fulfilled this principle and so did his successor David. Solomon, however, was known to have “accumulated chariots and horses” (1 Kings 10:26). The account was that “he had fourteen hundred chariots and twelve thousand horses which he kept in the chariot cities and also with him in Jerusalem.” And where did all these horses come from? Scholars are divided on whether the king imported them from Cilicia up north or from Egypt (verse 28). Solomon not only assembled a great cavalry at peacetime (for his reign was marked with peace, 1 Kings 4:24), and not only did he probably disobey the mandate never to turn to Egypt for its horses, but like Egypt Solomon entered the international chariot-making and -exporting industry and chose the Hittites and the Arameans as trade partners. This began when he approved the importation of an impressive Egyptian chariot worth (verse 29).

CORBIS

During the Second Intermediate Period of the early sixteenth century B.C., a subtly invading group of Semitic people called the Hyksos introduced into Egypt the use of the horse, along with the chariot. It was not until the Empire Period (1600-1100 B.C.), however, when the horse exploded in popularity across the realm. Rameses II, one of the kingdom’s most powerful pharaohs, was known to have kept a massive herd in an elaborate complex of stables he had constructed in the northeast of Cairo, by the Nile Delta (http://www.thekeep.org/~kunoichi/kunoichi/themestream/egypt_animals.html).

Michael Nicholson/Corbis

Biblical references indicate that King Solomon, despite all his God-given and innate splendor, seemed to fashion himself like an Egyptian pharaoh and even endeavored to seek the esteem of his Egyptian counterpart. In 1 Kings 3:1 it is clear that “Solomon made an alliance with Pharaoh king of Egypt and married his daughter,” whom he honored by constructing for her a precious cedar palace (7:8), similar in beauty as Solomon’s “throne hall, the Hall of Justice, where he was to judge” (verse 7). It seems like whatever the pharaoh had, Solomon wanted the same, whether it was herds and herds of war horses and magnificent chariots (1 Kings 10:26), a holy Temple (Chapter 6), a splendid royal palace (7:1-12), an unspeakable annual net worth measured in gold (10:14), golden shields (verses 16 to 17), a throne so great “inlaid with ivory and overlaid with fine gold” (verse 18 and subsequent specifics from verse 19 to 20), wives and concubines (11:1), and a subtle buildup of a pagan pantheon (verse 2 to 7). It was an ambitious and nauseating attempt identical to nothing more than a former slave seeking the respect of an equal in the eyes of its former master. This was the mortification, among others, that God wanted to save Israel from. God wanted to establish Israel’s dignity apart from the shame of its Egyptian slavery. The miracles and the fear He promised to inspire upon every nation that hears about the Israelites (Exodus 23:27) were to eradicate the slave in anything Israelite. But because of Solomon’s admiration for the Egyptian pharaoh, the period of Israel’s greatest glory was also an ironic re-association with her old slave master.

National Geographic Society/Corbis

An ancient Egyptian on horseback was not really the standard. As shown from historical finds, the most common use of the beast was to pull chariots. From the military cavalry to royal pageants and parades, Egypt followed the two-horse chariot as standard.

Gianni Dagli Orti/CORBIS

The King After God: Chosen From Above

2011-09-28T21:50:00.000-07:00

The Stapleton Collection/Corbis

The day the elders came to the Prophet Samuel and demanded for Israel's very first king never took God by surprise. He knew it would come even before His children ever stepped into the Promised Land. In Deuteronomy 17:14, God foretold, “When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you and have taken possession of it and settled in it, and you say, ‘Let us set a king over us like all the nations around us….’” Notice that God introduced His announcement with a “when,” not an “if ever.” To God, the coming of the people’s king was inevitable.And so, in order for them to maintain their Israelite identity and not be like their neighbors in adopting their method of appointing their leader, God instituted His standard for Israel to implement.

Tetra Images/Corbis

The king must be the one whom God chooses: “be sure to appoint over you the king the Lord your God chooses” (Deuteronomy 17:15). From being the first and only Theocratic Head of His people, God was not about to relinquish His rule to some flesh and blood bound to corruption following some leadership style substandard to His and subject to the limitations of the physical environment and the decisions of every human being sharing the world around. God the Creator and the One who sees all from above knows the origin and destination of all things; He therefore knows which way is the best to take in a life that to us is a maze of traps, errors, and regret. That’s the general consideration.

Now, because His people’s insistence of adopting the carnal model of leadership requires them to physically see to identify themselves with their leader, God must appoint a physical representation of Himself and arm this agent with authority to rule. It was therefore essential for God find “a man after his own heart” (1 Samuel 13:14) to lead His people as He expected, in largely His terms. For this, God “changed Saul’s heart” (10:9) and gave him His heart, a heart inclined to obey.

Lebrecht Music & Art/Corbis

The very reason why God laid down the ground rules for His people in choosing a king is to ensure that all variables have been aligned and streamlined for His chosen one to emerge. It was then appropriate for the Israelites to have brought their demand for a king to the Prophet Samuel. In 1 Samuel 8:4 to 5 it says that “all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel” and said to him, “appoint a king to lead us.” It was, however, very ironic that they came to the Prophet Samuel in full confidence knowing he perfectly knew the will of God but would not accept any other result from the Divine but the satisfaction of their demand for a king.

He must be an Israelite: “He must be from among your own brothers. Do not place a foreigner over you, one who is not a brother Israelite” (Deuteronomy 17:15b). An essential stipulation adopted by most cultures is that a king must come from the same people he must rule. This regulation facilitates the implementation of the prior in that God’s chosen king can only come from among the Israelites.

Images.com/Corbis

During this period, the monarchial government system had become so ubiquitous that it seeped into and modified the cultural fabric of many people, including the Israelites. Later on, God’s Spirit would adopt the concept of the king in presenting His promise of the Messiah. The prophet-for-hire Balaam, in Numbers 24:7, in attempted to bring down a curse on the Israelites, was instead compelled to prophesy about the people’s “king” who “will be greater than Agag.”

Sandro Vannini/CORBIS

Apparently the Amalekites were among the most feared people in the region where the Israelites traversed. “Agag” may have probably been a title of the kings these people had, similar to the “Caesar” of the Romans who came much later. It can be recalled that the Amalekite king whom Saul captured alive in 1 Samuel 15:8 was named Agag.

Moses’ prophecy in Deuteronomy 33:5 picturing Him as “king in Jeshurun” was an embryonic allusion to Jesus Christ. Later in King David’s life, God Himself foretold of the “offspring to succeed” him (2 Samuel 7:12), the one who would “come from [his] own body” (Ibid.), whose kingdom He would establish forever (verses 12 to 13). Around two thousand years later, Jesus came. Though He walked the earth, not yet as King but as a servant to die for the sins of many, He did not deny the fact that He was the King of the Jews (Matthew 11:27; Mark 15:2,12; Luke 23:3; John 18:33-37).

Heritage Image/CORBIS

“Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him” (Matthew 2:2). Before Pontius Pilate ever asked the question, King Herod early in his reign shuddered on the throne he usurped when the Parthian magi came to him with the question, "Do you know where the real King of the Jews is?--'Cause according to our calculations, you ain't!"

The mandate to choose the king from among the people was almost observed without partiality. After the death of Solomon, however, a fourth king arose in Israel whose parentage was not of pure Israelite origin. Cited in 1 Kings 14:21 and 31, Rehoboam was born of a mother named Naamah, “an Ammonite,” apparently one of the hundreds of foreign wives loved by his father Solomon (11:1). If the modern Jewish standard of determining pedigree can be applied with Rehoboam, it may yield that this king was not Israelite. During Rehoboam’s reign occurred the most ominous episode in Israelite history: the split of the kingdom. Three days after being crowned king, he decreed a more stringent policy on the political opponents of his father Solomon than accept their plea of conciliation and understanding (1 Kings 12:1-15). The result was a civil war leading to a secession of ten tribes, altogether establishing themselves as the independent Northern Kingdom (verses 16 to 17, verse 21); Rehoboam was left with the tribes of Judah and Benjamin (verses 17, 21, and 23), as the Southern Kingdom.

Corbis

It was also during Rehoboam’s reign when Jerusalem succumbed to a raid successfully launched by the Pharaoh Shishak of Egypt. In 1 Kings 14:26 it says that Shishak “carried off the treasures of the temple of the Lord and the treasures of the royal palace [of Solomon], [taking] everything, including all the gold shields Solomon had made.” In all the seventeen years he ruled in Jerusalem (verse 21), he adulterated Jehovic worship with pagan Ammonite “sacred stones and Asherah poles on every high hill and every spreading tree” (verse 23), male prostitutes, and all other practices “of the nations the Lord had driven out before the Israelites” (verse 24).

[Yep. More to come.]

The King After God: Power from Above

2011-09-21T00:44:00.000-07:00

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It is understood in 1 Samuel 9:15 to 17 that it was God Himself who chose Saul to be Israel’s first king. God revealed this in a word of prophecy that came to the Prophet Samuel the day before Saul came to visit the prophet to ask regarding some lost donkeys (1 Samuel 9:15). when Samuel presented Saul before all the tribes of Israel, except for a few troublemakers, everyone there agreed that there was no one like him among all the people (10:24). From the time he was introduced in the Scriptures, his “impressive” stature always deserved highlight: “an impressive young man without equal among the Israelites—a head taller than any of the others” (9:2).

Many cultures around the world hold charisma as a fundamental qualification of a king. In its simplest concept, a king is a hero, a culture’s champion whose example in flesh and blood comes close to the ideals held by a people. Ideals, in turn, are based on the human urge to survive. To start with, an individual dealing with survival recognizes death as a—or perhaps the—conclusion of all life. The Sumerians understood this and so did the Egyptians. To the Babylonians, all hopes drained into death. This idea is reflected in Job 10:21 where the grave is described as “the place of no return”; Ecclesiastes 9:2 calls it “a common destiny” for “the righteous and the wicked.” In spite of this, however, no one from the ancient days held a way of life that promoted a passive, submissive advocacy to death and decay. All cultures the world around are an expression of the universal right to live. All cultures have been a search for a path that led to survival and to the ideals that lay above survival. And the ones who etched these paths were leaders variably known as heroes, champions, trailblazers, or kings.

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A king embodied a people’s ideals of survival. He was the understandable picture of the prosperity romanticized by his people. He was the specimen of what his people are or to become. His life and words are to advocate the superiority of his culture and the importance of keeping it pure and set apart from the inferior lifestyles of the other nations which lead to nowhere but death. A king must live, and lead the life aspired by his people; basically, therefore, he must look it. This is called charisma, the embodiment of authority, integrity, reliability, and credibility.

Saul towered at an impressive height: a head higher above the average Israelite. When he stood, he commanded the respect and obedience of his people. Or, at least, he was supposed to. To a Philistine, an Amalekite, or any pagan tribe, this quality may have worked tremendous wonders of authority, but not to the people of God. Though God chose someone as impressive as Saul, the authority to be obeyed, respected, and believed nevertheless came from Him. This principle was cited by Jesus in His conversation with Pilate when He said, “You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above” (John 19:11). Or if it were taken away from you by the Above, just as what happened to Saul when he rebelled against mandate to destroy the Amalekites, as expressed in 1 Samuel 15:23,26 and 28:

“Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, he has rejected you as king. You have rejected the word of the Lord, and the Lord has rejected you as king over Israel. The Lord has torn the kingdom of Israel from you today and has given it to one of your neighbors—to one better than you.”

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The persuasion of physical beauty expresses perfection of ideals. The sight of a leader’s physical beauty declares to his people the hope that their culture holds and the glory they will become. The physical beauty of a leader will testify of the superiority of a people. Through his beauty, a king will convey to a subject who beholds his splendor that their being born into their nation or tribe was no mistake. This was the belief held by the nations outside the realm of the Israelite Theocracy. Israel, on the other hand, understood what it was like to be ruled by tribal chiefs and by an unseen God with prophets or judges, like Moses and Samuel, as His human intermediaries; but never by a king—a single human entity that embodied all their standards and desires. And one day, after a couple of hundred years of living in the Promised Land, the Israelites suddenly had a thought: Why not try out that government style that every nation’s been talking about—the one with a king; the one that’s been around even the time before their forefather Abraham; the one that made Sumeria, Babylonia, and Egypt great!

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They knew exactly what a king was; they have made treaties with them; one Hebrew even worked as the right-hand man of the Egyptian pharaoh; but never have they been under a king of their own. From their father Abraham of Ur, the Hebrews began existence as nomads, until Joseph, son of the patriarch Jacob. When he became viceroy of Egypt, a severe famine struck the Egyptian-Canaanite region, prompting him to open the fertile Egyptian district of Goshen for his father and brothers to relocate into (Genesis 45:12,17-18; 47:5-6,11). Here, for several hundred years, the Hebrews found a home and relatively became settlers for about a century and a half, until “a new king, who did not know Joseph, came to power in Egypt” (Exodus 1:8). Now they were known as slaves. For four hundred years, as foretold by God to Abraham (Genesis 15:13), this new Egyptian order mistreated the very people they sheltered in the “best part” of their land (Genesis 47:11) until a man came along to lead them back to Canaan. At that point they abandoned being slaves and re-donned their status as nomads for about what they believed to be eleven days until they reach the Promised Land (Deuteronomy 1:2). But what was supposed to be an eleven-day travel protracted into a forty-year meandering ordeal because of the unholy grumbling they voiced against God (Numbers 14:27,34). Throughout all the four difficult decades, their national dream of greatness remained an ethereal concept as they watched how nations of Egyptians, Amalekites, Midianites, Edomites, and Canaanites found their niche of power in the world around them, with their king to thank for, while the Israelites remained nomads lost in a vast blazing desert.

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In this context, one can somehow come to understand how eager the Israelites were to finally produce a king of their own. While it is true that God made Himself vitally known to His people, dwelt with them in their midst in a specially designed compartment in a tent, God understood that the corrupting of sin will prove its grip stronger than His spiritual reality as their minds fall trapped within the realm of the flesh—the visible, the obvious, the instant gratification, the now, the simply understandable logic that “man is man, God is God.” Even with the representation of Moses as God’s intermediary to the people, the corruption of sin and its influence over their philosophy will keep their ideals ensnared by the seduction of a master in the flesh than keep their faith in an eternal God. There were, however, those who genuinely understood the rule of God, envisioned the benefit of its uniqueness from other nations, and took faith in the truth of His promise to bring Israel into glory. This is what made Moses raise his staff many times against Egypt and then at the Red Sea at the command of God; this is what electrified Caleb and Joshua when they explored the Promised Land for the first time (Numbers 14:7-9); this is what made the Levites rally beside Moses and slay the disobedient who celebrated the golden calf (Exodus 32:24-29); this was the zeal that took over Phinehas when he impaled with a spear a man caught fornicating with a Midianite woman (Numbers 25:7-8).

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But the corruption of sin will never be denied its share in human nature and entrench many in its culture of decay and impermanence, for after Joshua’s generation “had been gathered to their fathers, another generation grew up, who knew neither the Lord nor what he had done for Israel” (Judges 2:10) and no sooner did the Israelites, recently wresting Canaan from its natives through a stunning string of decisive victories, wallow in the same poison that brought Divine judgment to the Canaanites.

“…they forsook him and served Baal and the Ashtoreths. In his anger against Israel the Lord handed them over to raiders who plundered them. He sold them to their enemies all around, whom they were no longer able to resist them. Whenever Israel went out to fight, the hand of the Lord was against them to defeat them, just as he had sworn to them. They were in great distress” (Judges 2:13 to 15).

In a place opposite Gilgal, the site where a covenant with God was sealed through circumcision, the angel of the Lord imposed another promise in consequence to the disobedience of an entire nation He calls His people:

“I said, ‘I will never break my covenant with you, and you shall not make a covenant with the people of this land, but you shall break down their altars.’ Yet you have disobeyed me. Why have you done this? Now therefore I tell you that I will not drive them out before you; they will be thorns in your sides and their gods will be a snare to you’” (Judges 2:1-3).

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And as the occupying Israelites tolerated the existence of the Canaanite natives as slaves instead of obliterating them as they were Divinely charged, they absorbed elements of pagan culture, from the use of the olive oil lamp, worshiping of alien deities, to the aspiration for their own king. And in the turbulent years that followed, the frequent conquests crashed and wore away the Chosen People’s respect for their One True Theocratic Head. While judges rose to deliver the people at the point of their greatest need, for every invasion that followed as a result of the death of a judge, the idea of a king crystallized until the day they came before the Prophet Samuel, the judge at the time, and finally asked him for a king.

[And as before, there's more! Oh, shall it ever end?]