In Leviticus 12:1-8 Israel was informed about the divine procedures which should be followed by Jewish couples at the birth either of a son or a daughter.
1 YHWH spoke to Moses, saying,
2 “Speak to the sons of Israel, saying, ‘If a woman conceives, and bears a male child, then she shall be unclean seven days; just as in the days of the impurity when she is menstruating.
3 On the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised.
4 She shall continue in the blood of purification thirty-three days. She shall not touch any holy thing, nor come into the sanctuary, until the days of her purifying are completed.
5 But if she bears a female child, then she shall be unclean fourteen days, just as she would be during her menstruation; and she shall continue in the blood of purification sixty-six days.
6 When the days of her purification are completed, for a son, or for a daughter, she shall bring to the priest at the door of the Tent of Meeting, a year old lamb for a burnt offering, and a young pigeon, or a turtledove, for a sin offering.
7 And he shall present it before YHWH, and make atonement for her; and she shall be cleansed from the fountain of her blood.
This is the law for her who bears, whether a male or a female.
8 If she cannot afford a lamb, then she shall take two turtledoves, or two young pigeons; the one for a burnt offering, and the other for a sin offering: and the priest shall make atonement for her, and she shall be clean.’”
As often has been suggested, these commandments reminded the Israelites of the disastrous consequences of Adam's legacy, his fall, by King David aptly expressed in his famous Psalm 51: Look! In iniquity I was brought forth with birth pains, and in sin did my mother conceive me.
That humanity has an urgent need for purification in connection with the inheritance of sin, was further emphasized in this chapter, since at the end of the 40 and the 80 days a burnt offering and a sin offering were required. Of course, these sacrifices prefigured the one perfect sacrifice of Mashiach Yeshua. In Hebrews 1:3 the cleansing power of that one sacrifice is confirmed: After he had made purification for our sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in lofty places.
The reproductive organs were made to pass on perfect human life. However, because of the inherited effects of sin the first human couple did transmit imperfect and sinful life to their offspring. The temporary periods of impurity associated with childbirth, menstruation and seed outpourings recalled this inherited sinfulness.
This was in particular the case during childbirth, because in that respect a sin offering was required. It is interesting that Elohim allowed the poor in this case, out of consideration, to sacrifice birds instead of a more expensive sheep.
Such purification instructions helped the Israelites realize that they needed a ransom sacrifice that man's sinfulness would fully cover and restore human perfection. Of course, this could not be accomplished by the animal sacrifices, and for that reason the Law led them to their Messiah. Its legal procedures helped them realize that the perfect sacrifice of his soul alone could provide true forgiveness and eventual restoration to human perfection. As he himself expressed: Even as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his soul as a ransom instead of many (Matthew 20:28).
Nevertheless, in connection with the purification instructions of Leviticus 12, additional questions have to be answered.
• Why is there a prolonged period of impurity at the birth of a daughter?
• And why precisely a prolonged period of time in a ratio of 1:2; a doubling so.
Has the ratio 1:2 possibly specific meaning in this context? Anyway, it is striking that in both cases a similar reconciliation ceremony had to be accomplished at the end of both the 40 and the 80 days.
Whether a son or a daughter was born, the same sacrifices had to be brought in both cases: a year old ram as a burnt offering and a dove as a sin offering. By presenting those sacrifices to YHWH Elohim, the priest had to make atonement for the woman and she, the woman, would then be clear from the source of her blood.
At the birth of Yeshua those ceremonial acts were also accomplished by Joseph and Mariam.
And when the days of their purification
were fulfilled in accordance of the Law of Moses, they brought him up to
Jerusalem to present him to the Lord - as it is written in the Law of the
Lord: Every male that the womb opens fully, must be called holy to the Lord -
and to offer sacrifice according to what is said in the Law of the Lord: A pair
of turtledoves or two young pigeons... And behold, there was a man in
Jerusalem, whose name [was] Simeon, and this man [was] just
and reverent, awaiting the consolation of Israel, and holy spirit was upon
him. Furthermore, to him was divinely revealed by the holy spirit,
not see death before he had seen the Mashiach of the Lord. And in the
power of the spirit he came into the temple. And as the parents
brought in the boy Yeshua to do for him according to the customary practice of
the lLaw, he took him in his arms and blessed God and said: Now let you,
Master, your servant go free in peace according to your
declaration, because my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have
prepared in the sight of all the peoples: A light for removing the veil from
the nations and a glory of your people Israel. (Luke 2)
For further details about Simeon, who undoubtedly
belonged to the godly remnant in Israel of those days, see: Simeon
An interim conclusion, and for sure not an unimportant one: In Leviticus 12 all the emphasis is placed upon the mother's uncleanness or impurity, not on that of the child. This is even more striking because from Psalm 51:5, and Job 14:4 it is obvious that within the ‘normal’ human situation a child from birth also was defiled with uncleanness. Thence still another question:
• May have also this aspect a hidden meaning?
Therefore, let us go deeply in the prophetic pictures of Leviticus chapter 12, having in mind the biblical explanation in Hebrews 10 >> The Law, having a shadow of the good things to come, not the very substance of the facts themselves.
In that case, she shall be unclean seven days; just as in the days of the impurity when she is menstruating, and then - on the 8th day - the flesh of his foreskin was circumcised.
Circumcision dated from the time of Abraham receiving circumcision as a seal of the righteousness of his faith. In Romans 4:9-14, Saul of Benjamin commented thus:
For we say that faith was accounted to Abraham for righteousness. How then was it counted? When he was in circumcision, or in uncircumcision? Not in circumcision, but in uncircumcision, and he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while he was in uncircumcision, that he might be the father of all those who believe, though they be in uncircumcision, that righteousness might also be accounted to them. And father of circumcision to those who not only are of the circumcision, but who also walk in the steps of that faith of our father Abraham, which he had in uncircumcision. For the promise to Abraham and to his seed that he should be heir of the world wasn’t through the Law, but through the righteousness of faith. For if those who are of the Law are heirs, faith is made void, and the promise is made of no effect.
Thus, Paul stated definitively that Abraham is the spiritual father of all who have faith; including individuals from the Goyim that are not natural Israelites nor circumcised. When we, in this world period (aeon) - known as the “Age of the (Christian) congregation” - exercise faith in Elohim's provision of his Son as the Mashiach and Redeemer - just as also Abraham put faith in Elohim's promise about the Seed, we may trust that righteousness is imputed to us, just as also Abraham experienced. Compare Genesis 15:5-6.
When YHWH in Abraham's time instituted circumcision as the sign of the covenant that he had made with the patriarch, he told Abraham that this would also apply after him to his seed. See Genesis 17:9-14.
For us, of course, the important question matters: What is the antitypical significance of circumcision? Considering that Abraham became the father of all who have faith in Mashiach Yeshua - even if they once were outside of Israel and therefore Gentiles or people from the nations - we expect that circumcision in its antitypical significance is found within Christianity. In addition, that in fact turns out to be the case.
In Philippians 3:3 Paul confirms this view by declaring frankly:
For we are the circumcision, who are rendering sacred service through God’s spirit and are boasting in Mashiach Yeshua and not have confidence in flesh.
In true, called Christians the reality of circumcision is expressed. At the same time, the apostle makes quite clear that in their case circumcision is the result of the activity of Elohim's spirit in their lives. How? Because, as it were - not literally of course – the spirit ‘cuts away’ with them their old body of sin. Hence Paul says that Christians have no longer their confidence in their own fleshly bodies.
In Colossians 2:11-12 we have the Bible passage that describes in detail the true circumcision as a Christian reality:
In him, also you were circumcised with a circumcision not made by hands, in the stripping off of the fleshly body, in the circumcision of the Mashiach, jointly buried to him in the baptism. In whom you also were jointly raised up through the faith in the operation of God who raised him up from the dead.
Here the essence of Christian theology is revealed. It will be clear that Christians in Mashiach Yeshua possess the true value of circumcision. In him, they have the inner or spiritual circumcision.
While in the Jewish circumcision only a part of the body is removed, the spiritual circumcision, as it were, is taking away the sinful body of the flesh completely, the carnal body referring to man’s sin, the legacy of Adam that dwells in our bodies.
Previously, in Romans 6:6, Paul had already provided information, writing: Knowing this, that our old man was impaled together, that the body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be in bondage to sin.
Definitely a sublime thought. For a true Christian the reality of circumcision holds that his unclean, from Adam inherited body of sin is destroyed as it were. Through the action of Elohim's spirit the sinful passions no longer prevail over the Christian, so that he now can live for righteousness.
In Two Corinthians 5:21 Paul also has written the following about this particular role that was fulfilled by Yeshua: The One who knew no sin, he made sin for us.
How?
YHWH Elohim had taken note of the filth of the flesh of all humanity and put it, so to speak, upon his sinless Son.
So, when that One laid down his life in a sacrificial death, thus, fundamentally, the entire impurity of the human world was 'cut off' in the circumcision of the Mashiach.
Now we have briefly discussed the key elements of Christian doctrine, we can conclude the following:
The true Christian lives in full communion with his Lord, making him/her to a new creation.
Compare Two Corinthians 5:17 >> Therefore if anyone is in Mashiach, he is a new creation. Things of old passed away. Behold, new things came into existence.
It is very clear that in the typology of Leviticus 12 the woman who gives birth occupies a central place. After all, it always affects her purification! However, it is also clear that in the antitype she should appear in a two-fold aspect.
Besides 2Co 5:17, the only other scripture in which is made mention of the new creation, we find in Galatians 6:15-16.
And not only that! The scripture also gives us an indication about the identity of the Woman. For in it the question is answered: "Who or what is represented by the woman in Leviticus 12, she who gives birth either to a male or a female?”.
For neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is anything, but a new creation. And all those who will walk orderly by this rule of conduct, upon them be peace and mercy, even upon the Israel of God.
Here we have the answer: In the typology of the Letter to the Galatians the woman represents the Israel of God.
Alongside Ga 6:15-16, the Letter provides further clues for that conclusion, especially in chapter 4, where the Israel of God is thus identified:
However, the Jerusalem above is free, who is our mother. For it is written: "Rejoice, you barren woman who does not give birth, burst forth and cry, you who have no childbirth pains, because the children of the desolate woman are more numerous than of her who has the husband."
So, the apostle points out that Christians have a "mother", the Jerusalem above, clearly referring to Isaiah, chapter 54, where Lady Zion (Jerusalem) in type appears as the woman Sara, Abrahams beloved wife who was long barren, but at last gave birth.
Through this symbolic Woman, the true Israel of God will eventually be brought forth, the two biblical congregations in YHWH’s purpose: The heavenly Christian and the earthly Jewish congregation, which together will form the new royal priesthood. And all that with the intent to become a blessing to the nations (Goyim) in the Millennium kingdom of Mashiach Yeshua.
In the First Century Lady Zion started to 'give birth' to those of the Israel of God who became members of the heavenly Congregation, as the apostle Paul put into words that historical act: Rejoice, you barren woman… Now we brothers are children belonging to a promise the same as Isaac (Ga 4:26-28).
However, as we above pointed out, these children answer to the son who is brought forth and had to be circumcised on the 8th day, exactly as Paul had expressed it in Philippians 3 >> For we are the circumcision, who are rendering sacred service through God’s spirit and are boasting in Mashiach Yeshua and not have confidence in flesh.
To estimate fully our reasoning, we do well to consider the context of Paul’s writing. At this point - the antitypical circumcision - the apostle fulminated against those for whom the Philippians had to be especially on their guard: the Judaizers, Jewish people who claimed to be Christians but who demanded that the believers from the Goyim (literally) needed to be circumcised. For Paul actions like that were nothing more than mutilation, mayhem:
Look out for the dogs, look out for the evil workers, look out for those who mutilate the flesh. For we are the circumcision, who are rendering sacred service through God’s spirit and are boasting in Mashiach Yeshua and not have confidence in flesh.
Those Jews supposedly adhered to Christianity, but in reality they did everything in their power to store the new wine into old wineskins(Luke 5:37-39). Their Christianity turned out to be nothing more than an ennobled Jewry.
At this point we also see that already rapidly, in that early period of Lady Zion began to give birth, a breach occurred between the (real) Christians and the Jews who did not fully, or not at all, accept their true Mashiach and nothing more wanted than continue in the Hagar situation under the Law, as also through divine inspiration was expressed by Paul:
The Hagar, however, is a Mount Sinai in Arabia, but corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is with her children in slavery. And soafter that shocking statement he pointed to the free Jerusalem: However, the Jerusalem above is free, who is our mother.
Generally the Jews of the First century behaved hostile towards Christians, both Jews and Gentiles, because of the Messiah issue, and accordingly Paul wrote regularly about them. Likewise, in the allegory of Sarah and Hagar:
For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the handmaid, and one by the free woman. However, the son by the handmaid was born according to the flesh, but the son by the free woman was born through promise.
These things contain an allegory, for these are two covenants. One is from Mount Sinai, bearing children to bondage, which is Hagar. For this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and answers to the Jerusalem that exists now, for she is in bondage with her children.… Now we, brothers, as Isaac was, are children of promise. But as then, he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the spirit, so also it is now. However what does the Scripture say? “Throw out the handmaid and her son, for the son of the handmaid will not inherit with the son of the free woman.”
So then, brothers [we, Christians], we are not children of a handmaid, but of the free woman (Ga 4:22-25, 28-31; WEB)
So also in 1 Thessalonians 2:14-16, shortly afterwards writing to a congregation composed mainly of believers with a pagan background:
For you, brothers, became imitators of the congregations of God which are in Judea in Mashiach Yeshua; for you also suffered the same things from your own countrymen, even as they did from the Jews; who killed both the Lord Yeshua and their own prophets, and drove us out, and the do not please God, and are contrary to all men; forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they may be saved; to fill up their sins always. But wrath has come on them to the uttermost.
What did that mean?
1.) Generally, that the Jews of the First century experienced no purification at the end of the antitypical 40 days.
2.) On the contrary, Elohim's wrath came upon them.
In Romans chapter 11, we are informed that they for the time being were shut up in their state of disobedience. While Gentile believers were grafted onto the Olive tree of the true Israel of God - which is rooted in the Abrahamic Promise – they experienced just the opposite: As the original and natural branches of that ‘tree’ they were broken off (Romans 11:17-32.
3.) As the result of their stubborn attitude towards their own Messiah, purification for Israel as a nation - on the basis of the real sin-offering - was in a painful way extended to a distant future:
For I don’t desire, brothers, to have you ignorant of this mystery, so that you won’t be wise in your own conceits, that a partial hardening has happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in (Ro 11:25).
Here does not suddenly appear another woman! On the contrary!
Rather, Leviticus 12 implies that the same woman gives birth either to a male or a female child.
In both cases she is the type of the Israel of God, but in two aspects as above was argued at length.
Therefore, there will indeed be a recovery, a return to God's favour for ethnic Israel, and in Romans 11, we also learn when: At the end of their hardening, which coincides with the time that the full measure of the Gentiles has come into the Christian congregation, the antitypical male child of Leviticus 12.
A remnant of Jews will eventually come to the knowledge that Yeshua of Nazareth is still the promised Messiah, and because they will turn in faith to him, they will still experience – as the Jerusalem earthly - the perfect purification. The antitype of the 80 days for the female childwill then be a reality. The strength of the true sacrificial offering will finally extend to that remnant.
That Jerusalem earthly in antitypical sense may be equated with the female child can be deduced from the allegory in Ezekiel 16, the chapter in which YHWH Elohim elaborates how Israel, as a baby-girl, was found in the open field:
Again the word of YHWH came to me, saying, Son of man, cause Jerusalem to know her abominations; and say, Thus says the Lord YHWH to Jerusalem: Your birth and your birth is of the land of the Canaanite; the Amorite was your father, and your mother was a Hittite.
As for your birth, in the day you were born your navel was not cut, neither were you washed in water to cleanse you; you weren’t salted at all, nor swaddled at all. No eye pitied you, to do any of these things to you, to have compassion on you; but you were cast out in the open field, for that your person was abhorred, in the day that you were born.
When I passed by you, and saw you weltering in your blood, I said to you, though you are in your blood, live; yes, I said to you, though you are in your blood, live. I caused you to multiply as that which grows in the field, and you increased and grew great, and you attained to excellent ornament; your breasts were fashioned, and your hair was grown; yet you were naked and bare.
Now when I passed by you, and looked at you, behold, your time was the time of love; and I spread my skirt over you, and covered your nakedness: yes, I swore to you, and entered into a covenant with you, says the Lord YHWH, and you became mine.
(Ezekiel 16:1-8; WEB)
So, here we arrive at the stirring question: How can the ratio 1:2
(because of 7:14 and 40:80) be situated in the course of time?
Our answer: The year 55 AD (or 4057 AM) seems to have become the hinged
year. Why?
Because in the period 50-52 AD, the apostle Paul spent no less than 18
months in the city of Corinth during his second missionary journey. In Acts
18:5-11, Luke reported on this:
When, now, both Silas and Timothy came down from Macedonia, Paul
began to be intensely occupied with the word [before -
apparently the first few months - he had practiced the tent maker's craft
part-time with the couple Akula and Priskilla],
witnessing to the Jews to prove that Yeshua is the Messiah. But after they kept
on opposing him and speaking abusively, he shook out his garments and said
to them: Let your blood be on your own heads. I am clean. From now on I will
go to people of the nations… And many of the
Corinthians who heard began to believe and be baptized. Moreover, the Lord said to Paul in a vision by night: Do
not be afraid, but keep on speaking and do not keep silent, for I am with
you and no man will assault you to harm you; for I have many people in this city. So he stayed there for a year and six months [the
period 50-52 AD], teaching the word of God among
them.
Now to clarify the 1:2 ratio, it
is advisable that we delve into the year 2084 AM, when Abraham was 75 years
old. Why?
Well, 2084 AM is the year in which
YHWH Elohim confirmed the promise he had previously made to the
patriarch: And in your seed all Goyim [Hebrew
for people of the Gentile origin] of the earth
will be blessed.
Consequently, on that occasion
YHWH Elohim entered into a solemn, official Covenant with the patriarch,
as evidenced by its description in Genesis, chapter 15.
The question remains of course:
How is the year 2084 AM chronologically obtained? Answer: By counting back
to the creation of Adam, which apparently occurred in the year 4004/4003 before
Christ.
Thus, while the origin lay with
Abraham and the Covenant with him in the year 2084 AM, the year 4057 AM (55 AD)
turned out to be the year in which the antitype of the 40 days became
clear. Then, in that year, 1973 years had passed since the covenant with
Abraham was ratified (4057 minus 2084).
That the point of departure must
indeed be 2084 AM, was confirmed for us all in the Letter to
the Galatians.
Proving that the decisive
sacrifice of Yeshua Mashiach brough to an end the sacrificial cult according to
the statutes of the Torah, the divinely inspired Paul also tells us the
following:
As Scripture foresaw that God justifies the Gentiles as a result
of faith, she made good tidings beforehand to Abraham: In you all Gentile
nations will be blessed, so that those who are of faith will be blessed with
the faithful Abraham… The righteous, by faith he shall live ... The Mashiach bought us
free from the curse of the Law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written:
Cursed be every one hanging on a tree, that the blessing of Abraham
in Mashiach Yeshua would come to the Gentile nations, that we might receive the
Promise of the Spirit through faith ... For if the inheritance is out
of the Torah, it is no longer
from the Promise. To Abraham, however, God has proved his
favor through the Promise ... Now I want to say: A will that was
previously validated by God is not rendered invalid by Torah that was
created after four hundred and thirty years to override the Promise to
do.
(Galatians 3)
Thus, between the Covenant and the
Exodus, when Israel was given the Torah (in 2514 AM), 430 years had passed
(2514 AM minus 430 = 2084 AM).
Already before the year 55 AD
individuals from Paganism had entered the Christian congregation. Among
them were the Roman centurion Cornelius and the Ethiopian
chamberlain. However, when Paul and Barnabas started their First
Missionary Journey the Gentiles were massively offered the opportunity to come
to faith and be "added" to the heavenly congregation.
Especially, when they brought the
Gospel to the Gentile people in Lystra, it becane clear that
the Goyim (gentiles) - after being left to themselves for so many
centuries by YHWH Elohim at the Speech Confusion - indeed had come within God's
sight to hear the message about salvation. As we read in Acts 14:16
>> In the past generations he has allowed all the
Gentiles to go their own ways.
See the study : Confusion of Tongues and
the Seven Times.
Then, in the year 49 AD, during
the apostle convention in Jerusalem - the details of which are recorded in Acts
15 - the situation about the Gentile believers was seriously
questioned >> Should they be required to comply with Mosaic legislation.
Admittedly, the majority
recognized that YHWH Elohim at that time was already shifting his attention to
the Gentile peoples in order to take out of them a people
for his name, and that consequently the burden of the Torah
should not be imposed upon them. Nevertheless, it was decided that
those Goyim believers should abide by the so-called ‘Noahide
commandments’.
Accordingly, about 8 years later, in 57 AD,
when Paul arrived in Jerusalem - at the end of his Third Missionary
Journey - he learned from James, Yeshua's half-brother, that the
Jewish believers in Judea were still full of zeal for the
Law (Acts 21).
However, in the meantime, Paul had
diligently preached the Gospel to the Gentiles and from his First Letter to the
Corinthians, written tot hem in the year 55 AD (4057 AM), it becomes very clear
that he held out a heavenly destination for those believers:
47 The first man [is] out of [the] earth,
dusty, the second man out of heaven.
48 As the dusty [is], such also [are] the physical;
and as the heavenly [is], so [are] the heavenly also.
49 And such as we bore the image of the dusty,
we should bear also the image of the heavenly.
50 But this I say, brothers, that flesh and
blood is not able to inherit Gods kingdom, neither is inheriting the corruption
the incorruption.
51 Look! I tell you a mystery: We shall not
all be laid to sleep, but all we shall
be changed,
52 in an uncut time, in a twinkling of
eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be
raised up incorruptible, and we will be changed.
53 For this corruptible must put on
incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.
54 But as soon as this corruptible puts on
incorruption, and this mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the
saying that is written, Death was swallowed up in victory.
Taking into account the ratio of
1:2, based on the extended cleansing procedure for a born daughter, i.e. from
40 to 80 days, the Jews (as a nation) will have to wait until 2027/2028 AD (or
6030 AM) before the antitypical cleansing also becomes a reality for them (55 + 1973 =
2028 AD). Or, expressed in the Anno Mundi time account >> 4057 + 1973 =
6030 AM.
And that conclusion is entirely in
line with other divine predictions about Israel's foreseen
restoration to God's favor, and they, for example, will experience what
Jeremiah prophesied: I will forgive
their iniquity and no longer remember their sins (Jer 31:34).
With all those facts having in our
mind, it is certainly no coincidence that spiritual cleansing for Israeli-earthly
will take place at the end of the 70th Yearweek, in 6030 AM (2027/2028
AD). Why?
Because then they will experience
the effect of the New Covenant to be concluded with them (Jeremiah 31) :
Look! Days are coming, YHWH decares, that I will make a
new covenant with the House of Israel and with the House of Judah; not one
like the covenant that I made with their forefathers on the day that I took
them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they
broke while I possessed them as a husband, declares YHWH.
For this is the covenant that I will make with the House of
Israel after those days, says YHWH: I will put my law within them and in
their heart I will write it. And I will become their God and they will be
my people. And they shall no more teach each other his neighbor and every
man his brother, saying, know YHWH, for they shall all know me, from the
least to the greatest among them, declares YHWH . For I will
forgive their iniquity, and I will no longer remember their sin.
See the study
on Daniel's Yearweeks Prophecy, especially from Daniël 9:27.
This study makes it plausible that
in the middle of the last 'Week' the Times of the Gentiles come to an
end, or will be fulfilled, which also means that the
trampling on of Jerusalem comes to an end, an expression that also refers
to the (re)creation of the kingdom for Israel
(Luke 21:20-24).
But once again we mainly
draw the reader's attention to the study of Confusion of Tongues and the Seven Times.
The Olive Tree
However, already at that early stage, some Gentile believers who claimed
to have become Christians, started turning against the Jews, yes, even raising
themselves above them, reasoning that the unbelieving Jews could be equated
with the branches that YHWH Elohim had broken away from the ‘Olive Tree’.
And indeed Paul, in his Letter to the Romans – written by him around 56/57
AD – in exactly that sense referred to that symbolic tree which
had its roots in the Abrahamic covenant. However, his explanations were
accompanied by both warnings and stern admonitions:
If some of the [Jewish] branches were broken off, and you [Gentile believers], being a wild olive, were grafted in among them [the original Jewish branches], and became partaker with them of the
root and of the richness of the olive tree [the promises that were connected with the original
covenant with Abraham]; don’t boast over the branches [the Jews who refused faith in Yeshua]. But if you boast, it is not you who
support the root, but the root supports you. You will say then, “Branches
were broken off, that I might be grafted in.” True; by their unbelief they
were broken off, and you
stand by your faith. Don’t be conceited, but fear; for if God didn’t spare
the natural branches, neither will he spare you.
See then the goodness and severity of God. Toward
those who fell, severity; but toward you, goodness, if you continue in his
goodness; otherwise you also will be cut off. They also, if they don’t
continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them
in again. For if you were cut out of that which is by nature a wild olive
tree, and were grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree, how much more
will these, which are the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree? For I don’t desire, brothers, to have you
ignorant of this mystery, so that you won’t be wise in your own conceits, that
a partial hardening has happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles
has come in, and so all Israel [the above described Woman,
the Israel of God] will be saved. Even as it is written, “There will come out of Zion the Deliverer and he
will turn away ungodliness from Jacob (Romans 11:17-26).
However, during the centuries that followed many of the ‘Christian’
clergy did boast over
the fallen [Jewish] branches.
And by that
haughty treatment of the unbelieving Jews they put themselves on a par with the
three false comforters of the man Job, who, in his sufferings, became a
depiction of Israel as Elohim's suffering Ebed (servant).
In Job 2:11 Job’s false comforters are presented to us with their names
and origin.
However, take careful note of their numerical values:
• The Temanite Eliphaz (643)
• and Bildad the Shuhite (375)
• and Zophar the Naamathite (957).
Added together a total numerical value of 1975.
But what does that outcome mean in the context of our study?
When will those false ‘friends’ of Israel finally be unmasked by YHWH
Elohim Himself? As we read >>
It was so, that after YHWH had
spoken these words to Job, YHWH said to Eliphaz the Temanite, “My wrath is
kindled against you, and against your two friends; for you have not spoken of
me the thing that is right, as my servant Job has. Now therefore, take to
yourselves seven bulls and seven rams, and go to my servant Job, and offer up
for yourselves a burnt offering; and my servant Job shall pray for you, for I will accept him, that I not deal with
you according to your folly. For you have not spoken of me the thing
that is right, as my servant Job has.” (Job 42:7-8)
What a surprising turn for the so-called ‘Christian’ friends of Job / Israel!
Only through the intervention of Elohim's Servant Nation, there will
still be prospects for them.
Compare Isaiah
42:8-9 and 43:10-12.
This practically means that in the
End Times their true spiritual condition will be brought to light.
Their unmasking will take place at
the time of the rapture of the true Church Body of Mashiach Jesus. They will
then experience being "left behind" >>
Because the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a
commanding call, with an archangel’s voice and with God’s trumpet, and
those who are dead in Christ will rise first. Afterward we the living who are
surviving will, together with them, be caught away in clouds to meet the
Lord in the air; and thus we will always be with the Lord (1Thess 4:16-17).
On solid Biblical grounds, we
expect that spectacular event to occur in 6023 AM (or 2021 AD).
And then exactly 1975 years will have
elapsed since 46 AD (4048 AM), the year in which Paul and Barnabas showed their
determination to address the Gentiles henceforth.
After all, to the unbelievers
among the Jews he said according to Acts 13: 45-46 >>
When the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy and
began blasphemously contradicting the things Paul was saying. Then Paul and
Barnabas boldly said to them: It was necessary for the word of God to be spoken
first to you. Since you are rejecting it and do not judge yourselves worthy of
everlasting life, look! we turn to the Gentiles.
As a result, Yeshua's Church Body
has since formed mainly out of believing Gentiles, but from the outset
so-called Christians also appeared among them who appeared to have the spirit
of such critics as Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar, whose total number value is 1975
after all !!
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