Patriarchs’ Bronze Age Languages

This topic discusses languages of the Bronze Age (approximately 3300–1200 BC) in the Ancient Near East (ANE), relative to the time of the Biblical patriarchs.

We don’t know what the language of Adam was (cf. Ge.2:19-20).  Many historians think Sumérian is the oldest written language.  Sumerian is called an isolated language, with no ancestor tongue.  But loan words have been identified in Sumerian writings.  So Sumerian as the first language is questioned.  Encyclopaedia Brittanica “The Sumerian language…first attested about 3100 BC in S. Mesopotamia.”

Wikipedia: Writing System “The Sumerian archaic cúneiform script closely followed by the Egyptian híeroglyphs are generally considered the earliest writing systems, both emerging out of their ancestral proto-literate symbol systems from 3400 to 3200 BC with earliest coherent texts from about 2600 BC.”

Dating from pre-3000 BC Súmer, pictograph was pictures that represent a word or idea.  Cuneiform script was wedge-shaped marks or symbols, on clay tablets.  Cuneiform was adapted from pictograph.

The sons of the patriarch Noah were Shem, Ham and Jápheth (Ge.9:18).  The family survived the Flood.  The Septúagint/LXX dates Noah’s Flood circa (c) 3200 BC.  After the Flood, his descendants migrated from old Armenia (Ge.8:4), to Shinár (Ge.10:10), and so on.  The Ge.10–11 account, with the tower of Babél zíggurat, coincides with the development of language families from a primitive root language.

Post-Flood, Ge.11:1-9 “The whole earth was of one language [lip, shore, Strongs h8193 Hebrew]. They found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. They said, ‘Let us build a city & tower whose top is in heaven.’ Its name was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language [lip/shore], and scattered them over the whole earth.”  Wikipedia: Tower of Babel “The Akkadian name of the city was Babilim, meaning ‘gate of God.”  Shinar (Sumer, or Sínjar?) was an area in Mesopotamia (Ac.2:9, 7:2; it included ancient Babylonia).  Shinar means ‘two rivers’.  Mesopotamia (Greek) means ‘land between the rivers’, the Tigris and Euphrates.  Mankind spread out over the land; other languages emerged.

Language families developed through Noah’s descendants (ref Ge.10:1, 5, 20, 31).  Carlos Quiles From Adamic or the Language of the Garden of Eden Until the Tower of Babel “The language spoken by Noah and his descendants, whether the original Adamic language or the derived Chaldáic [?], split into 70 or 72 languages, according to the different traditions.”  People dispersed upon the earth through extended family lines, clans, languages.  It is said that 14 major language families exist today (e.g. Indo-European, Áfro-Asiátic the oldest).  Dialects developed within the major language groups/tree models as humanity spread geographically; numerous dialects of descent are within each.

Ge.10:6 “The sons of Ham were Cush, Mízraim [Egypt], Phut and Canáan.”  The Egyptian people descended from Ham.  Ge.10:22 “The sons of Shem were Elám, Asshúr, Arpachshad, Lud and Arám.  These were grandsons of Noah.  Semític languages are named from Shem.  (The Aramaic language would be named from Aram.)  Josephus Antiquities of the Jews 1:6:4 “Elam…the Elamites, ancestors of the Persians [Iranians]. Asshur lived at the city Nineveh, and named his subjects Assyrians. Arpachshad named…the Chaldéans. Aram…called Syrians. Lud…Lydians [W Turkey].”  (see the topics “Aramaic in the Bible” and “Chronology: Septuagint versus Masoretic Text”.)  Aram & Arpachshad were brothers.

Wikipedia: Arpachshad “Arpachshad was understood by many Jewish and Muslim scholars [pre-1920] to be an area in northern Mesopotamia. This led to the identification of Arpachshad with Urfa-Kasid, a land associated with the Khaldis.”  Wikipedia: Chalybes “The Chalybes and Chaldoi were…peoples living in N. Anatolia [Turkey]. Their territory was known as Chaldia.”  (Later they’d move south.)

Ge.10:24 LXX “Arphaxad begot Kaínan (not Canaan), Kainan begot Shélah, Shelah begot Éber.”  (The Hebrew people would be named after Eber, Josephus ibid.)  Eber was the great-grandson (or grandson) of Arphaxad.

Sumerian of Iraq is an extinct linguistic isolate.  At Ur in S Mesopotamia, the writings on the mud-brick walls of the Great Ziggurat (2000–2100 BC) are Sumerian cuneiform.  The ancient Elamite language of SW Iran, dating from c 2600 BC and now extinct, is also considered a language isolate.  Although Elamite was named from Shem’s son Elam (Ge.10:22), it isn’t considered a Semitic language.

There were multilinguals in Mesopotamia, speaking Sumerian, Akkádian…then other dialects.  Akkadian is an extinct E Semitic Afro-Asiatic language.  Ge.10:10 Akkád was in or near the land of Shinar (the exact location hasn’t been discovered).  Akkadian names are seen in Sumerian writings, dated c 2500 BC.  Wikipedia: Akkadian Empire “Akkadian gradually replaced Sumerian as a spoken language somewhere around 2000 BC.”  Near the commencement of the Middle Bronze Age.

Ge.11:10-27 Abrám descended from Arphaxad.  v.31 Abraham (born c 2100 BC) likely came from Ur/Urfa/SanliUrfa/Edessa, or Urkesh, in N Mesopotamia.  He migrated approx 25 miles S to Harrán (Akkadian ‘Harránu’, ‘crossroads’) in far S Turkey, 10 miles above the N Syrian border.  The region of Aram in Upper Mesopotamia.  Ancient Urkesh (Tel Mozan today) in NE Syria was 100+ miles E of Harran.  Abram later would migrate SSW through Damascus; cf. Ge.15:2 his “Eliézer of Damascus”.

Ge.11:16-27 the names of early Hebrews (descendants of Eber and ancestors of Abraham) are seen in the names of towns located in the vicinity of Harran, Turkey.  Péleg, the city of Paliga; Serúg, the city of Sarugi; Nahór, Nakhur in the valley; Abraham’s father Térah, Til-Turakhi (‘mound of Terah’).

Rudolph Klein Abraham’s Chaldean Origins and the Chaldee Language “He must have been literate & fluent in Sumerian, Akkadian, various other Semitic languages (e.g. Amorite), probably Egyptian as a trade language. His descendants would adopt the language of…Canaan [Phoenícian/old Hebrew].”

Mark D. Kaplan The Languages of the Bible “One of the earliest ancient cities was Akkad in Mesopotamia (Ge.10:10). Perhaps Abraham originally spoke an Akkadian dialect in Ur. Abraham went south to Canaan…the Canaanites were descendants of Ham [Ge.10:1, 6 Noah’s son]. In Canaan Abraham picked up the local language. His clan’s version of Canaanite became known as Hebrew [much later].”  (Hebrew is classed as a Canaanite NW Semitic Afro-Asiatic language.)

Eblaite, named after the city Ebla (Tel Márdikh today] in N Syria, is an extinct E Semitic Afro-Asiatic language dating from the (latter) 2000s BC.  Ebla was approx 90 miles SW of Harran & 190 miles N of Damascus.  Wikipedia: Ebla [3000–1600 BC] “At its greatest extent, Ebla controlled an area half the size of modern Syria, from Ursaum in the north [S Turkey] to around Damascus in the south, and from Phoenícia and the coastal mountains in the west to Haddu in the east. It is probable the inhabitants of 3^rd kingdom Ebla [2000–1600 BC] were predominantly Amorites, as was most of Syria at that time.”

Wikipedia: Eblaite Language “Similarity to Hebrew, Ugarític, or Phoenician.”  Eblaite is an E Semitic sister language to Akkadian.  Jeff Benner The Archives of Ebla and the Bible “The tablets were written [2300 BC at Ebla] with a cuneiform script, like Úgarit [N Syrian coastal city]. The Eblaite language shares many similarities to the Hebrew language.”  Kevin Drendel The Ebla Tablets Confirm Biblical Accounts “The tablets include Sumerian Eblahite vocabularies with thousands of translated words. Also an ancient language…related to [the later] Hebrew and Phoenician.”

Abram was also probably familiar with Hurrian, an extinct N Mesopotamia language dating from 2300 BC.  And Elamite (cuneiform).  Ge.14:1-17 Abram defeated Chedorlaómer, the powerful king of Elam.  Bible patriarchs knew Akkadian, some Eblaite & Hurrian.  And Amorite too, an extinct NW Semitic Afro-Asiatic language (and an ancestor of Ugaritic?).  Ge.10:15-16 the Amorites descended from Ham’s son Canaan.  Abram dwelt in the plain of his ally Mamré the Amorite (Ge.14:13), near Hebron.

Ge.12:10-20 while in Egypt, Abram perhaps spoke Middle Egyptian (an Afro-Asiatic language) with Pharaoh.  Ge.20:1-18 Abraham and an ancient Abimélech, king of Gerár (capital city), dialogued SE of Gaza (Ge.21:32-34).  There they possibly spoke an early form of Proto-Sináitic?  So-called “Philistine” territory was the SW coast of Canaan.  Those Philistines descended from Mizraim/Egypt, son of Ham.  Ge.10:13-14 “Mizraim begot Pathrúsim and Caslúhim, from whom came the Philistines, and Caphtorím.”  Josephus op.cit. 1:6:2 “All the children of Mizraim, eight in number, possessed the country from Gaza to Egypt; though it retained the name of one only, the Philistim.”  Ge.21:34 “Abraham sojourned in the land of the Philistines many days.”  Gill Exposition “For many years.”

Later the Israelites would say of their ancestor in De.26:5, “My father was a wandering Araméan [Arammíy h761, Syrian]”.  Referring to Abraham or Jacob.  Ge.14:13 “Abram the Hebrew” (Ibríy h5680) and grandson Jacob were from Eber’s line.  Abraham and Jacob (born c 1950 BC) had spent years in N Syria; both would have known Akkadian, Amorite, and Jacob the developing Proto-Aramaic.

Abraham told his servant, Ge.24:1-4 “Don’t take a wife for my son from the Canaanites, among whom I live; but go to my country to my relatives and take a wife for Isaac.”  v.10 “He went to Arám-of-the-two-rivers, the city of Nahór.”  Wikipedia: Aramaic “Ancient Aram…Syria”.  The city of Abraham’s brother Nahor was in N Mesopotamia, Syria-Turkey, 400 miles distant.  The servant brought back Rebekah for Isaac.  Ge.25:20 “Isaac was 40 years old when he took Rebekah, the daughter of Bethuél the Aramean of Paddán-Arám, the sister of Labán the Aramean [Arammiy].”  Ge.22:20-23 Bethuel, the son of Nahor, was Abraham’s nephew.  90 years later, Ge.28:5 “Isaac sent Jacob to Paddan-Aram, to Laban, son of Bethuel the Aramean.”  A form of primitive Aramaic was likely the dialect at the ‘plain of Aram’.  Jacob brought his wives Leah & Rachel from the old country to the Land of Canaan.

Laban was an Aramean.  Pre-Aramaic and pre-Hebrew are reflected in the same verse in Ge.31:43-48. “They took stones and made a heap, and ate there. Laban called it Jegár sahaduthá, but Jacob called it Galéed.”  They made a “heap of witness” c 1865 BC at Mizpáh of Gilead, E of the Jordan River.  Laban called the memorial by a proto-Aramaic name, but Jacob called it by a precursor of Hebrew.  Barnes Notes “Here is the first specimen of Aramaic, as distinguished from Hebrew.”  Jacob would’ve learned both dialects in Canaan, Proto-Canaanite pre-Hebrew and his mother’s primitive Paleo-Syrian.

Codex 99 Proto-Sinaitic “Around 1900 BC the Proto-Sinaitic script began to appear in Egypt, the Sinai and the Levánt. Associated with hieroglyphic or hierátic signs. It was adopted by the Canaanites (hence Proto-Canaanite) and later by the Phoenicians.”  Omniglot: Proto-Sinaitic/Proto-Canaanite “Proto-Canaanite is a version of the Proto-Sinaitic script as used in Canaan, modern Lebanon, Israel, Palestine and parts of western Syria. It is also used to refer to an early version of the Phoenician script as used before 1050 BC, or an ancestor of Phoenician.”  Phoenicia was a 150-mile coastal region, Lebanon today.  (cf. Mk.7:26 “The woman was a Syrian-Phoenician.”)  Phoenicia included the cities of Tyre, Byblos, Sidon.  Ge.10:15 Sidón was the firstborn son of Canaan.

Ge.40:15 Jacob’s son Joseph was from the “land of the Hebrews”, peoples racially disliked by the Egyptians (Ge.43:32).  Descendants of Eber lived in N Syria and then Canaan.  After Pharaoh made Joseph a ruler in Egypt, Jacob/Israel and his sons’ families moved from Canaan to Egypt c 1827 BC.  see “Chronology: Abraham to the Exodus”.  Ge.42:23 an interpreter was necessary, since the Middle Egyptian language and the Proto-Canaanite (and the Akkadian of the Old Assyrian period) differed.

Joseph died in Egypt c 1757 BC.  The Amorite Hammurabi (1810-1750 BC) wrote his famous law Code between 1755–1750 BC in Akkadian cuneiform text at the ancient Babylon city-state.  He was the 6^th king of the First Babylonian Empire (1894-1595 BC), ruling Mesopotamia.  (Later, after Israel exited Egypt, two Amorite kings in NE Canaan c 1575 BC were Sihon and Og. ref De.31:4.)

While in Egypt, the descendants of Jacob/Israel became slaves and learned Middle Egyptian.  Ac.7:22 “Moses was educated in all the learning of the Egyptians; he was mighty in words and deeds.”  Ex.2:16-19 Reuél’s daughters (1600s BC) in the land of Midián thought Moses was Egyptian, from his speech & dress.  Moses spent years in Midian near Mt Sinai, where he was called by God (Ex.3:1-ff).

Ex.31:18 after the Israelite exodus from Egypt, the Decalogue at Mt Sinai was written by the finger of God.  In Canaano-Akkadian, Proto-Sinaitic/Canaanite script, Eblaite, hieroglyphic or hieratic scripts?  The Lord’s Old Covenant too.  F.F. Bruce Who Wrote Genesis? “A man [Moses] ‘learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians’ would have been conversant with the Egyptian hieroglyphic and hieratic.”

John C Lennox Seven Days That Divide the World, p.126 “The scribal use of cuneiform script spread from Mesopotamia as far as Canaan, Hazor [in Upper Galilee], and even Hebron [between Jerusalem and Beershéba] by the 17^th century BC.”

In the Land of Canaan after 215 years in Egypt, the Israelites/‘mixed multitude’ (Ex.12:37-38) of 1550 BC likely took on Proto-Canaanite.

Andre H. Roosma The Written Language of Abraham, Moses and David “The Paleo-Hebrew script developed from a script that was used in the W Semitic area during the 2^nd millennium BC. It is often referred to as Proto-Canaanite or Proto-Sinaitic script.”  The Israelites would then use the developing Old/Paleo Hebrew (and Phoenician) in the Land of Canaan.

The Amarna Letters (1360-1332 BC) are 382 tablets found in Upper Egypt, but written in Akkadian cuneiform script (not in Egyptian).  They’re correspondence between the kings of Canaanite cities and Pharaoh.  Wikipedia: Amarna Letters “The letters, though written in Akkadian, are heavily colored by the mother tongue of their writers, who probably spoke an early form of Proto-Canaanite.”  Not long before the time of Gideon in the book of Judges (6:11-ff).  see “Chronology: the Exodus to Samuel”.

There’s no indication that Paleo-Hebrew was spoken in Mesopotamia.  Cambridge Bible Ge.11:1 “That Hebrew was the primitive language….has been disproved by the scientific comparative study of languages, and of Hebrew and the Semitic languages in particular.”  Wikipedia: Canaanite Languages “Hebrew, Phoenician…derived from the Proto-Canaanite alphabet to record their writings.”

That brings us to the approaching end of the ANE Bronze Age, c 1200 BC.  Further archaeological findings may bring to light other ancient dialects and/or revisions to those discussed here in this topic.

The Paleo-Hebrew (Old Hebrew alphabet) script would become the language of south Canaan.  Is.19:18 “language of Canaan”.  Language historians say the Phoenician language was spoken in NW Canaan.  Old Hebrew and Phoenician were very similar; both contained the same 22 letters.  (Aramaic too has 22.)  Wikipedia: Paleo-Hebrew Alphabet “Like the Phoenician alphabet, it is a continuation of the Proto-Canaanite script, which was used throughout Canaan in the Late Bronze Age. There is no difference in Paleo-Hebrew vs Phoenician letter shapes.”

For more on Aramaic & Hebrew in the ensuing centuries of the Iron Age, see “Aramaic in the Bible”.

Mountaintop Experiences With God

Though God is with us Christians down in the figurative valleys of our lives, we long for those rarefied mountaintop experiences with Him.  Those days, hours or minutes when the Lord’s Presence seems so real, so close to us!  This topic is a revelation from October 2022.

In the pages of the Bible, we read of literal mountaintop experiences that saints of old had with God.

Let’s begin with Noah.  As the Noachian Flood subsided, Ge.8:4 the ark settled “on the mountains [har Strongs h2022, Hebrew] of Ararát” in old Armenia.  After exiting the ark, Noah worshiped God on the mountain.  Ge.8:20-21 “Noah built an altar to the Lord [YHVH h3068], he took of every clean animal and clean bird, and offered burnt offerings on the altar.”  Ge.9:1-ff God blessed Noah, and then hung His unstrung bow in the clouds, rainbow covenanting He would never again bring such a Flood.

Abraham had more than one literal mountaintop encounter with God.  When Abrám came into the land of Canáan, he surveyed the Land.  Ge.12:8 “He proceeded from there to the mountain on the east of Bethél and pitched his tent…there he built an altar to YHVH and called upon the name of YHVH.”  Abram worshiped there.  ‘Bethel’ means ‘House of God’.  It was situated 10 miles N of Jerusalem in the territory that’d later be allotted to the Israelite tribe of Ephráim (Jsh.16:1, 5).  After Abram’s sojourn in Egypt, he returned to the sanctuary near Bethel and again worshiped the Lord at the altar (Ge.13:1-4).

In Ge.22:1-18, Abraham is on Mt Moriáh (v.2, 14).  There the Lord promised him, v.17-18 “I will greatly bless you, and I will greatly multiply your seed as the stars of heaven. And in your seed [or offspring] all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.”  YHVH so blessed Abraham on Mt Moriah!  In Ga.3:16, the apostle Paul tied that “seed/offspring” to Jesus Christ.

Moses had a mountaintop experience with God at the burning bush in Ex.3:1-6. “Moses was pasturing the flock of his father-in-law Jethró, the priest of Midián. Moses led the flock and came to Horéb, the mountain of God.”  Midian was S of Israel, in the NW Arabian peninsula E of the Gulf of Áqaba.  There YHVH made Himself known to Moses!  Barnes Notes Ex.3:1 “Horeb, a name given to the northern part of the Sináitic range.”  Bible historians think Horeb and Mt Sinai: were two names for the same sacred mountain (cf. Ex.3:1, 12, 19:18, De.4:15, Ex.31:18, 1Ki.8:9); or they were twin peaks in the same range; or one was the name of the entire range and the other was one peak in it.

Following the exodus of Israel from Egypt, Moses returned to Mt Sinai.  Ex.19:18-20 “Mt Sinai was covered with smoke, because YHVH descended upon it in fire; the whole mountain quaked violently. The Lord called Moses to the top of the mountain, and Moses went up.”  This was the great encounter where the Lord Christ told Moses His Ten Commandments/Decalogue/Testimony for His people!  We can only imagine how Moses must have felt atop the mountain!  Perhaps a minor earthquake occurred to signify that awesome event and the Presence of God to the people below.

Moses would again go up Mt Sinai, Ex.33:18-23.  Then YHVH said in Ex.34:1-8, “Come up in the morning to Mt Sinai and present yourself to Me on the top of the mountain”.  Ex.34:27-30 “The skin of Moses’ face shone because of his speaking with Him.”  After fasting for 40 days on the mountain in the Lord’s Presence, Moses’ face had become so radiant that the people then feared to come near him!

In Jsh.8:30-35, Moses’ successor Joshua was at Mt Ebál in the Promised Land. “Joshua built an altar to YHVH the God of Israel, in Mt Ebal. They offered burnt offerings to YHVH and sacrificed peace offerings. And he wrote there on stones a copy of the law of Moses.”  Joshua’s actions fulfilled the instructions of De.27:1-8.  There on stones in the Land, the Lord’s precepts could be read & understood.

Some Bible historians think only the Ten Commandments were inscribed on those plastered memorial stones.  Others think the inscription consisted of only the blessings & curses that are contained in the Law; not the entire Toráh/Péntateuch.  However, a copy of the earlier 1750 BC Code of Hammurábi’s 282 laws contains 4,130 lines of Akkádian cúneiform text all engraved on a 7-ft tall basalt stéle.

Mt Zión too is called God’s mountain.  Ps.48:1-2 “Great is the Lord. In the city [Jerusalem] of our God, His holy mountain; is Mt Zion.”  Later in Israel’s history, the tabernacle of David was pitched on Mt Zion.  The Lord said in Ps.2:6, “I have installed my king on Mt Zion, My holy mountain”.  There near his palace, king David worshiped the Lord and wrote many Psalms.  He actually sat before the holy Ark of God in the sacred tent on Mt Zion, in His Presence!  1Ch.17:16 “David the king went and sat before YHVH.”  (see “Tent/Tabernacle of David” and “Zion in the Bible”.)  Ps.125:1-2 “They that trust in the Lord shall be as Mt Zion; which cannot be moved, but abides forever.”  Barnes Notes “The mountain which David fortified.”  Gill Exposition “Mount Zion is immovable, and continually abides.”

David later sacrificed burnt & peace offerings to the Lord at his altar on adjacent Mt Moriah, at the then site of Ornán/Araunáh’s threshing floor (2Chr.3:1).  1Ch.21:18, 26 “David called to YHVH and He answered him with fire from heaven on the altar.” (see “Fire From Heaven!”)  There at that mountain!

The Lord’s temple was constructed by Solomon on Mt Moriah.  2Chr.3:1 “Solomon began to build the house of YHVH in Jerusalem on Mt Moriah, where YHVH had appeared to his father David.”  At the temple dedication, the priests, Levitical singers and instrumental musicians praised the Lord.  God’s glorious Presence became so great that the priests couldn’t stand up!  2Ch.5:12-14 “The priests couldn’t stand to minister because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled the house of God.”  Awesome!

2Ch.7:1-3 “Now when Solomon finished praying, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices; and the glory of YHVH filled the house. And the priests couldn’t enter in because the glory of YHVH filled YHVH’s house. And all the sons of Israel bowed down on the pavement with their faces to the ground, and worshiped and gave praise to YHVH!”  Praise the Lord!

1Ki.18:19-ff is the account of the prophet Elijáh versus the priests of Baál at Mt Carmél in N Israel.  v.30-37 Elijah built an altar there, made a trench around it, pieced an ox on it, and prayed a 30-second prayer.  v.38-39 “Then the fire of YHVH fell and consumed the burnt offering and the wood and stones and dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench. And when the people saw it they fell on their faces and said, ‘The Lord, He is God; the Lord, He is God.”  God showed up with fire!  (Baal didn’t.)

1Ki.19:7-10 in the aftermath of the phenomenon at Mt Carmel, the Messenger of YHVH told Elijah to eat prior to his journey to Horeb, the mountain of God.  The place where Moses had the burning bush experience (Ex.3:1-ff).  Elijah then lodged in a cave at Mt Horeb.  YHVH told him in 1Ki.19:11, “Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord’. And behold, the Lord was passing by.”  v.12-21 in a soft whisper, YHVH gave him His instructions.  Elijah left Mt Horeb and anointed Elishá as prophet.

Later Isaiah prophesied in Is.2:1-3. “In the last days, the mountain of the house of YHVH will be established as chief of the mountains, and all nations will flow into it. Many peoples will say, ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord. That He may teach us His ways, and that we may walk in His paths.’ For the law will go forth from Zion.”  (cf. Mic.4:1-2.)  The time would come when Jews and gentiles will universally seek YHVH.  Benson Commentary Is.2:2 “The times of the Messiah, which are always spoken of by the prophets as the last days.”  More about this in the New Testament (NT).

The scene of Ezekiel’s grandest vision (approximately 572 BC) was on a high mountain!  The prophet Ezekiel was exiled to the river Chebár in Babylonia (not the 2Ki.17:6 Khabór in Assyria).  Ezk.40:1-2 “In the visions of God, He brought me into the land of Israel and set me on a very high mountain. And on it to the south was a structure like a city.”  It is thought the mountain could be Moriah.  Ezk.43:12 “This is the law of the house [temple]. On the top of the mountain the whole border around it shall be most holy.”  Ezekiel’s mountaintop vision comprises all of his book’s final chapters, Ezk.40–48.

Mountaintops on earth were the points (symbolically) nearest to God Most High in heaven!  Wikipedia: Sacred Mountains “The most symbolic aspect of a mountain is the peak because it was believed that it is closest to heaven or other religious realms.”  And majestic mountain scenery can naturally inspire a sense of awe!  Ps.121:1-2 “I lifted up my eyes to the mountains, from whence my help shall come. My help comes from the Lord, maker of heaven and earth.”  YHVH dwelt ‘above’ the most elevated topography of earth, the mountains.  In that sense, mountain summits approached the heavenly realm.  Bengel’s Gnomen Mt.5:1 “A mountain, as being a lofty part of the earth, and thereby nearer to heaven, is best suited for the most holy actions.”  Atop mountains, heaven and earth seemed to overlap or merge.

In the NT, Jesus, the Son of the Most High (Lk.1:31-32), communed with Father God on mountains and hills.  Just prior to selecting His twelve disciples/apostles, Jesus prayed at a mountain.  Lk.6:12-13 “He went out into a mountain [óros Strongs g3735, Greek] to pray, and spent the whole night in prayer to God. When daylight came, He called His disciples and chose twelve from them, whom He also named apostles.”  JFB Commentary Lk.6:12 “Here we find the Lord Himself in prolonged communion with His Father in preparation for the solemn appointment of those men.”  Perhaps Jesus spent close to 12 hours (cf. Jn.11:9-10) in prayer that night in the mountainside, praying one hour about each of the 12 disciples selected?

Most Christians know of Jesus’ famous ‘Sermon on the Mount’, when He spoke eight ‘Beatitudes’ or ‘Blessed Attitudes’.  Mt.5:1-10 “Seeing the multitudes, He [Jesus] went up into a mountain; and after He sat down, His disciples came to Him. He taught them, saying….”  Jesus spoke to them from a “level place” (Lk.6:17-22) in the mountainside.  That specific mountain is thought to be near the N shore of the Sea of Galilee, but to date it hasn’t been identified.  Barnes Notes Mt.5:1 “This mountain, or hill, was somewhere in the vicinity of Capernaúm, but where precisely is not mentioned.”

After He fed the 5,000, Jesus sent His disciples on ahead of Him in a boat to Bethsaidá on the other side of the Sea.  Mk.6:44-51 “After bidding them farewell, He went away to the mountain to pray. The wind was against them [in the boat]; at the fourth watch of the night [3-6 AM] He came to them, walking on the sea.”  They were frightened and amazed.  But when Jesus got in the boat with them, the wind & waves ceased!  This amazing event was immediately preceded by Jesus praying on a mountain.

Jesus’ ‘Transfiguration’ occurred traditionally either on Mt Tábor (Lower Galilee) or else Mt Hermon (Lebanon), according to Bible scholars.  Mt.17:1-5 “Jesus took with Him Peter and James and John his brother, and brought them up to a high mountain by themselves. He was transfigured before them; and His face shone like the sun and His garments became as white as light. And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, talking to Him. And a voice out of the cloud, saying ‘This is My beloved Son [Jesus], with Whom I am well-pleased.”  That incredible encounter occurred on a mountain!  Later, Peter wrote, 2Pe.1:18 “We were with Him on the holy mount.”  There they actually heard God’s audible voice!

{Sidelight: In scripture, only three persons fasted for 40 days and 40 nights.  Moses on Mt Sinai, Elijah while enroute to Mt Horeb, and Jesus in the wilderness at the beginning of His ministry.  ref Ex.34:27-28, 1Ki.19:8-9, Mt.4:1-2.  It’s more than coincidental that the same three were seen together on a “high mountain” in the ‘Transfiguration’ account!  Moses represented the ‘Law’, Elijah the ‘Prophets’, and Jesus has been called the ‘Living Word’ (tying the sections of scripture).}

Another of Jesus’s famous teachings is His ‘Olivet Discourse’.  It is seen in all three synoptic gospels – Matthew, Mark, Luke.  Wikipedia: Mount of Olives “A mountain ridge east of and adjacent to Jerusalem’s Old City. Several key events in the life of Jesus, as related in the Gospels, took place on the Mt of Olives.”  The Mt of Olives is one of the ‘Seven Hills of Jerusalem’.  Mk.13:3-4 “As Jesus was sitting on the Mt of Olives opposite the temple, Peter and James and John and Andrew asked Him privately, ‘Tell us, what is the sign that these things are about to be accomplished?”  Also Jesus would later ascend to heaven from the Mt of Olives (Ac.1:9-12).

After His resurrection, Jesus met with His disciples again on a mountain.  Mt.28:16-18 “The eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain Jesus had designated. When they saw Him, they worshiped Him.”  This may have been a mountain familiar to them together with Jesus.  Pulpit Commentary Mt.28:16 “Some have fixed [Mt] Tabor as the scene of this revelation, others the Mt of the Beatitudes.”

Our Bible ends with John’s vision of Revelation, given by God (Re.1:1).  At the end of the book, an angel showed John a future city.  Re.21:9-11 “He carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me the holy city Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, having the glory of God.”  The final vision of scripture was set on a high mountain!  (succeeding Ezk.40:2-ff.)  There John viewed the Bride of the Lamb, the Church triumphant!  The antitypic heavenly Mt Zion/Sión (He.12:22-24).  also see the topic “God Tabernacles With Humans”.

It may have come as a surprise to you that so many notable events in the Bible occurred on mountains.

We too may feel closer to the Lord when we’re up on a physical mountain, in quiet.  e.g. There’s a Mt Zion in Clallam County of Washington state.  Its 4,278-ft peak is a hike in the Olympic National Forest.

If we will continue to obey the Lord and follow His ways, He blesses & guides us His people to live our lives on the figurative high places!  De.32:13 “He made him ride on the high places of the earth.”  We’re watched over by God Most High.  Ps.121:8 NIV “The Lord keeps watch over your coming and going, both now and forevermore.”

Perhaps you too have had a rarefied mountaintop experience(s).  We’d like those special times with the Lord’s Presence to recur in our lives often.  But we don’t have it that way now.  Yet we can cherish the memory of those precious occasions when God was so near, so real!  And seek to draw close again.

I’m reminded of the Don Potter song (also sung by Paul Wilbur) Show Me Your Face: “Moses stood on a mountain, waiting for You to pass by. You placed Your hand over his face, in Your Presence he wouldn’t die. All Israel saw the glory, and it shines down through the age. Now You’ve called us to boldly, seek Your face. Show me Your face Lord, show me Your face. Then gird up my legs, that I might stand in this holy place. Show me Your face Lord, Your power and Your grace. I could make it through the end, if I can just…see Your face.”

Someday we will all see Jesus’ glorious face!  1Jn.3:2 “We will see Him as He is.”

By the grace of God, by His Son, and the lead of the Holy Spirit…may we remain faithful, unto the end.

 

Levites and the Exodus Multitude (2)

This Part 2 is the continuation and conclusion of “Levites and the Exodus Multitude (1)”.  Part 1 should be read first.  Little of the background material in (1) will be repeated here in (2).

In Part 1, three questions were posed:

#1. How did the lineage branch of Levi’s son Koháth (Jacob’s grandson), reckoned from that 1 man, become 8,600 male descendants early in the wilderness…after only 4 generations?!  Nu.3:27-28 “Of Kohath…the numbering of all the males from one month old and upwards, was 8,600.”  That’s an astounding increase in so few generations!  cf. 1Ch.6:1-3.  The lineage was traced in (1).

Levi and his 3 sons Kohath, Gershón, Merarí and their families moved with Jacob/Israel from the Land of Canáan to Egypt (Ge.46:6, 11) circa/c 1827 BC.

#2. How did the tribe of Levi, grown from his 3 sons, become 22,000 or 22,300 males from age one month and up…during that same period (215 years)?!  Nu.3:39 “All the numbered men of the Levites, from a month old and upward, were 22,000.”  An astounding increase!

Furthermore, during that same period, the initial 75-85 males (Ge.46:27 Septúagint/LXX) with Jacob & Joseph in Egypt increased to 603,550 non-Levite warriors age 20 and up, early in the wilderness (Nu.1:45-47)!  Exiting Egypt, Ex.12:37-38 “The sons of Israel journeyed…600,000 men on foot. And a mixed multitude went with them.”  Josephus Antiquities of the Jews 2:15:1 “The entire multitude of those who went out, including the women and children, that were of a fit age for war, were 600,000.”  Philo On the Life of Moses 1:27:147 “The men of age to bear arms were more than 600,000 men.”

#3. How did the 75-85 males become 600,000 after only 4 generations?!  Another astounding increase in only 215 years!  (ref Part 1 for the timeline.)  Could near 600,000 be accurate?  also see the topics “Chronology: Abraham to the Exodus” and “Israelites Identification”.

Following Jacob’s move into Egypt, Ge.47:27 “Israel settled in the land of Egypt, in the Góshen region, and became very numerous”.  Egypt’s Pharaoh said in Ex.1:7-9, “The people of the sons of Israel are more and mightier than we”.  ref Ps.105:23-24.  Perhaps they really did outnumber the Egyptians!?  Ex.1:22 so Pharaoh commanded for all Hebrew male babies to be cast into the Nile River.  Ex.2:2-3, 10 when Moses was three months old, his mother placed him in a basket and put him in the Nile.  Ac.7:19-21 confirms the infants were put out to die.  (Infanticide reduced somewhat the Hebrew population.)

Ex.18:21 Moses, early on the way to the Promised Land, was advised by his father-in-law Jethró  to divide all the departees according to thousands of people, or clans.

Yet in Ex.23:29-30 the Lord told Moses that He would drive out the wicked inhabitants of the Land of Canaan little by little, so the Land wouldn’t become desolate and wild animals be too numerous.  Apparently the approximately 2 million people (including women & children) coming in from Egypt to replace the wicked occupants wouldn’t fill the Land area.  Comparatively, in 2020 AD the population of modern Israel was 8.5 million…6 million more than the total exodus population approaching that Land.  Though ‘Hebrews’ had outnumbered Egyptians, the Canaanites outnumbered the exodus population.

Prior to entering the Land, in De.11:23 Moses told the next two generations, “The Lord will drive out all these nations from before you, and you will dispossess nations greater and mightier than you”.  In those days, a force of 600,000 men would itself be a great army!  But others had greater renown.  The combined armies/peoples of the seven “nations” were greater (De.7:1).  Nu.13:31 the Israelite spies said, “We can’t attack those people, for they are stronger than we”.  So they feared the Land occupants.

In Nu.20:17 & 21:22, it seems unrealistic that 2 million people (including women & children) could’ve traveled on the King’s Highway en masse.  Even if they walked on the road plain in ‘rows’ of seventy, the line of people would have stretched for miles!

Nu.3:16-20, Ex.6:16-25 and 1Ch.6:1-4 attest to the same number of few Levite generations, beginning with Levi.  There’s no indication that any generations were omitted/skipped.  see Part 1.

So, in light of the above passages (and those referenced in Part 1)…were there really 600,000 Israelite warriors, 22,000 Levite and 8,600 Kohathite males early in the wilderness?  That many?!  It is somewhat disconcerting that to date little or no evidence of a mass exodus totaling 2 million people in the wilderness has been found.  Perhaps continued archaeological efforts will unearth more evidence?

Following are three possible explanations for the large population numbers in the exodus/wilderness:

1.) Biblical numbers could’ve been misread or misunderstood by translators.  If so, there weren’t really as many as 8,600 Kohathites, 22,000 Levites, plus 600,000 soldiers then.  The Hebrew term for thousand is éleph (Strongs h505).  Eleph is also translated family in Jg.6:15 KJV.  But Jg.6:15 LXX, “Gideon said to Him, ‘My thousand [family KJV] is weakened in Manasseh”.  Did eleph really refer to a troop/family (instead of 1,000)?  For detailed analyses of this possibility, ref: John W. Wenham Large Numbers in the Old Testament, Colin J. Humphreys The Number of People in the Exodus From Egypt, Jim Snapp The Quest for the Historical Census, Clark Morledge Did An Army of 600,000 Israelites Conquer the Land of Canaan?, David M. Fouts A Defense of the Hyperbolic Interpretation of Numbers in the Old Testament, Ben-Zion Katz Recounting the Census.  It’s possible the numbers 600,000, 22,000, 8,600 were mistakes in translation from the ancient Hebrew.  However, 2,000 years ago the Jewish historians Josephus & Philo both said the number of exodus soldiers was 600,000.

2.) There were brothers or half-brothers in the generations, not listed by Moses in the Péntateuch.  For example, the later 1Ch.23:20 listing of Issiáh as a son of Moses’ uncle Uzziél may indicate that was the case.  Ge.5:3-30 said the ancient antediluvians had other unidentified sons & daughters.  Abraham had at least 6 additional identified sons not born to Sarah (Ge.25:1-2).  Some Bible historians and yeshíva teaching think the large population in the exodus resulted from polygyny.  e.g. c 1300 BC, Jg.8:30-32 “Gideon had seventy sons, for he had many wives. His concubine in Shechém also bore him a son, Abimélech. Gideon died at a good old age.”  (see “Polygyny – Lawful in God’s Eyes?”.)

3.) There were others besides Israelites in the exodus.  Included with the approximately 600,000 fighting men leaving Egypt (Nu.11:21) was a mixed multitude of people.  Adding women & children would’ve brought the total to 2,000,000 or so!  Nu.1:45-47 “All the numbered men were 603,550. The Levites weren’t numbered among them.”  Who all comprised this mixed multitude?

Ex.12:37-38 “A mixed multitude of people went up with them, along with flocks and herds.”  Others also left Egypt with biological Israelites.  JFB Commentary Ex.12:38 “A great rabble’ (see also Nu 11:4; De 29:11); slaves, persons in the lowest grades of society, partly natives and partly foreigners, bound close to them as companions in misery, and gladly availing themselves of the opportunity to escape.”  Ellicott Commentary “Some may have been Egyptians, impressed by the recent miracles; some foreigners held to servitude, like the Israelites, and glad to escape their masters.”  LXX NETS “A great mixed crowd went up with them.”  So many non-Israelites also left Egypt in the exodus.

Cambridge Bible Note “Non-Israelites of various kinds are meant; e.g. Egyptians who had intermarried with Israelites.”  Since Israelite newborn males were thrown into the Nile River, there’d be a surplus of Israelite females to marry Egyptians or others.  In Le.24:10, Moses wrote of a man in the camp whose mother was an Israelite but whose father was an Egyptian.  So, Egyptian blood was present in Israelites.

The Bible uses patrilineal reckoning from the fathers (not the traditional Jewish matrilineal reckoning from mothers).  Nu.1:18 “They registered by ancestry in their families, by their father’s households, according to the number of names.”  Not according to the mothers.  Philo op.cit. “Among the mixed multitude were those born to Hebrew fathers by Egyptian mothers, who were enrolled as members of their father’s race. And some, also, who had come over to them by reason of the magnitude of the incessant punishments which had been inflicted on their own countrymen [Egyptians].”

Also, we read of intermarriage by Joseph c 1837 BC, 225 years prior to the exodus.  Ge.41:45 Pharaoh had given Joseph an Egyptian wife named Asenáth, the daughter of the priest of On (LXX Heliópolis).  So Joseph’s sons Ephráim & Manasséh were both half Egyptian (Ge.46:20).

Did Ephraim & Manasseh likewise take Egyptian wives?  If so, then Joseph’s grandchildren had mostly Egyptian blood!  (Ephraim & Manasseh were first cousins of Kohath, the son of Levi.)  Ge.46:27 LXX says Joseph had nine sons.  Jacob prophesied that the names of Joseph’s other (half-Egyptian) sons would be attached to the inheritances of Ephraim & Manasseh (Ge.48:5-6).  Early in the wilderness, the soldiers of Ephraim & Manasseh numbered 72,700 men (Nu.2:18-21).  Although they became two of the twelve tribes of Israel in the Land of Canaan, there was (much) Egyptian blood in their ancestry.

Note: Ge.50:23 Manasseh’s son was Machír.  Machir’s son Gilead (Joseph’s great-grandson) was of the same generation as Moses & Aaron.  Nun, the father of Joshua, was the same generation as Gilead.  Zelophehád (son of Hépher) was Gilead’s grandson. (see 1Ch.7:14-27, Nu.26:28-37, 27:1, Jsh.17:3.)

Ex.30:11-16 Moses was to levy a poll tax on the men of military age.  (This became the basis for the later temple tax.  cf. Mt.17:24-27.)   Ex.38:25-26 “The silver from those of the community who were numbered was 100 talents and 1,775 shekels. A half-shekel a head for those who were numbered from age 20 and up, for 603,550 men.”  This half-shekel tax for the tabernacle was taken from all non-Levite soldiers. (A shekel weighed approximately ½ ounce.)  Barnes Notes “The talent contained 3,000 shekels.”  So 100 talents of silver = 300,000 shekels.  Add the 1,775 shekels, and the total = 301,775 shekels.  This amount is exactly 603,550 half-shekels (békahs)!  It matches the population figure of Nu.1:45-47.  The amount of silver taken as tax appears to confirm the number of Israelite/mixed multitude fighting men.

{Sidelight: However, the 1,000,000 talents in 1Ch.22:14 would equal 3 billion shekels (at the rate used in Ex.38:25-26)!  But 1½ billion ounces of silver is unrealistic…it would be enough to build Solomon’s temple of solid silver!  Also, the 10,000 talents of silver in Est.3:8-9 would equal 30 million shekels!  That’s 15 million ounces or nearly 1 million lbs. of silver personally owned by Hamán!  An unrealistic amount.  It’s likely the weight of the shekel or talent had changed since Moses wrote Exodus.}

Early in the wilderness is Nu.3:39-43. “All the Levites from one month old and upward were 22,000….All the firstborn males from one month old and up were 22,273.”  The difference was only 273 males.  v.44-45 “The Lord spoke to Moses saying, ‘Take the Levites instead of the firstborn among the sons of Israel.”  The firstborn, who had belonged to the Lord (Ex.13:1-2), were redeemed…replaced by the 22,000 Levites.

But Nu.1:46 says there were 603,550 warriors from their tribes, age 20 and up.  If only 22,273 out of the more than 603,550 were firstborns…those were huge families!  603,550 ÷ 22,273 = 27.  Did each family average more than 27 sons?  Add an equal number of daughters, and that’s over 50 children per family!  But… most of those 603,550 weren’t ‘purely’ Israelites.

In the wilderness 39 years later is Nu.26:57-62. “These are those who were numbered of the Levites….23,000.”  So during 39 years, the number of Levite males increased from an approximate 22,000 to 23,000.  That’s an increase of only 1,000 in that generation.

Note: The male Israelites/mixed multitude age 20 and up (born in Egypt) died in the wilderness, except for Joshua & Caleb (Nu.14:27-30).  Excluded were Levites (Nu.1:47), males under age 20, and women.  Aaron’s grandson Phineás, in the 4^th generation of Kohathites after Kohath, was probably born around the time of the exodus.  Phineas’ bold intervention in Nu.25:7 didn’t occur until the 40^th year of their wanderings.  Phineas’ father Eleazár (Aaron’s son), the high priest, even outlived Joshua in the Land (cf. Nu.20:28 & Jsh.24:29-33).

What about past servants among the mixed multitude in the exodus?  Going back several generations….

In Ge.12:5, 16, 20:14, Abrám had many servants.  Ge.14:14 in Abram’s household (before the birth of Ishmaél) were 318 fighting men.  Plus he had other ‘house’ servants and those watching the livestock!

Ellicott Commentary Ge.14:14 “This large number of servants born in his house…added to the older men left to defend and take care of the cattle, proves that Abram was the chieftain of a powerful tribe.”  Barnes Notes “Abram had now a company of 318 trained men, born in his own house; which implies a following of more than 1,000 men, women and children.”  Pulpit Commentary “The children of his own patriarchal family, neither purchased nor taken in war, 318, implied a household of probably more than 1,000 souls.”  Abraham’s household was very large!  Ge.17:26-27 all the males were circumcised.

Ge.26:12-14 Isaac’s great substance.  Cambridge Bible Ge.26:14 “A large number of slaves and attendants.”  Ge.32:5-6 Jacob’s large household.  (Ge.34:13-15 indicates they’re circumcised.)  Ge.36:7 Jacob and Esau’s property was too great for them to dwell together.  Barnes Notes Ge.36:7 “What remained in the hands of Isaac was virtually Jacob’s, though he had not yet entered into formal possession of it.”

Ge.45:9-10 & 46:5-7, 26 “All the direct descendants of Jacob who went to Egypt with him were 66 in number; this does not include the wives of Jacob’s sons.”  Gill Exposition Ge.46:7 “No mention is made of servants, though no doubt many came along with him.”  James B. Jordan The Moses Connection “Abraham had 318 trained fighting men in his sheikdom. Estimates range up to 3,000 or more for his complete household. These servants multiplied and became those of Isaac and Jacob. It might have been 10,000 people who moved to Goshen.”  So…numerous servants also went to Egypt c 1827 BC.

Francis Peloubet Select Notes, v.27, p.319 “Also the servants, ‘Who were reckoned as part of the household, and were admitted to the covenant [of circumcision, Ac.7:8], and recognized as Israelites.”

William R. Harper The Old Testament Student, v.6, p.248 “Jacob took to Egypt the whole body of his servants and retainers. These dependents…were all included in the covenant of circumcision, gradually blended while in Egypt, with the blood-kindred of Jacob, so that all alike were reckoned Israelites.”

Jacob’s entire household, including circumcised descendants and servants, had numbered perhaps 7,000 to 10,000 souls.  They too went with Jacob to his son Joseph in Egypt (Ge.47:11-12) c 1827 BC.  There they intermarried with Egyptians & other peoples, and “multiplied exceedingly” (Ge.47:27 KJV).

Jacob died 17 years after moving to Egypt (see Part 1 timeline).  A great funeral cavalcade, including Egyptian dignitaries, then traveled 300 miles to bury him east of the Jordan River (Ge.50:7-10).

The people multiplied in Egypt (Ex.1:5-9, 12, 20).  They became a great mixed nation (De.26:5).  The exodus “nation” of ancient Israel/mixed multitude was comprised of a motley group of people, not one pure race.  They’d increased to 603,550 soldiers, excluding Levites, early in the wilderness (Nu.1:46).

As for question #3 posed at the beginning: With mixed marriages, the assimilation of servants, concubines to bear children, Egyptians and others who left Egypt in the exodus…the 603,550 number of males early in the wilderness seems feasible.

The apostle Paul wrote in 1Co.10:1-5, “All were baptized into Moses in the cloud and the sea”.  The entire mixed multitude, and their children, were symbolically “baptized” in the Reed Sea.  They ate the manna in the wilderness.  (Nu.11:4 is the last direct reference in the Pentateuch to the mixed group.)

There were 601,730 males 39 years later (Nu.26:51), after those over age 20 had died in the wilderness.

That younger generation of motley peoples (children of the mixed multitude) born during the 40 years in the wilderness, weren’t circumcised.  So after crossing the Jordan River, Joshua had all the males circumcised at Gilgál (Jsh.5:2-8).  Whatever their ancestry, the 601,730 males all became circumcised!  cf. Ge.17:26-27 Abraham’s large household of servants, etc., not of his ancestry, had all become circumcised.  (see the topic “Circumcision in the Bible”.)

The children of the circumcised mixed multitude then received tribal territory when Joshua apportioned the Land of Canaan for the tribes of Israel (Jsh.13–19).  There, more intermarriage ensued among tribes.

As for questions #2 and #1 about the number of Levites and Kohathites: With past servants and other peoples having been assimilated into Levite and Kohathite households (in Egypt)…it seems feasible the males among them could total approximately 22,000 and 8,600 respectively (Nu.3:27-28, 39).

In the Land of Canaan, the Levites/Kohathites (including Aaronide priests) would live within the various tribal areas (Jsh.21).  There, Levites intermarried with those tribes.  Samuel was a Kohathite (fostered or ‘adopted’ by the high priest Eli) who lived in Ephraim c 1100 BC (1Sm.1:1, 25-28, 1Ch.6:22, 26-28).  When the Lord split the united monarchy (1Ki.12:20-24) in the 900s BC, most Levites joined with Judah & Benjamin as the southern kingdom of Judah…the Jews.

Ro.3:29-30 Paul said that God is the God of both Jews and gentiles, circumcised and uncircumcised.  Again, Israel with the mixed multitude were all “baptized” in the Sea, and they all ate the manna (1Co.10:1-3).  The Lord didn’t discriminate in that regard.  Ga.3:27-29 “There is neither Jew nor Greek…you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you be Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed.”

Today Jewish Christians and gentile Christians are to be as one, all baptized in the name of Jesus.

As was the large ancestral mixture of peoples who exited Egypt, Christians today are a racial mixture. (see “Gentiles in the Bible”.)  And our numbers are increasing.

Re.7:9-12 “I looked, and behold, a great multitude, which no one could count, from every nation, and tribe, people and tongue, standing before the throne and before the Lamb.”  A mixed multitude from all nations cries out loudly, “Salvation to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb. Amen.”

The mixed multitude with ancient Israel was a historical type of the great mixed multitude of humanity to whom our God is giving salvation.  Praise God!

Levites and the Exodus Multitude (1)

This topic traces the ancient Israelites – starting with Jacob’s relocation from the Land of Canáan to Egypt, their population growth…into the exodus & wilderness with the mixed multitude.  My focus here is on the growth of the Levites and, in detail, the descendants of Levi’s son Koháth, the Kohathites.

The Bible characters in this topic lived far back in history.  Dating for their births & deaths is inexact.  The dates used are approximate, to place the Levite lineage in historical perspective.  The chronological framework is taken from Dr. Martin Anstey The Romance of Bible Chronology, v.2.

The patriarch Jacob, whose name God changed to Israel (Ge.32:28), had 12 sons (Ge.35:23-26).  Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, etc…Joseph, Benjamin.  The descendants of those 12 became the 12 tribes of Israel.  (also see the topics “Chronology: Abraham to the Exodus” and “Israelites Identification”.)

Jacob’s 3^rd son was Levi.  Levi himself had 3 sons.  Ge.46:11 “The sons of Levi: Gershón, Kohath and Merarí.”  These 3 sons and their descendants became the Levites, descended from Levi.

Moses and his brother Aaron descended from Levi & Kohath.  They were Kohathites.  Moses was a priest (Ex.24:6, 29:26, Nu.7:1, Ps.99:6).  Later, only Aaron and his descendants among the Levites were priests.  Not all Levites or Kohathites became priests (Nu.4:17-20, 16:1-3); only the clan of Aaron did.

Ge.41:41 Jacob’s 11^th son Joseph became ruler of Egypt under Pharaoh.  Ge.46:5-27 Jacob, his sons and their families, went to join Joseph in Egypt circa (c) 1827 BC.  Ge.41:27 Septúagint/LXX “The sons of Joseph, born to him in Egypt, were 9; all the souls of the house of Jacob who came with Joseph into Egypt, were 75.”  Ac.7:14 has “75 souls”.  (Males, not counting wives.)  Ge.47:9 Jacob was 130 years old then.  His son Joseph was 39 or 40 (cf. Ge.41:46-47 with Ge.45:6), having been born c 1867 BC.

Ge.46:8, 11 Levi’s young 2^nd son Kohath and his two brothers (Gershon & Merari) went to Egypt with their father Levi & grandfather Jacob.  Joseph, age 40, would live on for 70 more years, until age 110 (Ge.50:26), until c 1757 BC.  Kohath was in Egypt during those 70 years that Joseph was still alive.

Nu.26:57-59 “Kohath became the father of Amrám…Jochébed bore to Amram: Aaron and Moses and their sister Miriám.”  Kohath was Moses’ grandfather!  Kohath wasn’t a distant ancestor.  So Moses wasn’t born all that long after Joseph’s death.

Ex.2:1 “A man [Amram] from the house of Levi married a daughter of Levi.”  This may reflect the line of Levi as ancestral, not Levi as her immediate father.  Ellicott Commentary “A descendant of Levi, not a daughter in the literal sense.”  However, cf. Zec.1:1 “Zecharíah, the prophet, the son of Berechíah, the son of Iddó”, versus Ezr.5:1 “Zechariah the son of Iddo”.  Ezra’s account skipped one generation.  Moses’ Exodus account could’ve skipped generations, but it seems unlikely (as we’ll see below).

In scripture, Moses & Aaron were the great-great grandsons of Jacob.  Josephus Antiquities of the Jews 2:9:6 “Moses….Abraham was his ancestor, of the 7^th generation.”  Philo On the Life of Moses 1:2:7 “Moses is the 7^th generation from the original settler in the country [Abraham].”

Abraham–Isaac–Jacob–Levi/Joseph–Kohath–Amram–Moses/Aaron…the 7 generations.  No skips.

1Ch.23:15 Moses had 2 sons, Gershóm (not Gershon) and Eliézer.  Ex.6:23 Moses’ brother Aaron had 4 sons: Nadáb, Abihú, Eleazár, Ithamár.  When Aaron later died in the wilderness, Eleazar replaced him as the high priest (Nu.20:28).  Eleazar’s son was Phinehás (Ex.6:25).

(Kohath)–Amram–Aaron/Moses–Eleazar–Phinehas…that’s only 4 generations of Kohathites, born after Jacob or Israel moved to Egypt.  Ex.18:1-6 soon after the exodus, Moses’ Midianite wife Zipporáh and their 2 sons rejoined Moses in the wilderness.  Moses’ sons Gershom & Eliezer were half-Midianite.

After the exodus, Nu.3:27-28 is early in the wilderness. “Of Kohath…the number of all the males from one month old and upwards, was 8,600.”  What!?  That’s an astounding increase in so few generations!

Here’s a question: How could the branch of Kohath (Levi’s son), reckoned from that 1 man, increase to 8,600 male descendants…after only 4 generations?!  Continuing with the Levite Kohathites….

Ex.6:18, 20 “The sons of Kohath: Amram, Izhár, Hebrón, Uzziél. The years of Kohath’s life were 133 years….Amram married Jochebed, and she bore him Aaron and Moses.”  Moses’ mother Jochebed was a relative (LXX 1^st cousin) of her husband Amram.  “The years of Amram’s life were 137 years [LXX NETS 136].”  Levi/Joseph–Kohath–Amram–Moses…that’s 4 generations.  1Ch.6:1-3 confirms those 4.

Humans were longer-lived in those days than now.  Of Kohath’s 133 years, again, 70 of them were spent with Joseph in Egypt (c 1827–1757 BC).  The traditional (supposed) Book of Jasher 68:29 indicates that elderly Kohath was still alive in the 1690s BC (when Moses was named)!  So perhaps Kohath was born c 1830 BC.  If so, he would’ve been age 3 when they went from Canaan to Egypt c 1827 BC.  That would make Kohath age 73 when his uncle Joseph died c 1757 BC.

Kohath’s firstborn son Amram (Moses’ father) may have been born c 1811 BC, when Kohath was 19.  If so, Amram’s death at age 136 or 137 was c 1675 BC (still decades prior to the exodus).  Amram would’ve been age 54 when Joseph died c 1757 BC.  Pulpit Commentary Ex.6:18 “Amram would have been contemporary with Joseph for above 50 years.”

Dead Sea Scrolls 4Q545 “The writing of the words of the vision of Amram, son of Qahat [Kohath], son of Levi, all that he has explained to his sons…on the day of his death in the year 136 – the year of his death [Amram’s]. In the year 152 of the exile of Israel in Egypt. Also it came to him to call Uzziel, his younger brother, and gave him Miriam his 30-year-old daughter for wife. He sent to call Aaron his 20-year-old son [3 years older than Moses]…I will explain to you your names that he wrote for Moses.”  Accordingly, 152 years after the 1827 BC relocation from Canaan to Egypt was 1675 BC.

The birth of Moses, Amram’s youngest child, c 1692 BC, was only 65 years after Joseph died (c 1757 BC)!  Philip Mauro The Wonders of Bible Chronology, p.40 “The interval between the death of Joseph and the birth of Moses was 64 years.”  Calculating the above 4Q545 elapsed time, Amram would’ve been age 106 when Miriam was born, 116 at Aaron’s birth, 119 at Moses’ birth!  Miriam was around 13 when she spoke with Pharaoh’s daughter at the Nile River regarding baby Moses, Ex.2:1-10.

For those ancient Levites to father children at such advanced ages seems too old by today’s standards.  But people lived longer in those days, and could maintain their life force.  Jacob died at age 147, Levi at age 137 (Ex.6:16), Kohath at age 133, Amram at 136 or 137, Aaron at 123 (Nu.33:39).  De.34:7 “Moses was 120 years old when he died; his eye was not dim nor his vigor abated.”  Even at age 120, Moses didn’t experience the infirmities of age that are prevalent today.  He maintained his vigor!  For that matter, Isaac was 60 when his twins Jacob & Esau were born (Ge.25:26).  Jacob was 90 when he fathered Joseph, and near 100 when he fathered Benjamin!  (ref Ge.47:9 Joseph was near 40 when his father Jacob, at age 130, came to Egypt.)

Ex.12:40 LXX “The children of Israel, while they sojourned in the land of Egypt and the land of Canaan, was 430 years.”  The Masoretic text omits “and the land of Canaan”.  But the accounts in the Samaritan Pentateuch, the Talmud and Josephus all agree with the LXX.  Josephus op. cit. 2:15:2 “They left Egypt 430 years after Abraham came into Canaan, but 215 years only after Jacob removed into Egypt. It [the exodus] was the 80^th year of Moses.”  They stayed 215 years in Canaan and 215 years in Egypt.

Gill Exposition “Certain it is, that Israel did not dwell in Egypt 430 years.”  JFB Commentary “The period of sojourn in Egypt did not exceed 215 years.”  Mauro op. cit., p.34 “The 430 years began with God’s promise to Abram, made at the time he entered into Canaan at the age of 75 (Gen.12:1-4).”

Since lives were longer back then, producing 4 generations over 215 years may be believable.  But producing only 4 generations over 430 years is unbelievable!

If Abrám was born c 2117 BC, he arrived in Canaan in 2042 BC at age 75 (Ge.12:4-5).  At age 100, Abraham fathered Isaac (Ge.21:5), c 2017 BC.  At age 60, Isaac fathered Jacob & Esau (Ge.25:26), c 1957 BC.  When Jacob was 130 (Ge.47:9), he and his moved from Canaan to Egypt, c 1827 BC.

Abram’s arrival in Canaan (c 2042 BC) until Jacob’s departure from Canaan (c 1827 BC) = 215 years in Canaan.  And Jacob/Israel’s arrival in Egypt (c 1827 BC) until the exodus (c 1612 BC) = 215 years in Egypt.  The total of both = 430 years…2042–1612 BC.  (see “Chronology: Abraham to the Exodus”.)

Also, 4 generations of Kohathites lived during the 215 years in Egypt.  Kohath–Amram–Aaron/Moses–Eleazar (and into the wilderness).  Returning to the Levite/Kohathites….

Nu.3:19 “The sons of Kohath: Amram and Izhar, Hebron and Uzziel.”  Besides Amram (the father of Moses & Aaron), Kohath had 3 other sons.  Kohath’s 2^nd son was Izhar (uncle to Moses & Aaron).

Nu.16:1-4 also confirms 4 generations.  (No skips.)  “Now Kórah, the son of Izhar, the son of Kohath, the son of Levi…incited rebellion against Moses and Aaron, and said, ‘Why do you exalt yourselves?”  Izhar’s son Korah was Moses’ 1^st cousin!  Korah, being a near relative, thought he should have more input or authority.  But because of his insurrection, Korah died in an earthquake or sinkhole (Nu.16:32).

Nu.3:27-29 “Of Kohath was the family of the Amramites, the family of the Izharites, the family of the Hebronites and the family of the Uzzielites.”  To repeat, Kohath’s 4 sons (born in Egypt) were: Amram, Izhar, Hebron, Uzziel.  Kohath’s grandsons, which include Moses & Aaron, were also born in Egypt.  Kohath’s great-grandsons, which include the 6 sons of Moses/Aaron, also were born before the exodus.

Again, the (priestly) line in 1Ch.6:1-3 confirms the generations of descent from Levi & Kohath. “The sons of Levi were Gershon, Kohath and Merari.  The sons of Kohath were Amram, Izhar, Hebron and Uzziel. The children of Amram were Aaron, Moses and Miriam. And the sons of Aaron were Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar and Ithamar.”  The Kohathite Aaron and his descendants became the priests in Israel.

So these genealogies in Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, 1Chronicles agree.  It appears that no generations were skipped in those scriptural accounts.

Early in the wilderness, the Kohathites from the ages of 30 to 50 totaled 2,750 men (Nu.4:34-37).  And Kohathites from the age of one month and up totaled 8,600 men (Nu.3:27-28).  Again, Kohath’s branch (which included Aaron & the priests) had increased from 1 to 8,600 males after only 4 generations!

Tracing further the Levite Kohath’s descendants…Ex.6:20-21 Moses/Aaron’s uncle Izhar had 3 sons; Korah (Nu.16:1), Népheg, Zichrí.  Ex.6:22 & Le.10:4 Moses/Aaron’s uncle Uzziel had 3 sons; Mishaél or Micháh, Elzaphán, Sithrí.  Perhaps a 4^th son of Uzziel was Issiáh (1Ch.23:20)?  I’ll include him in the count.  1Ch.23:19 Moses/Aaron’s uncle Hebron had 4 sons; Jeriáh, Amariáh, Jahaziél, Jekámeam.

So Moses & Aaron had 11 male paternal first cousins, most or all of whom lived into the exodus.

Including Moses & Aaron, this would result in only 13 male Kohathites in Moses/Aaron’s generation!  Kohath was their grandfather.  The 13 male first cousins were: Moses, Aaron, Korah, Nepheg, Zichri, Mishael or Michah, Elzaphan, Sithri, Issiah (possibly), Jeriah, Amariah, Jahaziel, Jekameam.

Female paternal cousins, daughters of one’s father’s siblings, would become part of whatever clan they married into (unless she married her own cousin, a grandson of Kohath).  Female maternal cousins, daughters of one’s mother’s siblings, wouldn’t be Kohathites (unless an aunt married one of Kohath’s four sons).

The Bible uses patrilineal reckoning from the fathers (not the traditional Jewish matrilineal reckoning from mothers).  Nu.1:18 “They registered by ancestry in their families, by their father’s households, according to the number of names.”  Not according to the mothers.

Again, the Kohathite generation previous to Moses/Aaron consisted of Amram, Izhar, Uzziel, Hebron.  Those 4 brothers most likely died in Egypt; none of them living into the exodus & wilderness.

The 13 male Kohathites in Moses & Aaron’s generation had sons.  1Ch.23:15 Moses had 2 sons; Gershom, Eliezer.  Ex.6:23 Aaron had 4 sons; Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar, Ithamar.  Ex.6:24 cousin Korah had 3 sons; Assír, Elkanáh, Abiasáph.

The cousins Moses, Aaron, Korah had 9 sons between them.  Scripture doesn’t tell us the number of sons had by the other 10 first cousins.  We can speculate or estimate that 10 other cousins had maybe 40 sons between them?  If so, there were close to 50 males in the next generation of Kohathites.

Possibly the 13 males in Moses/Aaron’s generation all lived into the wilderness.  (Nu.16:32 Korah died in the wilderness earthquake or sinkhole.)  Add to the 13 the perhaps 50 sons they had…the males still alive from 3 generations of Kohathites then totaled only 63.  Amram’s generation = 0; Aaron/Moses’ generation = 13; Eleazar/Gershom’s generation = est. 50.  Total = est. 63.

We don’t know how many grandsons Moses, Aaron and the other 11 first cousins had.  Ex.6:25 Aaron’s son Eleazar had a son named Phinehas.  Nu.25:7 “Phinehas the son of Eleazar the son of Aaron the priest.”  Only a few grandsons of the 13 Kohathite cousins are identified in scripture.

Even if the 13 first cousins had 50 sons who had 350 sons of their own (7 sons each!)…that’s only 413 total Kohathites.  413 = 8,187 less than the 8,600 male Kohathites of Nu.3:28, early in the wilderness!

Let’s now look at the other two Levite branches, besides the Kohathites.  Again, Ge.46:11 Kohath had two brothers…Gershon (not Gershom) and Merari, sons of Levi.  There were 3 branches of Levites.

{Sidelight: The 3 branches of Levites later had specific duties in the wilderness.  The Gershonites were on the west side of the tabernacle and carried its tapestry (Nu.3:23-26).  The Merarites camped on the north side and transported the tabernacle frames & support system (Nu.3:35-37).  The Kohathites were on the south side and transported the holy furnishings (Nu.3:29-31).  Moses and the priests (Aaron and his sons) camped to the east and served the sanctuary (Nu.3:38).}

Nu.3:18 “These were the names of the sons of Gershon by their clans, Libní and Shiméi.”  Gershon had  2 sons.  Nu.3:20 “The sons of Merari by their clans, Mahlí and Mushí.”  Merari also had only 2 sons.  Nu.3:19 again, Kohath had 4 sons.  All the Levites named here in Nu.3:17-20 died prior to the exodus.

I won’t trace the lesser lineages of Gershon and Merari.  (ref e.g. 1Ch.23:6-24.)  Yet early in the wilderness the total male Gershonites were 7,500 (Nu.3:21-22).  And the total male Merarites were 6,200 (Nu.3:33-34).  Adding in the 8,600 Kohathite males…there were 22,000 (or 22,300) total Levite males.  Nu.3:39 “All the numbered men of the Levites…from a month old and upward, were 22,000.”

Another question: How did the tribe of Levi, tracking from his 3 sons, become 22,000 or 22,300 males from age one month and up, during that same period (215 years)?!  What an increase from only 3 men!

Furthermore, during the same period of time, the 75-85 males (Ge.46:27 LXX) who were in Egypt with Jacob/Joseph increased to 603,550 non-Levite warriors age 20 and up, early in the wilderness (Nu.1:45-47)!  Josephus op. cit. 2:15:1 “The entire multitude of those who went out [from Egypt], including the women and children, that were of a fit age for war, were 600,000.”  Philo On the Life of Moses 1:27:147 “The men of age to bear arms were more than 600,000 men.”

So a related third question: How could the 75-85 males increase to more than 600,000 after only 4 generations?!

Were there strong aphrodisiacs in Egypt to heighten libido?!  Did each woman have dozens of children?

This topic about the Levites/Kohathites and the number of mixed multitude who comprised the exodus from Egypt is continued in “Levites and the Exodus Multitude (2)”.

 

Aramaic in the Bible (1) – Old Testament

Our Bible books were written in (at least) three ancient languages; Hebrew, Aramáic, koine Greek.  This two-part topic is about Aramaic.  Part 1 discusses Aramaic in Old Testament (OT) times, BC. 

Noah and his family survived the Flood (Ge.7:13, 8:15-16).  Ge.9:18 “The sons of Noah who came out of the ark were Shem, Ham and Jápheth; and Ham was the father of Canáan.”  Ge.10:22, “The sons of Shem were Elám, Asshúr, Arphaxad, Lud and Arám.”  Aram and Canaan were grandsons of Noah.

Josephus Antiquities of the Jews 1:6:4 “Asshur lived at the city of Nineveh, and named his subjects Assyrians. Arphaxad named…the Chaldéans. Aram…called Syrians.” 

Semític languages are named from Shem.  The Aramaic language is named from Shem’s son Aram.  Cambridge Bible “The people denoted by Aram were destined to exercise great influence. The Araméan language gradually prevailed over the other Semitic dialects, even Hebrew.”

Ge.10:24 Septúagint/LXX “Arphaxad begot Kaínan [not Canaan], Kainan begot Shélah; Shelah begot Éber.”  The Hebrew people were named after Eber.  Josephus ibid “Eber, from whom they originally called the Jews, Hebrews.”  Eber was the great-grandson (or grandson) of Aram’s brother Arphaxad.

Much later, a language in the “Land of Canáan” Holy Land would be called Hebrew.  Tel Aviv’s Bar-Ilan Univ: Daf Parashat Hashavua (No.112) “It’s clear from extant epigraphic material that Hebrew is a Canaaníte language.”  Aramaic and Canaanite are classed as NW Semitic languages.  Hebrew and Phoenícian are sub-classed as NW Semitic Canaanite languages.  All four are primary-classed as Áfro-Asiátic languages.  Aramaic would become widely used geographically in the Near East.

Wikipedia: Aramaic “Ancient Aram, now called Syria, is considered the linguistic epicenter of Aramaic, the [later] language of the Arameans who settled the area during the Bronze Age. Aramaic is a Semitic language. By around 1000 BC, the Arameans had a string of kingdoms in what is now part of Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and the fringes of southern Mesopotamia [Ac.2:9, 7:2] and Anatólia [Turkey]. Aramaic rose to prominence under the Neo-Assyrian Empire (911–605 BC), under whose influence Aramaic became a prestige language after being adopted as the língua fránca [common tongue] of the empire. Its use spread throughout Mesopotamia, the Levánt and parts of Asia Minor. At its height, Aramaic, having gradually replaced earlier Semitic languages, was spoken in several variants all over what is today Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, E. Arabia, Bahrain, Sinai, parts of SE and south central Turkey, and parts of NW Iran.”  Aramaic became the language of Mesopotamia.

Wikipedia: History of Mesopotamia “Mesopotamia literally means ‘between the rivers’ in ancient Greek. The oldest known occurrence of the name Mesopotamia dates to the 4^th century BC, when it was used to designate the land east of the Euphrates in north Syria. Later it was more generally applied to all the lands between the Euphrates and the Tigris, thereby incorporating not only parts of Syria but also almost all of Iraq and SE Turkey. The neighboring steppes to the west of the Euphrates and the western part of the Zágros Mountains are also often included under the wider term Mesopotamia. A further distinction is usually made between Upper or N. Mesopotamia and Lower or S. Mesopotamia. Upper Mesopotamia, also known as the Jazíra, is the area between the Euphrates and the Tigris from their sources down to Baghdad. Lower Mesopotamia is the area from Baghdad to the Persian Gulf.”

Prior to Aramaic, the main language of the ancient Near East was Akkádian, an East Semitic Afro-Asiatic language, now extinct.  Holman Bible Dictionary: Akkadian “Akkadian was the international language of diplomacy & commerce in the Near East before 1000 BC.”  Wikipedia: Akkadian Language “Its gradual replacement by Akkadian-influenced Old Aramaic among Mesopotamians.”  The ancient Old Aramaic period was c 1000–700 BC.  (Historians differ some in their period designations/dates.)

The OT term for “Aramaic language”, Aramíth Strongs h762 Hebrew (rendered “Syrian language” in the LXX), occurs 4 times: 2Ki.18:26, Is.36:11, Da.2:4, Ezr.4:7.  The term for a Syrian/Aramean person is Arammíy h761, 11 occurrences.  Aram h758 is both a man’s name and the Syrian region, occurring over 100 times.  Mesopotamia/Arám Naharáyim h763 (Aram-of-the-two-rivers, rendered Mesopotamia in the LXX), occurs 6 times: Ge.24:10, De.23:4, Jdg.3:8, 10, 1Ch.19:6, Ps.60:1.

Ge.12:5 Abrám (born c 2100 BC) migrated to the land of Canaan from Harrán (Akkadian “Harránu”), which was in the region of Aram.  Harran is in far south Turkey, 10 miles from the north Syrian border.

Abraham told his servant in Ge.24:2-4, “Don’t take a wife for my son from the Canaanites, among whom I live; but go to my country to my relatives and take a wife for Isaac”.  v.10 “He went to Aram-of-the-two-rivers, the city of Nahór.”  The city of Abraham’s brother Nahor was in N. Mesopotamian Syria, 400 miles distant.  The servant brought back Rebekah for Isaac.  Ge.25:20 “Isaac was 40 years old when he took Rebekah, the daughter of Bethuél the Aramean of Paddán-Arám, the sister of Labán the Aramean [Arammiy h761].”  Bethuel, the son of Nahor, was Abraham’s nephew (Ge.22:20-23).  Then Ge.28:5 “Isaac sent Jacob to Paddan-Aram,to Laban, son of Bethuel the Aramean.”  Jacob later brought back his wives, daughters of Laban on the Syrian “plain of Aram”…to the land of Canaan.

Of the Israelites’ ancestor, De.26:5 “My father was a wandering Aramean”.  Referring to the semi-nomad Abraham, or Jacob.  Abraham and grandson Jacob (born c 1950 BC) had spent several years in Aram/Syria.  Ge.14:13 Abram the “Hebrew” (Ibríy h5680) descended from Eber.  The term “Hebrew”, Ibriy h5680, occurs 34 times in the OT.  But that OT term always meant a people, not a language!

Circa 1865 BC, Laban and Jacob made a “heap of witness” at Mizpáh of Gilead, E. of the Jordan River (Jephtháh later lived there, Jg.11:34).  Ge.31:44-47 “They took stones and made a heap, and ate there. Laban called it Jegár–sahaduthá, but Jacob called it Galéed.”  Laban the Aramean called the memorial by a pre-Aramaic word, but Jacob called it by a pre-Hebrew word.  Jacob had learned both developing dialects growing up in Canaan, pre-Hebrew and his mother Rebekah’s pre-Aramaic.

Later, God’s nation of ancient Israel knew the developing Old Hebrew dialect (and Phoenician) in the Land of Canaan.  In 1954 AD, Solomon Birnbaum coined the term “Paleo-Hebrew alphabet” for the Old Hebrew.  The Old Hebrew script would be used from c 1000–500 BC to record Biblical texts.

There’s no evidence that Old/Paleo Hebrew was spoken in Mesopotamia.  Cambridge Bible Ge.11:1 “That Hebrew was the primitive language….has been disproved by the scientific comparative study of languages, and of Hebrew and the Semitic languages in particular.”  The ‘Old Hebrew’ alphabet script became a Canaanite language of (south) Canaan.  Is.19:18 “language of Canaan”, Israel’s language. 

Historians say the Phoenician language was spoken in north Canaan.  Phoenícia was a 150-mile coastal region.  (cf. Mk.7:26 “the woman was a Syrian-Phoenician”.)  Phoenicia included the cities of Tyre, Byblos, Sidón .  Ge.10:15 Sidon was the firstborn son of Canaan.  Old Hebrew and Phoenician were very similar; both contained the same 22 (consonantal) letters.  Aramaic too has 22.  Wikipedia: Paleo-Hebrew Alphabet “There is no difference between Paleo-Hebrew vs Phoenician letter shapes.”

Wikipedia: Old Aramaic “Emerging as the language of the city-states of the Arameans in the Levant in the early Iron Age [c 1000 BC]. From the 10^th century BC, the alphabet seems to be based on the Phoenician alphabet. From 700 BC, different dialects emerged in Assyria, Babylonia, the Levant and Egypt. The Akkadian-influenced Aramaic of Assyria, and then Babylon, started to come to the fore.”  Circa 800 BC, Aramaic was becoming the trade language of the Near East.  It generally was spoken by Syrians, Assyrians, Chaldeans, etc., E. of the Euphrates.  (cf. “Patriarchs’ Bronze Age Languages”.)

encyclopedia.com aramaic-language “Aramaic is the general name for various dialects often difficult to classify.” 

Canaanite is the general name/class for the Hebrew, Phoenician, Moabite, Edomite, Ammonite dialects; these developed gradually and were ‘mutually intelligible’. 

Presently, no Old Aramaic or Old Hebrew inscriptions have been discovered that predate 1000 BC; all are more recent!  No evidence has been found yet as proof either script existed prior to 1000 BC.

Ancient Jews called their language Judahite (Jehudíth h3066), not “Hebrew” (Ibriy h5680).  Jehudith occurs 6 times in the OT: 2Ki.18:26-28, Is.36:11-13, 2Ch.32:18, Ne.13:24.  2Ki.18:26-28 Jewish officials in Jerusalem wanted the threatening Assyrian commander Rabshakéh to speak to them in Aramaic (Aramith h762), not Judahite/Judean, so as not to frighten people on the wall.  In King Hezekiah’s day, 700 BC, common Jews in Judah didn’t speak Aramaic.  However, the Jewish officials understood Aramaic, the language of diplomacy in the Near East from c 800 BC (after Akkadian).

Nowhere in the OT is the language of Israelites/Jews called the ‘Hebrew language’!  James F. Driscoll Hebrew Language and Literature “The name Hebrew [Hebraistí g1447, Greek] as applied to the language is quite recent in Biblical usage, occurring for the first time in the Greek Prologue of Ecclesiásticus [Wisdom of Sirách], about 130 BC.”  Not occurring until that book in the Apócrypha.

In 721 BC, the northern kingdom of Israel was deported to Assyria.  2Ki.17:23-24 “Israel was exiled from their land to Assyria.”  Aramaic-speaking foreigners from Babylon etc. were brought into north Israel.  They’d assimilate as the “Samaritans”.  (see the topic “Israelite Deportations By Assyria”.)

In 597 BC, the southern kingdom of Judah was taken captive to Babylon, the next empire.  Je.10:11 is in Aramaic…Jeremiah was telling his Jewish people what to say to their Aramaic-speaking captors. 

Aramaic was the lingua franca of both the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian (Chaldean) empires.  Israelites and Jews learned to speak Aramaic in their places of captivity beyond the Euphrates.  The Aramaic language was also called Cháldee (a misnomer?).  Easton’s Bible Dictionary “Chaldee is the Aramaic dialect, as it is sometimes called, as distinguished from the Hebrew dialect.”  Aramaic was also the official language of the Persian/Achaeménid Empire (559–333 BC), which followed.  The period of Old Aramaic (c 1000–700 BC) evolved into the period of Imperial/Official Aramaic (c 700–300 BC).

Wikipedia: Biblical Aramaic “King Darius the Great declared Imperial Aramaic to be the official language of the western half of his empire in 500 BC, and it forms the basis of Biblical Aramaic.”   

God inspired some scriptures of the OT from this time to be written in Aramaic.  The following chapters were written in Aramaic: Da.2:4b-7:28, Ezr.4:8-6:18, 7:12-26.

Of the total verses comprising Daniel & Ezra, 56% are written in Hebrew, 44% in Aramaic.  Jews then knew Aramaic.  Da.2:4 “The Chaldeans spoke to King Nebuchadnézzar in Aramaic [Aramith h762].”  Ezr.4:7 “The text of the letter was written in Aramaic [Aramith].”  To Artaxérxes, king of Persia.

{Sidelight: The Divine Name or Tetragrámmaton YHVH (h3068) occurs 6,500 times in the OT.  But the Name never occurs in any of the OT Aramaic chapters.  It seems that Daniel and Ezra weren’t ‘sacred name’ advocates who thought that God’s (Old Hebrew) Name must be commonly used!}

The hand from God even wrote in Aramaic the “handwriting on the wall” (539 BC)!  Da.5:24-28 “This is the written inscription: ‘MÉNE, MÉNE, TÉKEL, UPHÁRSIN.”  The words are monetary weights.  The wise men of Babylon spoke Aramaic, but Daniel could decipher the writing.  Wikipedia: Belshazzar’s Feast “The Chaldean wise men are unable to…interpret it. As Aramaic was written with consonants alone, they may have lacked any context in which to make sense of them.” 

Jews began returning to the Land of Canaan from captivity in 538 BC.  They returned with Zerubabbél, Ezra, Nehemiah.  These returnees brought the Aramaic language with them to the Land of Canaan. 

By the time of Nehemiah (450 BC), many Israelites and Jews no longer knew Judahite.  Ne.13:24  “As for their children…none of them was able to speak in the language of Judah [Jehudith h3066].”

The Holman Christian Standard Bible indicates they “could not speak Hebrew”.  Benson Commentary Ne.13:24 “The language which the Jews then spoke was Chaldee; this language they learned in their captivity, and after their return never assumed their ancient Hebrew tongue.”  Commoners didn’t resume the lip of Canaan or Judahite in Judea.  Pulpit Commentary Ne.13:24 “All the children [450 BC] spoke a jargon half Ashdódite and half Aramaic.”  (Áshdod was on the old Philistine coast.)

Ne.8:1-8 Ezra the priest-scribe read publically the Hebrew scriptures in Jerusalem on Rosh Hashánah.  v.8 “They read from the book of the law of God, translating so the people could understand.”  The returnees no longer could read the Judahite scriptures.  Pulpit Commentary Ne.8:8 “They translated the Hebrew words into the popular Aramaic or Chaldee.”  Ellicott Commentary “They naturally translated into the vernacular Aramaic dialect.”  Aramaic was the trade language of the then Persian Empire.

Some Bible scholars think that Ezra translated (or redacted) OT books into Aramaic/Chaldee.  Talmud: Sanhedrin 21b “In the times of Ezra, the Torah was given in Áshuri [Neo-Assyrian] script and Aramaic language.”  Juanjo Gabina How Similar Was the Phoenician Language to the Hebrew Language? “The ‘Paleo-Hebrew’ language is a Canaanite Phoenician language with writing. As evidenced by the Samaritan Torah that preserves these ancient [Old Hebrew] texts. According to tradition, Ezra adopted the square script of the Aramaic alphabet instead of the Canaanite Phoenician, nicknamed the Paleo-Hebrew [1954 AD], during the post-exile restoration of Israel in the 5^th century BC. When the Aramaic alphabet became the Hebrew alphabet, Hebrew parchments were written mainly in Aramaic characters.”

{{Sidelight: The Jewish philosopher Philo (c 20 BC – 50 AD) lived in Alexandria, Egypt.  Philo On the Life of Moses 2:5:26 “In olden time [450 BC?] the laws were written in the Chaldean language, and for a long time they remained in the same condition as at first, not changing their language.”  Then prior to 132 BC, Jewish scholars translated the OT into the old Greek version.  ibid 2:7:38-40 “In the case of this translation of the law, exactly corresponding Greek words were employed to translate literally the appropriate Chaldáic words, being adapted with exceeding propriety to the matters which were to be explained. If Chaldeans were to learn the Greek language, and if Greeks were to learn Chaldean, and if each were to meet with those scriptures in both languages, namely, the Chaldaic and the translated version, they would admire and reverence them both as sisters, or rather as one and the same….to go along with the most pure spirit of Moses.”  ibid 2:41:224 “The Passover is celebrated, which in the Chaldaic language is called páscha.”  Philo On the Embassy to Gaius 1:4 “This nation of the suppliants is in the Chaldaic language called Israel.”  Marg Mowczko The Septuagint “Philo refers to the original language of the Old Testament as Chaldean rather than Hebrew.”  Ezra had translated the OT into Chaldee?  (And Philo didn’t use the Greek term Hebraís, “Hebrew” g1446 noun, to refer to Aramaic.)}}

Omniglot: Paleo-Hebrew “By the 6^th century BC the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet was gradually replaced by the Imperial Aramaic alphabet, which developed into the Hebrew square script.”  The Ashuri script.

In 330 BC, Greece conquered the Persian Empire.  Greek became the trade language for the Grecian Empire.  No longer was it the Aramaic of the Persian Empire.  Koine/common Greek, a (Hellénic) Indo-European language, was now spoken.  Many Jews in the diáspora (dispersion) accepted Greek culture, becoming Héllenized and speaking Greek.  Some continued to speak Aramaic.  Most Jews in Judea kept speaking Aramaic.  During this period, regional dialects of Imperial Aramaic began to emerge.

Most Jews everywhere no longer knew the lip of Canaan, Old Hebrew Judahite.  So Jews translated all the OT scriptures into koine Greek.  This old Greek version was completed before 132 BC.  Literate Greek-speaking Jews in the diaspora could then read the OT text!  The old Greek version later became our Septuagint/LXX.  The LXX wouldn’t have been so needed if most Jews still knew Judahite.

The Grecian Empire lasted until the 1^st century BC.  The Roman Empire followed. The Greek language continued as the commercial language of the Roman Empire too.  (Latin would become the language of the Roman army and higher administration.)  Many Jews, Hellenists, spoke Greek.

This topic is continued and concluded in “Aramaic in the Bible (2) – New Testament”.  It notes the Aramaic Tárgums, Aramaic words seen in the gospel accounts, and traces Aramaic to the present day.

Genesis Principles Predate Moses

Several years ago I asked the Lord…How can we know which of His principles/laws apply to us today?

God impressed on me to look in His word prior to Moses to see which principles of God are evident that far back.  In the book of Genesis.  Before there was the nation of ancient Israel.  Before there was any Old Covenant (OC) or New Covenant (NC).  The name “Moses” doesn’t appear until Ex.2:10.

So I searched Genesis for (timeless) righteous principles of God…which we see carried-over into the OC in Exodus, and also apply to us Christians today and eventually to all mankind.

Predating Moses…God’s righteous standards for mankind and the Kingdom of God, and even glimpses of Christ’s gospel, are seen in the book of Genesis.  As we read between the lines of narrative, Genesis reflects examples of how to honor God and love our neighbor; how to live our lives, and how not to.  Lessons that apply to Christian living.

Reformed Church theologian Albertus Pieters’ Notes On Genesis “Whoever has learned the Genesis stories has learned all the chief things that can be known about God (apart from the incarnation of God in Christ)…of permanent institutions for the well-being of mankind; we have here the institution of the Sabbath, marriage, government, and worship.”  There’s much revealed between the lines of Genesis!

Genesis was written/compiled by Moses, inspired by the Holy Spirit (2Ti.3:16).  It tells of ancient gentiles.  Some of them applied God’s ways, while others violated principles of God and His Kingdom.

The Lord said of the gentile Abraham in Ge.26:5, “Abraham obeyed Me and kept My charge, My commandments, My statutes, and My laws”.  Also Wisdom of Sirach 44:20 KJV 1611 edition “Abraham kept the law of the Most High.”  Abraham was obedient to the Lord.  To be so consecrated in obedience, he surely had much faith/belief in God!  Jesus said to Jews who opposed Him in Jn.8:39, “If you were Abraham’s children, you would do the works of Abraham”.  Abraham the non-Jew applied God’s principles & laws, present in Genesis.  Long before Moses (400 years)!  Also ref the topic “Abraham Obeyed Which Commandments?”.

James Bruckner Implied Law in the Abraham Narrative, p.67 “Genesis is embedded with law.”

Later, God had Moses define, describe, elaborate on, and add to those godly moral principles/laws via codified injunctions.  Moses did so in the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy.

The Old Covenant for Israel/Jews contained God’s moral precepts & laws existing in Genesis, which Abraham obeyed.  But added for Israel were pilgrim feasts, tabernacle/temple rituals, sin & guilt offerings, etc.  (see “Added in the Old Covenant”.)  We read of no regularly recurring animal sacrifices prior to Moses/Israel.

However, in Genesis there’s no nation of Israel!  The first Jew (Judah) isn’t even born until Ge.29:35!

So the acts we read the gentiles in Genesis doing/not doing relate to principles of conduct for mankind in general (not solely for Jews)…predating by centuries the Old Covenant Law of Moses for Israel.

Doug Ward The Law of God in the Book of Genesis “This beginning portion of the Bible has quite a lot to say about legal matters. However, it often addresses these matters indirectly rather than in the form of explicit commands.”  There are laws of God present in Genesis between the lines.  cf. Ro.4:15, 5:12-13.

Here I’ll go through the book of Genesis, noting God’s principles revealed in it.  Again, Genesis reflects the Lord’s guidelines for man before there was a nation of Israel.  As we read Genesis, we’ll see actions, both good and bad, righteous and unrighteous…done by those ancient gentiles and non-Jews.

(As an exercise or for reference, you might divide a sheet of paper into two columns.  On the left side, list things/actions to AVOID.  On the right side, list things/actions that are scripturally right to DO.)

Ge.1:11-12 “Plants and trees bearing seed after their kind.”  From creation, kind is to produce kind in biogenesis (cf. v.21, 24).  Vegetation which may be eaten.  Hybrid crops weren’t authorized, nor are GMOs.  Genetically Modified Organisms pose yet unknown health risks; they may also affect allergies.

Ge.1:29 “I have given you every seed-bearing plant that is on the surface of the earth, and every tree which has fruit with seeds. It shall be food for you.”  Seed-bearing land crops are for food.  These do photosynthesis.  These aren’t funguses or algae/seaweed.  Mushrooms are a fungus e.g.; they live on rot.  Some mushrooms are carcinogenic.

Ge.1:27-28 “Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Have dominion.”  God gives to man the mandate to beget children (if physically able), and maintain the environment of the earth.

Ge.2:2-3 “God ceased [or rested, shabáth Hebrew] on the 7^th day from all His work. God blessed the 7^th day and sanctified it.”  It’s the first thing God made holy!  The sabbath is created for man, Mk.2:27.  Sabbath day rest is the recurring weekly sign which identifies that God/Christ is the Creator.  see the series “Sabbath 7^th Day”.

Ge.2:17 “The tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat. For in the day you eat it you shall surely die.”  To disobey God will result in death (cf. 3:6, 24).  God is to be obeyed.  see “Life and Death – for Saints” and “Tree Symbolism in Scripture”.

Ge.2:24-25 “A man shall join to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. They were both naked, the man and his wife.”  Marriage and sex between male & female is ordained.

Ge.4:4 “Abel offered the firstborn of his flock and their fat portions.”  This righteous gentile Abel (He.11:4) didn’t eat the fat portions.  Fat (and organ meats) wasn’t authorized for human consumption (ref Le.3:3-5, 17).  Eating fat is unhealthy.  see “Unclean verses Clean Food”.

Ge.4:8 “Cain killed his brother Abel.”  Murder is a crime.  We all know that.  Here, long prior to Mt Sinai and the codified law given to Moses/Israel.  (also see “War & Killing and the Bible Christian”.)

Ge.4:14-15 “The Lord said, ‘Whoever kills Cain, will suffer vengeance sevenfold’. The Lord set a sign for Cain, lest any finding him should smite him.”  Personal vengeance isn’t allowed (legal authorities determine who executes God’s vengeance, e.g. Ge.9:6 & De.17:6-11.  see “Governmental Loyalty for Christians”.)

Ge.5:22 “Enoch walked with God.”  The faithful (non-Jew) Enoch’s life pleased God, He.11:5.

Ge.7:1-3 “Take with you seven pairs of every kind of clean animal, a male and his mate; one pair of every kind of unclean animal, a male and his mate.”  The gentile Noah knew clean & unclean creatures differed.  God didn’t approve the unclean for sacrifice or as food; some are carcinogenic.  (Clean wild animals weren’t used for godly sacrifices…the six extra pairs of clean wild animals were for food!)  Ge.8:20-21 thanksgiving worship towards the Lord is done by Noah (through sacrifice).

Ge.9:3 “Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you, as the green plants.”  However, as some green plants are poisonous, some moving creatures are unclean/harmful.  The only creatures for “food” are (clean) moving/live creatures, properly bled.  Not creatures which die of themselves (“strangled”, Ac.15:29 KJV), not carrion or road kill, which attract parasites.  see “Acts 15 – Four Prohibitions”.

Ge.9:4 “You shall not eat the flesh with the life, the blood.”  God forbad blood as “food” (cf. Le.3:17, Ac.15:29).  “The life of the flesh is in the blood.” (Le.17:11)  Blood transmits disease.  Drinking blood is toxic to our system.

Ge.9:5-6 “Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man his blood shall be shed.”  A human justice system with governing law courts, even to include capital punishment, God authorized. (ref De.17:6-11, Ro.13:1-4.)

Ge.9:20-23 “Noah began farming and planted a vineyard. He became drunk.”  Farming and vineyards are fine.  But drunkenness/intoxication has bad consequences (cf. Pr.20:1).

Ge.9:24-26 “When Noah awoke from his wine, he knew what his youngest son had done to him.”  Dishonoring a parent or grandparent is wrong.

Ge.12:14-20 Pharoah.  Adultery is very wrong (cf. 20:1-18).  Adultery occurs when a married/betrothed woman has sexual relations with a man not her husband/fiancée.  see “Sexual Sins, Harlotry, Rape”.

Ge.13:13 “The men of Sodom were wicked, sinners against the Lord.”  Wicked sinners?!  Without law, there is no transgression/sin (Ro.4:15).  Evidently there was law and the transgression of it in Genesis!

Ge.14:18 “Melchisedek king of Salem brought out bread & wine; he was priest of the Most High God.”  Both king and priest.  This indicates there is no complete separation between state and church.  Here also is bread & wine, the forerunner of communion with Jesus.  (ref He.7:17 Jesus is priest forever in the order of Melchizedek.)  see “Melchisedek Order Priesthood” and “Bread and Wine in the Church”.

Ge.14:20 “Abram gave him [Melchisedek] a tenth of all.”  Tithing to God’s representative of church and state is done by the gentile Abram, the father of the faithful, Ro.4:16.  (cf. Ge.28:22 God hadn’t raised taxes in Jacob’s day; His rate is still just 10%.)  see “Tithe to Church and State”.

Ge.15:16 “The iniquity of the Amorites isn’t yet full.”  But if God didn’t have moral law in Genesis, they wouldn’t be guilty of iniquity.  Paul wrote, “Without law there’s no transgression”, Ro.5:12-13.

Ge.19:4-11 the men of Sodom said to Lot, “Where are the men [angels] who came to visit you tonight? Send them out so we can have sex with them’….Lot said to them, ‘Please don’t act so wickedly.”  Same-sex intercourse is wickedness (as is beastiality, sex with a different kind)!

Ge.20:7, 17-18 “Abraham prayed to God.”  Ge.25:21 so did Isaac.  Ge.24:63 Isaac meditated.  Prayer and meditation to God are good practices.

Ge.21:9-10, 14 Abraham sent away Hagár his wife (ref Ge.16:3) and their son Ishmaél.  Divorce may be done for just cause, as when continual disrespect/mockery or physical abuse is present. (cf. De.24:1)

Ge.25:8-10 “His sons buried him [Abraham].”  Isaac & Ishmael.  This reflects proper burial for the deceased.  Also seen in this passage is sons honoring their parents (ref Ex.20:12, Ep.6:2).

Ge.27:11-13, 19 Jacob lied to Isaac.  Lying is usually wrong; so is deception and notably false witness.  (cf. 27:34-36, 37:31-33, 39:14, 20, Ex.20:16, Col.3:9, Ac.5:1-11.)  see “Lying – Ananias & Sapphira”.

Ge.30:1-13 lists the four wives of Jacob (v.4), and their offspring.  Having plural wives simultaneously isn’t morally wrong, if they’re adequately provided for.  Jacob/Israel wasn’t an adulterer!  (see “Polygyny – Lawful in God’s Eyes?”.)

Ge.31:33 Jacob’s four wives had separate tents.  (However, having plural wives in most of today’s western world isn’t customary and isn’t recommended.)  Sexual orgies aren’t God’s way.

Ge.31:19 “Rachel stole the household idols that were her father’s.”  Stealing is wrong.  We know that.  Also, idolatry and having other gods is wrong (cf. Jsh.24:2)!

Ge.31:34-35 Labán wouldn’t search the saddlebags upon which Rachel sat during her period.  Again, blood transmits disease.  Contact with human uncleanness and sex during menstruation is to be avoided (ref Le.15:20, 20:18, Ac.21:25).  Menstrual sex can cause tubal pregnancy and cervical cancer.

Ge.31:32 “Anyone you find your gods with shall not live.”  Jacob was talking to Laban, Rachel’s father.  Speaking curses upon someone can have dire consequences…Rachel died young (Ge.35:16-19).

Ge.31:42 “The God of Abraham, the God of my father.”  The true God is noted here by Jacob.

Ge.34:1-2, 24-26, 30 Dinah.  Rape/seduction (not mutual consent or elopement) is wrong; violations may be a capital offense.  (see “Sexual Sins, Harlotry, Rape”.)  v.15-30 covenant-breaking is wrong.  (Here by Jacob’s sons; Shechemites did become physically circumcised.)

Ge.35:22 “Reuben lay with Bilháh his father’s concubine.”  She’s a secondary wife of Jacob, Ge.30:4.  Dishonoring your father is sin.  Sex with father’s wife is a wrong form of incest, Le.18:8 & 1Co.5:1.

{Sidelight: Yet lesser incest such as marrying your sister wasn’t disallowed.  Kindred endogamy was necessary for reproduction and environmental caretaking, as per Ge.1:28 & Ge.9:1.  However, it’s said that when Abrám married Sarah (his niece or half-sister), Ge.20:11-12, the gene pool was still deep and the risk of birth defects was less.  (Later, when the risk became greater, this too is prohibited, Le.18:9.)}

Ge.37:5-9 “Joseph had another dream.” (fulfilled in Ge.42:6.)  This shows that God gives valid dreams.

Ge.37:27-28 Joseph’s brothers sold him to traders.  Kidnapping is very wrong (cf. Ex.21:16).  Also, selling one into slavery against his will was evil (cf. Ge.50:20).

Ge.38:7-10 refusing to father a son for a deceased brother’s widow was a form of cruelty to women (the weaker sex).  A son would care for his mother in her old age.  Also seen here is wrong coveting.

Ge.39:7-12 adultery is a “great evil” (v.9).  Again, God’s moral laws existed in Genesis.  In this passage, a married woman tried to rape Joseph.  He knew adultery was sin (prior to the law of Moses).

Ge.45:4-15 Joseph and his brothers reconcile.  Forgiveness is seen; also respect and love of family.

Ge.48:5-6 from Jacob’s example, we see that inheritances for children/grandchildren are good.

Ge.50:21 “I will provide for you and your little ones.”  Joseph takes into account the welfare of others.

Ge.50:24-26 reflects honoring the memory of the deceased (Joseph, fulfilled in Jsh.24:32).

Even hints & prophecies of the Savior and the gospel predate Moses.  Ge.3:15 indicates the seed of the woman (not of the man) eventually would crush the serpent’s head…the future virgin birth of Christ the Lord is implied.  Also Ge.22:8, the Lord Himself to be the lamb/sacrifice.  That will be Jesus.

Also, 1Pe.3:20-21 relates baptism for Christian converts to the Genesis Flood (Ge.6–8).  By means of flood waters, Noah was saved from the evil so prevalent around him.  Peter ties this to the water of baptism saving believers, in the sense of figuratively cleansing their conscience.

Bruckner op. cit., p. 205 wrote, seen in Genesis is “…a full range of law implied and functioning from the beginning”.  Indicative of this are the three dozen godly principles I’ve noted in this topic survey.

These principles/laws are universal from Creation regarding gentiles; they predate Moses, the OC and the NC!  Since they are universal…Christians of all nations should ordinarily adhere to most today!

In Genesis we read of Godfearers who obeyed the Lord…non-Jewish men such as Abraham (Ge.22:12) and Joseph (Ge.42:18).  Job too was a Godfearer (Jb.1:8).  That was prior to the OC law for Israel, later codified in Exodus.  (also cf. Ac.10:1-2 Cornelius the gentile Godfearer.)

However, absent from Genesis (but part of the Levitical OC for Israel) were tabernacle procedures & ceremonies: e.g. sin/guilt offerings, pilgrim feasts, various washings.  Any such rituals aren’t seen or recorded by Moses in Genesis regarding righteous gentiles and non-Jews of old.

Yet God had moral laws from the beginning, in Genesis.  1Jn.3:8 “The devil sins from the beginning.”

This concludes our survey of God’s moral principles/laws seen in the book of Genesis.  The principles predate Moses’ later codification and they transcend the OC.

The topic “Ten Commandments in Genesis & Job” focuses specifically on the Decalogue/Testimony, as seen prior to Moses and the Old Covenant for Israel.

Polygyny – Lawful in God’s Eyes? (2)

This Part 2 concludes the topic “Polygyny – Lawful in God’s Eyes? (1)”.  Before continuing, I urge you to first read Part 1; it contains the foundational verses.  Please be advised…the subject is controversial!  

This topic is highlighting Bible characters and God’s laws concerning plural wives & concubines.  It doesn’t discuss the morals or differing marital laws of modern nations.  (Western customs fall short.)

Regardless of cultures, God defines true morality in His word.  He determines what is and isn’t sexual sin.  Laws of human governments, customary practices, beliefs of churches…may or may not reflect God’s morality.  (see the topic “Sexual Sins, Harlotry, Rape” for more about sexual immorality.)

Part 1 identified relative terms.  Our English word polygamy includes polygyny, one man cohabiting with plural wives; polyandry, one woman cohabiting with plural husbands.  The terms derive from the Greek poly/many, gamos/marriage, gyne/wife.  Polygyny was seen as a lawful option in God’s eyes; polyandry wasn’t!  (That’s not to say practicing polygyny is advised in modern Western nations.) 

Many men in the Bible were monogamous, one man cohabiting with one wife (at a time).  Divorce & remarriage is a form of sequential monogamy, otherwise called consecutive polygyny/polyandry.

Concubinage, from the Latin word concubina, was a respected polygynous marital option in the Old Testament (OT) and the ancient world.  It resembles heterosexual civil union, or having a mistress, as done in some countries today.  A mistress doesn’t have sex with plural partners (unlike a prostitute).

Godly and ungodly men of the Bible had plural wives.  In Part 1, we saw that Abraham, his brother Nahór, Abimélech, Pharoah, Job…cohabited with plural wives & concubines!  Jacob did too.  Those men were born prior to the OT nation of Israel. 

Christ was the God of OT Israel.  (ref the topic “Jesus Was The Old Testament God”.)  During Moses’ time, Christ gave codified laws/regulations to His theocratic nation.  Christ’s laws define His morality and marriage in God’s sight, adultery, and prescribe consequences for violations.

Part 1 noted: Christ’s law of concubines, war brides, levirate law so-called, and some Israelites who cohabited with plural wives/concubines…Manásseh, Caleb, Saul, Gideon, Samuel’s father, King Joásh.

John Milton (1608–1674) was an English theologian, statesman and poet.  His best-known work is the epic poem Paradise Lost.  Milton was a Puritan; they generally held very strict morals.  But some of his personal Bible beliefs were ‘unconventional’.  To quote from the manuscript of Milton’s theological treatise De Doctrina Christiana: “Either polygamy [polygyny] is a true marriage, or all children born in that state are spurious; which would include the whole race of Jacob [Israel], the twelve holy tribes chosen by God.”  Ancient Israel, the people Christ loved, didn’t come from a progenitor living in sin!

Here in Part 2, we’ll note a few other polygynists in scripture, and look at New Testament (NT) verses. 

Moses had more than one wife.  Ex.2:21 he married Zipporáh, daughter of the priest of Midián (Ex.3:1).  Midianites descended from Abraham and his concubine wife Keturáh (Ge.25:1-2, 1Ch.1:32).  Nu.12:1 “Miriam and Aaron criticized Moses because of the Cushite (Strongs h3571) woman he had married.”  Zipporah and Miriam both came from Shem→Abraham…whereas the Cushite/Ethiopian wife was from Ham (Ge.10:6).  Moses was mighty and learned in the ways of Egypt (Ac.7:22).  Josephus Antiquities of the Jews 2:10:2 “Tharbis was daughter of the king of the Ethiopians; she saw Moses as he led the army [of Egypt]. She fell deeply in love. Moses consummated his marriage.”  She was his Cushite wife.     

Jer.13:23 “Can an Ethiopian (h3569) change his skin, or a leopard his spots?”  Leopard spots are black.  Black-skinned Ethiopians.  Miriam sounded racist in Nu.12:1.  In return, the Lord struck her skin with leprosy, as white as snow (Nu.12:10)!  John Milton op. cit. “It is not likely that the wife of Moses, who had been so often spoken of before by her proper name of Zipporah, should now be called by the new title of a Cushite; or that the anger of Aaron and Miriam should at this time be suddenly kindled.” 

Samuel Dennis Marriage from the Bible Alone “Moses [had] at least 3 wives: Zipporah (Ex.2:21); an Ethiopian woman (Nu.12:1); another…daughter of a man called Hobáb who wasn’t Zipporah’s father (Nu.10:29, Jg.4:11).”  The names aren’t completely certain.  However, Kenites preceded Abraham’s son Midian/Midianites (Ge.15:19, 25:2).  And Moses also had a Kenite father-in-law & wife (Jg.1:16, 4:11).

David was a great hero, Israel’s most famous king.  He had God’s Holy Spirit (HS).  ref 1Sm.16:13, 2Sm.23:1-2, Ps.51:11, Mk.12:36, Ac.1:16, 4:24-25.  This enabled David to walk in Christ’s statutes & commandments (1Ki.3:14).  1Ki.15:5 “David did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, and hadn’t turned aside from anything He commanded him, except in the matter of Uriáh the Hittite.”  David habitually obeyed the Lord (except in that one serious matter).     

Yet King David had many wives/concubines (2Sm.5:13, 1Ch.3:1-9).  His cohabiting with plural wives didn’t violate God’s morality!  It wasn’t sin in God’s eyes.  And Christ blessed David!  2Sm.12:7-9 the Lord gave David the wives of the deceased King Saul…the Lord would’ve even given David a larger palace and more wives!  And when David was old & weak, a beautiful girl warmed him at night (1Ki.1:1-4).  David loved the Lord (Ps.18:1); he was “a man after God’s own heart” (Ac.13:22).

John Milton op. cit. “The very argument which is used toward David [2Sm.12:8], is of more force when applied to the gift of wives, than to any other – you ought to have abstained from the wife of another person [Uriah].”  Christ’s gift of wives to David.

David’s son Solomon also had wives/concubines (Ec.2:8 NASB, JPS Tanakh, etc.).  1Ki.11:1-4 but King Solomon multiplied heathen wives through political marriages.  De.17:15-17 the king of Israel wasn’t to maintain a large harem of heathen women!  John Milton ibid “Deut.17:16-17 is so far from condemning polygamy [polygyny]… and only imposes the same restraints upon this condition which are laid upon the multiplication of horses, or the accumulation of treasure.”  A king was expected to have more than one horse, more than one ring/bar of gold…or wife!  Parallelism.  Solomon erred by marrying ungodly foreign women.  As a result, his heart later sought pagan gods.  Whereas the heart of his father David remained devoted to the Lord (1Ki.11:33-34), even though David had several Israelite wives.

Esther the Jewess was the king of Persia’s favorite wife, in the 400s BC.  Est.2:8-17 she became queen of Persia.  v.14 he also made many concubines of the virgins.  Polygyny was an accepted legal practice in the ancient Near East.  In scripture, neither the Persian king nor Esther committed adultery.

Christ, the God of OT Israel, Himself had two wives!  What?!  The Lord declared of Israel and Judah in Je.3:11-14 KJV, “I Am married to you”.  God Himself became figuratively married to two nations.  Is.54:5 “Your Maker is your Husband…the Holy One of Israel.”  The word of the Lord came in Ezk.23:  v.1-4 “There were two women. Their [allegorical] names were Oholáh the elder and Oholibáh her sister. And they became Mine, and bore sons and daughters.”  But God’s two OT wives became adulteresses (v.36-37).  So the Lord gave Israel a bill of divorce (Je.3:8, De.24:1), and later sent away Judah captive.

Daniel I. Block wrote in his OT Commentary, p.736 “Yahweh’s bigamy is all the more striking.”  Maurice Nelson The Monogamy Lie! “God’s polygyny is figurative, not literal…The church finds itself in a bit of a quandary, when God claims, in the Bible, that He is engaging in a supposedly ‘sinful’ act [polygyny]. It is ludicrous to believe that God would portray Himself participating in a sin as a method to teach us not to sin. God [was] the polygynous husband of two women who have cheated [Ezk.23:36-37] on their Husband (God) by pursuing other gods.”  Christ Himself is a figurative polygynist!

Moody Bible Institute Professor of Theology William F. Luck The Morality of Biblical Polygyny, p.51 “If it is a sin to be a polygamist, then God has referred to Himself as a Being with a character flaw.”

Ps.45:6-15 is a Messianic psalm (v.6-7 is quoted in He.1:8-9), and types Christ and His church.  Ps.45:14 relates to Est.2:8-17, virgins going in to the king.  Cambridge Bible Ps.45:9 “One of the wives takes precedence of the rest.”  Benson Commentary “As the queen is the church in general, so these honorable women are particular believers, added daily to the church.”  Jesus is figuratively betrothed to each believer!  2Co.11:2 Paul the apostle wrote to the church, “I betrothed you to one husband, Christ”.

Many theologians view the Song of Solomon not only as a human love story but also as a type of the spiritual love Christ has for His Bride, the church.  SSol.6:8-9 “There are 60 queens and 80 concubines, but my dove is unique.”  Christ marrying His Bride(s) was here typified by Solomon and his 141 wives!  John Milton op. cit. “In Canticles 6:8-10 [SSol.6:8-10], the queens and concubines are evidently mentioned with honor.”  This minimally prefigures 2Co.11:2.  Eventually Christ ‘marries’ way more than 141 Christians!  (Note: Again, Solomon later wrongly engaged in political marriages with pagan women who drew him to other gods; 1Ki.11:1-4 indicates 1,000 total women, not just 141 Israelitesses.)

Paul wrote in Ep.5:30-32, “For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother, and be joined to his wife; and the two shall become one flesh. This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church.”  The Greek term for church is ekklésia (g1577), a feminine compound noun which means a group or gathering or assembly of people.  cf. a ‘flock of sheep’.  Christ doesn’t marry only one person.  Each Christian becomes His figurative Bride, each spiritually becoming “one flesh” with Him.   

“One flesh” refers to unseparated or organic union.  Paul wrote in 1Co.6:16-17, “Don’t you know that a man who joins himself to a harlot is one body with her? For God says [Ge.2:24], ‘The two will become one flesh.”  In regards to a harlot even, who has many partners!  As a harlot has plural partners, a man could have plural wives.  Samuel Dennis op.cit. “So the married man who sleeps with a harlot is now ‘one flesh’ with his wife, and ‘one flesh’ with the harlot. He is ‘one flesh’ with two women. The ‘one flesh’ relationship isn’t limited to a monogamous couple only.”  It’s not exclusive. 

It is apparent “one flesh” in scripture isn’t only confined to ‘a man with only one woman’.  That was a sham restriction of pagan Roman culture (which in actuality was licentious).  Paul and Jesus referred to Ge.2:24 LXX, Adam & Eve as “one flesh”.  Jesus said in Mt.19:5 Good News, “A man…will remain united with his wife, and the two shall be one flesh”.  Ge.2:23 Adam said Eve is “bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.”  Ge.29:14 Laban said his nephew Jacob is “my bone and my flesh.”  Yet Esau too is Laban’s nephew!  Jg.9:2 Abimelech said via his mother’s relatives (plural), “I am your bone and your flesh”.  The (idiomatic) expression “my/your bone and flesh” didn’t mean a monogamous marriage.       

Mt.19:3-ff is about divorce, about remaining united, not about monogamy.  Lauren Heiligenthal Evaluating Western Christianity’s Interpretation of Biblical Polygamy, p.49 “Ultimately, Mat.19:3-9 does not explicitly emphasize the monogamist ideal nor does it exclude polygamy.”  (However, Jesus’ words in v.5 also indicate that for a marriage, plural wives aren’t mandatory; one wife is enough.) 

Moses wrote Ge.2:24.  He knew what God meant by “one flesh”.  Christ chose Moses to record His laws which authorized & regulated polygyny!  (see Part 1.)  And Moses himself had more than one wife.

1Co.12:27 “You [the church] are Christ’s body, and individually members of it.”  Each believer is His Bride, a spiritually chaste virgin to be one with Christ (2Co.11:2).  Mt.25:1-13 is Jesus’ parable of the ten virgins.  Five were wise.  Jesus is the Groom/ Bridegroom, and they are His Brides (plural)!  v.10-12 “The door was shut” refers to the entrance to the bridal chamber where a marriage was consummated.  (also see “Wedding Pattern in Bible Holydays”.)  In Mt.25 too, Christ depicts Himself as a polygynist.

Re.19:9 “Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.”  Christ figuratively marries virgins.  The typology corresponds to OT plural marriages (SSol.6:8-9).  Perhaps this makes more understandable 2Sm.12:7-8 where the prophet Nathan said the Lord would have given King David even more wives.  The King of kings, Christ Himself…had two OT wives, plus numerous NT Brides!    

Clyde L. Pilkington The Great Omission, p.62 “The [Bible] text speaks of the relationship between God and Israel, and later between Christ and the church, in polygamous terms.”  (Some writers use the terms ‘polygyny’ and ‘polygamy’ interchangeably, though there’s a difference in today’s English.)

The ancient Near East was polygynous.  Pagan Greco-Roman society marriages were monogamous.  But Rome allowed 1^st century Jews (and Persians?) to continue the (OT) laws & customs of their traditional marriages.  David I. Brewer writes, “Polygamy [polygyny] was undoubtedly part of life in 1^st century Judaism. It is now known that the middle classes also practiced polygamy. It is likely that there were few polygamous marriages outside Israel, because they wouldn’t be recognized in Roman law.”

The NT epistles were written to gentile areas which were under Roman law.  Paul was a Roman citizen (Ac.22:27-28).  As such, he didn’t put himself at risk by faulting Roman law or its ostensible marital monogamy.  And faulting might have increased division between Jewish & gentile Christians in areas.

Nathan Braun The History & Philosophy of Marriage, p.71 “The first Christians, while they themselves were scarcely tolerated, were not inclined to attempt a social revolution by opposing the established [Roman] system of monogamy; but they attempted to oppose only its vices, and to remove them.”

{Note: The NT repudiates religious prostitution, incest, homosexuality/lesbianism, adultery, polyandry, some consecutive polygyny (divorce & remarriage), pornéia or sexual immorality in general.}

Paul wrote in 1Ti.3:2, 12, Ti.1:6 that church leaders (Jewish & gentile) should be the “husband of one wife”.  This advice wouldn’t put leaders at odds with Roman monogamy laws for gentiles.  David Brewer “There would have been a few converts with more than one wife. These were allowed to keep their wives, but could not serve as leaders.”  It’s not that polygyny is immoral according to God’s laws.

William Luck op. cit., p.46 “If we cannot find a prohibition of polygyny up to this point of the inspired text, we are in trouble (hermeneutically speaking) finding it here [1Ti.3:2, Ti.1:6]. Second, we should remember that polygyny was considered barbaric by the Greeks and had not been practiced in Ephesus or Crete (where Timothy and Titus lived) [1Ti.1:3, Ti.1:5]….”  Paul wrote to the Greco-Roman world.

However, the way many churches interpret “one wife” in 1Ti.3:12…Abraham the father of the faithful, and David “a man after God’s own heart”, couldn’t even serve as deacons today!  The Christian Bible distributor Gideon’s International is named after a polygynist (Jg.8:30) who couldn’t even be a deacon?  

Polygyny is a moral marital option of God, a choice; but He didn’t explicitly command it.  However, in 1Co.7 we glimpse the allowance for its practice among Christians (laymen only?).  1Co.7:10-11 the Lord said a wife who’d separated from her husband should reconcile with him, or else remain unmarried.  And a man shouldn’t divorce his wife.  Then Paul said in v.27-28, a man who was released from a wife and had remarried, wasn’t in sin.  And if his 1^st wife was to later reconcile with him, as the Lord said in v.11, this man would then be cohabiting with two wives.

The historian Josephus (37–100 AD) wrote of his Jewish people in Antiquities of the Jews 17:1:2. “It is the ancient practice among us to have many wives at the same time.”  1Co.7:39 & Ro.7:2-3 pertain to wives, not husbands.  Because God allowed a man to add a 2^nd wife while his 1^st was alive with him.    

George Joyce Christian Marriage “Justin Martyr [100–165 AD, a gentile] makes it a reproach to Trypho [a Jew] that the Jewish teachers permitted a man to have several wives. When in 212 AD, the lex Antoniana de civitate gave the rights of Roman citizenship to great numbers of Jews, it was found to tolerate polygamy among them. On the other hand, the Romans were strictly monogamous.”  Augustine (354–430 AD) later wrote in Treatises on Marriage and Other Subjects, “According to Roman law it is not permissible to marry a 2^nd wife as long as he has another wife living”.  In 1563 AD, the Roman Catholic Church (RCC) made polygyny anathema at the Council of Trent.  Polygamy was condemned.

Maurice Nelson op. cit. “Polygyny was prohibited by the Roman Catholic Church, not by God. A monogamous society criminally punishes men for relationships allowed by God.”

The society of pagan Rome was morally corrupt.  Juno, the wife of Jupiter, was the Roman goddess of love & marriage.  The 6^th month of Caesar’s Julian calendar (46 BC) was Iunius, the ‘month of Juno’.  Our present Gregorian calendar comes from the Julian calendar.  Western society today resembles decadent Roman society in some respects.  And our ‘June’ is the most popular month for weddings.

Our modern society too is corrupt…illicit sex, licentiousness, abortion, is commonplace.  Prostitution and divorce rates are high in Western nations which have marriage laws based upon the Greco-Roman model and proliferated by the RCC.

Wikipedia: Marriage in Ancient Rome “Marriage was a strictly monogamous institution. It is one aspect of ancient Roman culture that was embraced by early Christianity, which in turn perpetuated it as an ideal in later Western culture.”

“Polygamy is not forbidden in the OT. The NT is largely silent on polygamy. Polygyny is legal in 58 out of nearly 200 sovereign states. Polyandry is illegal in virtually every country.” (Wikipedia)  In the Bible, polyandry is adultery.  William Luck op. cit., p.56 “The husband functions as the head [1Co.11:3], while the woman functions, let us say, as the arm. The head may control more than one arm at a time. But to have two heads [husbands] attempting to control the same arm would be monstrous.”

Many nations today don’t adhere to the Western practice of solely monogamous marriages.  Polygyny is legal in much of Africa.  It’s been said that some peoples there have no vocabulary term for ‘prostitution’!  And African plural wives generally have high social status.  Some Christians too practice polygyny in nations where it’s legal (African & Asian).

Wikipedia: Polygamy in Christianity “Although the Old Testament describes numerous examples of polygamy among devotees to God, most Christian groups have historically rejected the practice of polygamy and have upheld monogamy alone as normative. Nevertheless, some Christian groups in different periods have practiced, or currently do practice, polygamy.”

There are African pastors who resent Western church attempts to compel African churches to disallow what God showed was lawful in the OT!  A lead pastor in Ghana, Stephen Boateng, says, “There’s no single quotation in the Bible that forbids polygamy, even God favors it”.  His colleague, Daniel Eshun, said rhetorically, “At what point did polygamy become a sin?”  1Ti.3 & Ti.1, not written before the 60s AD, would be late for God to somehow change His mind and suddenly rule that polygyny is sin!       

John Milton op. cit. “I argue as follows from Heb.13:4: Polygamy is either marriage, or fornication, or adultery; the apostle recognizes no fourth state…so many patriarchs were polygamists…whoremongers and adulterers God will judge, whereas the patriarchs were the objects of His especial favor.”

It is possible for a man to simultaneously love more than one woman.  Adriana Blake Women Can Win the Marriage Lottery “Why should we think that it is possible to love only one person as a mate? We acknowledge that we can love more than one child and more than one parent.”

The premise that monogamous families produce better-adjusted children is disputable.  Yes, contention did develop between polygynous Abraham’s sons Ishmael & Isaac and between the two wives of Samuel’s father Elkanáh.  But many monogamous families too are contentious.  For example, the twins Jacob versus Esau!  Adam & Eve was a monogamous couple…yet their firstborn son Cain became a murderer, killing his brother Abel (Ge.4:8)!

God the Father is a monogamist.  He’s not a single parent; single parenthood isn’t God’s ideal! ref “Godhead in Prehistory”.  Christ, the Husband of two OT nations and of Christians…is a polygynist.

However, Jesus the man didn’t come to be made physical king (Jn.6:15) or lead a rebellion against Rome and its laws.  His purpose wasn’t to enact Roman legislation regarding morality, to meet His higher standards.  It wasn’t time for His laws to be implemented in their government (Jn.18:37, Re.19:16).

Marrying someone while still legally married to another is bigamy.  Christian men shouldn’t break laws prohibiting bigamy and risk imprisonment.  (Yet polygyny may be viable in some circumstances.)

God made men with more testosterone, whereas wives may not want to be bothered with sex.  A wife shouldn’t feel compelled to have sex!  In the OT, God authorized a solution to satisfy the realistic needs of both sexes and extend the family lineage & wealth. 

The content of the NT, with the words of Jesus, shouldn’t be separated from the OT roots of Christ’s words to His nation Israel.  Christ’s morality isn’t a double standard!  Mal.3:6 “I, the Lord, do not change.”  His laws regulate, not prohibit, polygyny.  And it should go without saying that the 1^st century laws & customs of men in pagan Rome, which we glimpse in the NT, are inferior to Christ’s OT laws!  Beware self-righteousness, based on the customs/traditions of (religious) men.

Modern society can glean true concepts and standards of God’s morality from Christ’s OT guidelines!  He, His character and morality, is “The same yesterday, today, and forever” (He.13:8).

The ultimate and highest determinant of morality is God’s word, not mans’ customs.  Jesus & Paul affirmed God’s word, saying, “It is written”.  And 1Pe.1:25, “The word of the Lord abides forever.”

Polygyny – Lawful in God’s Eyes? (1)

This is a subject related to Biblical morality that most Christians and Western churches haven’t examined in-depth.  Before proceeding with it, please be advised…the subject is very controversial!  

This topic examines Christ’s Old Testament (OT) regulations concerning plural wives & concubines.  You may be shocked to read lesser-known marriage laws of Christ from the OT!  The topic may be hard to hear for those living in modern Western culture.

Our English term polygamy (from ca 1600 AD) includes polygyny (1780 AD), one man cohabiting with plural wives; polyandry (1780), one woman cohabiting with plural husbands.  Are these lawful options in God’s eyes?  The terms are derived from the Greek poly/many, gamos/marriage, gyne/wife.  Some today don’t differentiate between polygamy and polygyny, as if they’re interchangeable terms.

Our modern society is decadent.  Illicit sex, licentiousness, abortion, divorce are rampant.  Divorce & remarriage is a form of serial monogamy, called consecutive polygyny and consecutive polyandry.  

Greco-Roman society was monogamous on the surface.  Yet it had widespread prostitution, pederasty, sexual perversion, divorce, as we today.  A. Isaksson wrote, “In Rome divorces were so numerous, they constituted a serious social problem.”  The divorce problem wasn’t quite as bad in 1^st century Palestine.

Anciently, concubinage was a recognized arrangement; it loosely compares to a ‘mistress staying in the house’.  Concubinage was also present in the Mediterranean world, especially within the military.  S.M. Baugh Marriage and Family in Ancient Greek Society “Concubinage was widespread and commonly accepted among the Greeks and Romans.”  But it wasn’t legally fully marriage in Roman society.  Wikipedia: Concubinage “Concubinage was an institution of quási-marriage between Roman citizens who for various reasons did not want to enter into a full marriage.”

Roman Empire law didn’t include all the OT guidelines for marriage that Christ had revealed to His people ancient Israel.  However, 1^st century Jews (and Persians?) were allowed by Rome to continue practicing the OT laws & principles of their traditional marriages.  The Jewish historian Josephus (37-100 AD) wrote, Wars of the Jews 1:24:2, “It being of old permitted to the Jews to marry many wives”.

But regardless of cultural influences, God defines true morality.  He defines what is and isn’t sexual sin.  Laws of human governments and customs of nations may or may not reflect God’s morality! 

First, a blanket statement…scripture indicates that irresponsible casual sex isn’t God’s way.

Christ commanded in Ex.20:14 and Mt.5:27, “You shall not commit adultery”.  It’s a form of sexual sin.  Adultery is committed when a man has sex with a woman who is married or betrothed to another man.  Betrothal was a legal commitment, prior to consummation.  The adulterous man can be married or single; his marital status isn’t a factor.  Her marital status is the key!  The scriptures reveal that adultery always involves a wife or betrothed woman who broke wedlock; another man stole her, in a sense.  Moody Bible Institute Professor of Theology William F. Luck The Morality of Biblical Polygyny, p.14 “Adultery was always defined by the woman’s marital status, never the man’s.”  Thus it was impossible for an OT widow, divorcee, or otherwise single woman to commit adultery!

We’ll see that a man lawfully could live with plural wives.  It is authorized in scripture (if practiced responsibly).  That is, if he didn’t steal a wife from her husband.  Ex.20:15 “You shall not steal.”

Ex.20:17 LXX “You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, you shall not covet your neighbor’s house, nor his field, his servant, his maid, his cattle…nor whatever belongs to your neighbor.”  Wrong coveting can occur regarding another’s wife, his male and female servants, etc.  But nothing is said about singles coveting another’s husband!  A man was allowed simultaneous wives in Christ’s theocracy.  So a single woman could rightly desire a married man.  (This indulgence is strange to our Western minds.)

Going back even prior to ancient Israel…Ge.20 King Abimélech of Gerár had a (free) wife and maid concubine wives (v.17).  v.2-3 then he took Sarah from Abraham her husband, thinking she was only his “sister”.  But God quickly revealed to him in a dream that she’s married.  v.4-ff Abimelech said, “Lord…in the integrity of my heart and innocence of my hands I have done this thing.’ God said, ‘I know that in the integrity of your heart you have done this. Therefore I did not let you touch her. Restore the man’s wife.”  Abimelech had acted with integrity.  His sin wasn’t him having plural wives.  His sin was…the woman he took, Sarah, was another man’s wife.  Abraham and Abimelech both were gentiles/non-Jews.  (Note: Later, 1450 BC Núzi tablets found in northern Iraq evidence a man’s wife legally could be considered his sister.  Ge.13:8 also Abrám had called his nephew Lot his “brother”.)

Ge.12:10-20 the gentile/non-Jew Pharaoh of Egypt too mistakenly took Sarah for ritual purification, so she could become his wife.  After the Lord caused him to realize his mistake, Pharaoh even blessed Abram (Sarah’s husband) with livestock and male & female servants/maids!

Ge.16:1-9 the Egyptian maid Hagár became wife to Abram (v.3).  Their tie constituted marriage.  She was his concubine or secondary wife.  That isn’t immoral.  But strife arose…Sarah treated Hagar harshly, v.6; Ishmaél (son of Abraham-Hagar) lacked proper respect for Isaac (son of Abraham-Sarah), Ge.21:9-10.  Lack of respect resulted in…divorce (garásh Strongs h1644, Hebrew) the bondwoman wife!  (ref divorce/drive out h1644 in: Pr.22:10, Nu.30:9, Le.21:7, 22:13, Ezk.44:22, Ga.4:30.)

Ge.25:1-2 Abraham also took a concubine wife named Keturáh (1Ch.1:32), who bore him six sons.  Ge.25:6 “To the sons of his concubines, Abraham gave gifts while he was still living.”  Concubinage isn’t sin.  And according to the apostle Paul, Abraham is the father of the faithful (Ro.4:16; cf. He.11:8, 13).  Also Abraham’s brother Nahór had a concubine named Reumáh (Ge.22:23-24).

The OT Hebrew loan word translated concubine is peléhgesh h6370, occurring 37 times.  The Aramaic is h3904 (Da.5:2, 3, 23).  The corresponding term in the OT Greek LXX, g3825.1, occurs 41 times.

Jb.1:8 God said His servant Job (a gentile) was a blameless, upright man.  Yet in his trials, Job’s wife and surviving offspring didn’t console him.  Jb.19:17-18 LXX Job lamented, “I besought my wife, and earnestly entreated the sons of my concubines. But they rejected me.”  Righteous Job had concubines.

The earlier (gentile) Lámech, the first man in scripture with two wives, killed a man (Ge.4:19-24).  Therefore, some presume that all polygyny is wrong.  Tom Shipley Man and Woman in Biblical Law “The fact that Lamech was evil does not, and cannot, prove that his polygamy was evil, as well. The above syllogism [premise] is ‘reductio ad absurdum.”  (Good men too, in scripture, were polygynous.)

Ge.30:1-24 Israel’s 12 tribes descended from the patriarch Jacob and his four wives.  Leah & Rachel were his free wives, Bilháh & Zilpah his ‘secondary’ bond wives.  v.4 “Rachel gave Jacob her maid Bilhah as a wife.”  Jacob, whose name God changed (Ge.32:28) to “Israel”, wasn’t an adulterer! (cf. De.23:2)  Cohabiting with four wives, he was ‘one flesh’ with each.  The OT people Christ loved above all others, the 12 tribes of ancient Israel, weren’t illegitimately fathered by an adulterer!  (Note: A wife’s maid being given to the wife’s husband is also evident in the ancient Code of Hammurabi #146.)

So far, we see that having plural wives was morally acceptable to gentiles/non-Jews and Jacob/Israel!  Godly and ungodly men of the Bible had plural wives.  Later, during Moses’ time, Christ gave codified laws/regulations to His theocratic nation Israel.  (see the topic “Jesus Was The Old Testament God”.)  His laws define marriage in God’s sight, adultery, and prescribe consequences for violations.

De.22:22-27 shows the joint penalty for adultery, consensual sex with a woman married or betrothed to another man.  If the offender raped her, only he is guilty.  Le.19:20 the penalty for having sex with a bondmaid acquired for another man was less than that for a free woman.  (Less station & limited loyalty effected less penalty/fine for the bondmaid, not yet fully espoused.)  If a man, single or married, had sex with a virgin residing with her father, he’s to marry her, De.22:28-29 & Ex.22:16-17…not ignore her.

De.21:15-17 “If a man has two wives…”  Polygyny wasn’t unlawful.  This passage shows that (among free wives) the double-portion inheritance right of the eldest son was protected.  Pulpit Commentary De.21:15 “He mustn’t allow his love for the other [wife] to prejudice the right of the son.”  De.17:15-17 though plural wives & horses wasn’t sin, the king wasn’t to multiply to himself horses or pagan wives.  (Horses were used mostly for war.)  No large pagan harems!  Solomon later violated this, 1Ki.11:1-4.

But Christ/God forbad incestual polygyny.  Le.18:7-8 a man mustn’t have sex with his mother, nor with any other of his father’s wives (Ge.35:22, 49:4; 1Co.5:1).  Nor with his own daughter (Le.18:17, 20:14).

Jesus the Man didn’t repeat all these His commands.  Yet they still define His morality.  He said, “It is written!” Mt.4:4, 7, 10.  Polygyny is authorized, but polyandry is adultery.  Married prostitutes too are adulteresses.  (The topic “Sexual Sins, Harlotry, Rape” examines sexual immorality more in-depth.)

Ex.21:7-11 describes God’s law of concubines.  “If a man takes another wife, he must not reduce the food, clothing or conjugal dues of his first wife.”  Ellicott Commentary Ex.21:10 “Polygamy is viewed as lawful in this passage.”  That is, polygyny; it isn’t immoral in Christ’s theocracy.  Cambridge Bible Ex.21:10 “The case contemplated is that of a well-to-do Israelite who could have several concubines.”

Is.4:1 this prophecy too shows that polygyny isn’t adultery. “Seven women will take hold of one man in that day, saying, ‘We will eat our own food and wear our own clothes, only let us be called by your name; take away our reproach.”  Many men had died in warfare, Is.3:25 (cf. Je.15:8).  Is.4:1 women were even willing to relinquish two of the supports the Lord designated in Ex.21:10, so long as her husband gives her conjugal dues!  JFB Commentary Is.4:1 “Foregoing the privileges, which the law (Ex.21:10) gives to wives, when a man has more than one. ‘Reproach’ – being unmarried and childless.”  An unmarried and childless woman later might lack sustenance in her old age.    

De.21:10-15 describes God’s law of war brides, so-called. “When you go to war against your enemies and God delivers them into your hands, and you see among the captives a beautiful woman, and would take her as a wife for yourself….If a man has two wives….”  A war bride wasn’t to be raped.  The Israelite was to bring her to his house; she must renounce her heathen customs, and be allowed to mourn her mother & father for a month.  The month delay would reveal if she was already pregnant before her capture.  Only after the month would she become the Israelite’s concubine wife, and sexual relations then ensue.  Married into God’s theocracy, she could learn the ways of the true God.  If the man wasn’t pleased with her, she was to be given her complete freedom; he wasn’t to sell his concubine for money.     

Nu.31:18-ff virgins were among the spoils taken from the slaughter of God’s vengeance against Midián.  The Lord said in v.18, “All the girls who have never had sexual relations, keep for yourselves”.  v.27, 32-47 the total of virgins taken was divided into two halves, for the Israelite warriors and non-warriors.  A small % of the girls (0.2%) were for the priests, v.40.  (But the high priest could only marry a virgin Israelitess, not foreigners, Le.21:10-14.)  Gill Exposition Le.21:13 “Polygamy [polygyny] was practiced by the Israelites, even by the common priests.”  Christ’s OT Levitical priests weren’t celibate!

De.25:5-10 was Christ’s levirate law, so-called.  A brother-in-law or near relative, even if he’s already married, was to marry a deceased Israelite’s widow who had no son.  The Latin word levir meant ‘husband’s brother’.  Without children, a man’s family name was “blotted out of Israel”.  Widowhood could result in poverty for an aging woman with no son to help provide for her!  Maurice Nelson The Monogamy Lie! “Levirate marriage could be seen as a type of Life Insurance for a widow.”

Ruth’s Jewish husband had died.  Ru.4:1-10 Bóaz and the closer relative possibly were both married.  William Luck op. cit., p.21 “Polygyny was not immoral, per se; widow-neglect based on commitment to monogamy was.”  A widow was even authorized to spit in the face of a brother-in-law, single or married, who refused to marry her (De.25:9)!  Boaz married Ruth, and fathered a son for her (Ru.4:13).

Several godly men of faith had plural wives/concubines.  Joshua & Caleb were the two faithful spies, and survived into the Promised Land.  They were guided by the Holy Spirit (Nu.14:24, 30, 27:18; Jsh.14:13).  1Ch.2:46-49 Caleb had two concubines.  (Caleb’s daughter was Áchsah, cf. Jsh.15:16.)

Manásseh was the firstborn son of Joseph, and grandson of Jacob.  Of the 12 tribes, God allotted his tribe the largest area in the Land! (cf. Jsh.17.)  1Ch.7:14 Manasseh had an Aramean/Syrian concubine.

Wikipedia: Concubinage “Among the Israelites, men commonly acknowledged their concubines, and such women enjoyed the same rights in the house as legitimate wives.  2Sm.3:7 NASB footnote “A concubine was much more than a mistress. In a sense, she was a ‘secondary wife’ (Ex.21:8-10, De.21:11-13). She was considered a member of the household, by an official ceremony of appointment, and she had the rights of a married woman. Concubines were usually acquired by purchase or were captives taken in war. She could be ‘divorced’ summarily, but never as a slave.”  2Sm.3:7 King Saul had a concubine named Rízpah (and other wives – 1Sm.14:50, 2Sm.12:7-8).  A concubine lead-servant was to courteously submit to the first (free) wife, so she wouldn’t be jealous.

Most men were monogamous, having one wife in marriage (at a time).  Yet concubinage was a respected marital option in the OT and ancient world.  It resembles heterosexual civil union, as done in some nations today.  Our English word concubine comes from the Latin word concubina, meaning ‘to lie together’.  But our word concubine means more than that.  The meanings and customary practice of concubinage in various nations may differ from what God authorized millennia ago in scripture.

Jg.8:30-32 “Gideon had 70 sons, for he had many wives. His concubine in Shechém also bore him a son, Abimélech. Gideon died at a good old age.”  (The concubine is called his “maidservant” in Jg.9:18.)  Gill Exposition Jg.8:31 “His concubine, a secondary or half wife; generally taken from handmaids.”  Concubinage & plural wives isn’t adultery…Gideon wasn’t living in sin!  The warrior-judge Gideon was chosen and empowered by God to save Israel out of Midianite oppression (Jg.6:14, 34).  Gideon, who had “many wives”, is listed in He.11:32-33 among the faithful.  The Christian association Gideon’s International, which freely distributes Bibles, is named after this polygynist.

1Sm.1:1-3 Samuel’s father Elkanáh cohabited with two wives, Peninnáh and Hannáh.  Every year he took his family to sacrifice at the Lord’s tabernacle, at Shilóh.  Elkanah was a devout man; he wasn’t living in sin!  Samuel was the eldest son of Elkanah’s second wife Hannah.  Samuel was then fostered by Eli the high priest (1Sm.1:28, 2:11), and became a renowned prophet-judge.  Samuel was born in lawful wedlock, he wasn’t illegitimate!  De.23:2 none illegitimate shall enter the assembly of the Lord.

King Joásh of Judah had two wives.  2Ch.24:1-3 “Joash did what was right in the eyes of the Lord all the days of Jehoiadá the priest. And Jehoiada took two wives for him, and he had sons and daughters.”  The chief priest selected two wives for Joash!  Joash’s cohabitation with two wives didn’t contradict his doing “right in the eyes of the Lord”.  v.15-16 and Jehoiada the priest did well to Israel and to God; he was buried with honor.  Jehoiada hadn’t sinned by giving two wives to the king.

The scriptures reveal that monogamy and polygyny are both lawful marital options, according to Christ’s morality, in His theocracy.  Where He set the rules & regulations.  And Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever! (He.13:8)  He’s not fickle and His moral principles don’t flip-flop!

Lauren Heiligenthal writes in her book Evaluating Western Christianity’s Interpretation of Biblical Polygamy, p.17 “While scholars and missiologists [studiers of missions] may suggest that monogamy is God’s ideal, Scripture is neither forthcoming with this claim nor does it prohibit polygamy.”

Later, polygamy was legal throughout the Persian Empire (559–331 BC) of the Intertestamental Period.

But when Jesus the man incarnated, He didn’t set the rules in Roman Empire provinces of the 1^st century AD.  His followers too were and are subject to the (marital) laws of our various nations.  So normally God’s moral option of polygyny isn’t advised in nations where it’s disallowed legally.

Other polygynists are seen in the Bible.  But little is in view in the pagan Greco-Roman culture of the New Testament epistles, where most gentiles legally were to be monogamous.

This topic is continued and concluded in “Polygyny – Lawful in God’s Eyes? (2)”.

 

Melchisedek Order Priesthood

King David of ancient Israel was given a messianic prophecy in Ps.110:1-4.  v.4 “The Lord has sworn, ‘You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchisedek.”  The Lord (Jesus) would be ruling King and priest in the order of Melchisedek!  This topic discusses Melchisedek and priesthood.

True religion and the Judeo-Christian ethic includes the entire Bible.  Both the Old Testament (OT) and the New Testament (NT) speak of priesthood.

What is a priest?  A priest performs religious rites, and mediates between God and humans.

Ancient nations and heathen cultures had priesthoods (ref Ge.41:45, Ex.3:1).  Wayne Jackson Exploring the Concept of Priesthood “The ancient Assyrians had priests, as did the Babylonians.”  OT Israel’s priests were of the Levitical order, from the tribe of Jacob’s son Levi.

Moses was a priest and a mediator (Ps.99:6; Ex.24:6, 29:26; Nu.7:1; Ga.3:19).  Then Moses’ brother Aaron and Aaron’s male descendants from the tribe of Levi were Israel’s priests (Ex.28:1).  Prior to the Levitical (Lev) Aaronic order of priests, in ancient Israel families/clans performed priestly functions (Ex.24:5).  The Aaronic priesthood was established in the wilderness (Ex.40:13-15), after the Israelites left Egypt.  But this Levitical priesthood didn’t exist in the books of Genesis or Job.

Jesus and His NT believers are of the order of Melchisedek, which both predates and postdates the Levitical order.  The person of Melchisedek (Mel) goes back to Genesis.  What does the Bible tell us about Melchisedek, and how does the order of Melchisedek compare to the Levitical order?

The mysterious Melchisedek/Melchizedek is thought by many to be a theophany or Christophany, a pre-incarnate appearance of Jesus Christ the Son of God Most High (Lk.1:32).  The name “Melchisedek” means ‘king of righteousness’ (He.7:2).  And in Je.23:5, the Messiah/Branch (Jesus) is the prophesied righteous king.  Ge.18:1-33 the Lord as a Christophany appeared to Abraham.  Melchisedek appeared to Abrám in Ge.14.  Previously, in Ge.12:1-2 the Lord had said that He would bless Abram…“I will bless you.”  And then in Ge.14:18-21 Melchisedek said, “Blessed be Abram of God Most High”.  It is Mel who blessed Abram!  It appears that Mel was divine, as the pre-existent Word of God, the Lord Christ.  Jn.1:1, 14 identifies Jesus as “the Word” (the Lógos in Greek).

The Dead Sea Scrolls Melchizedek document 11Q13, dated circa 100 BC, indicates Melchisedek is divine.  Wikipedia: 11Q13 “11Q13 states that….Melchizedek is ‘Your Elohim [God]’ who will deliver the sons of righteousness from Belíal.”  In the 1st century AD, Philo said Melchisedek represented the Word/Logos and is a priest (Allegorical Interpretation 3:26:82, p.59).  Again, Jesus is the Word/Logos.

Melchisedek is the first priest mentioned in the OT.  In Ge.14:18, Mel served Abram (the father of the faithful, Ga.3:7) bread & wine.  Sharing bread & wine will become the sacred communion or eucharist for the NT church in the order of Melchisedek!  (also see the topic “Bread and Wine in the Church”.)

Ge.14:18 “Melchisedek, king of Salem brought out bread and wine; now He was priest of God Most High.”  Mel was both king and priest of God.  In ancient kingdoms there was no separation of church and state.  Their politics involved pleasing their deity, so the deity would protect them.  But Israel’s priestly Aaronites among Levites weren’t kings.  Judah, not Levi, became a kingly tribe (Ge.49:10).

The Lord changed Abram’s name to Abraham in Ge.17:5.  Was Abraham himself a priest, serving under Melchisedek?  Abraham knew the king of Sodom (Ge.14:21).  In Ge.18:23-24, it is plausible that Abraham was interceding to the Lord Christ as a priest on Sodom’s behalf.

The order of (King) Melchisedek includes the laws of the King.  e.g. in Ge.14 Abram tithed or paid 10% to the priest-king/church-state.  (see the topic “Tithe to Church and State”.)  Abraham obeyed God’s regulations.  The Lord said of Abraham in Ge.26:5, “Abraham obeyed Me and kept My charge, My commandments, My statutes, and My laws”.  Abraham had the faith to obey all that, without a codified Law of Moses!  (see “Abraham Obeyed Which Commandments?”.)

What are the laws taught by, or pertaining to, the order of Melchisedek?

Throughout Genesis, we read of gentiles (such as Abraham) obeying…or disobeying…God’s principles & instructions.  Also Job.22:22, God’s guidelines weren’t unknown to gentiles living prior to the Law of Moses.  (see “Genesis Principles Predate Moses” and “Ten Commandments in Genesis & Job”.)

1Enoch 99:2 “Woe to them who pervert the words of uprightness, and transgress the eternal law.”  1Eno.106:14 “Some of the angels of heaven…commit sin and transgress the law.” (ref 2Pe.2:4 & Jude 1:6.)  This indicates an eternal law existed even for the residents of heaven to obey, in order to dwell with God in harmony.  (Jude considered 1Eno.1:9 a prophecy, and quoted it in Jude 1:14.  1Enoch is included in a few Christian canons.)

Genesis reflects many similarities to the laws Christ later told Moses to codify & enact during the Levitical dispensation.  For example, in Genesis: 39:9 adultery is a great sin.  31:32 stealing is wrong.  2:2-3 God sanctified the 7^th day sabbath for mankind at Creation.  28:22 Abraham’s grandson Jacob also paid 10% to God.  7:2 only clean creatures are food.  Some try to claim the extra pairs of clean animals taken on Noah’s ark were for sacrifice.  But only domestic clean animals were sacrifices, not wild!  Yet Noah took seven pairs of wild clean animals too (there’d be plenty to eat)!  9:4 blood isn’t authorized as food (prohibited in the Ac.15:29 decree for the church.  see “Acts 15 – Four Prohibitions”.)

The Lord later commanded that the above laws (and other laws too), seen in Genesis for gentiles, be part of the Levitical code and Old Covenant for Moses/Israel.  (see “Added in the Old Covenant”.)

Albertus Pieters Notes On Genesis “Whoever has learned the Genesis stories has learned all the chief things that can be known about God (apart from the incarnation of God in Christ)…of permanent institutions for the well-being of mankind, we have here the institution of the sabbath, marriage, government, and worship.”  Yes, there’s much for the church found between the lines of Genesis!

The above examples from Genesis reflect some of the similarities between the order of Melchisedek and the Levitical order.  But there are also noticeable differences between them!  Such as…

In the order of Melchisedek, there’s no scriptural evidence of any physical tabernacle/temple ceremonial rituals (ref He.9:1, 10).  There’s no animal sin/trespass offerings.  There’s no Passover (before God ‘passed-over’ Moses’ Israel in Ex.12:23); there’s no other pilgrim feasts.  (Genesis does show voluntary non-temple burnt offerings.)  Also, we read of lesser incest…so they can obey God’s commands to reproduce (Ge.1:28, 9:1)…when the only humans available to marry there are relatives.

In the order of Melchisedek, there’s no lunar calendar (for determining pilgrim feast dates, e.g.).  Examining Ge.7:11 with Ge.8:3-4 indicates 30-day months of a solar calendar.  Also Re.11:2-3 reflects 30-day months of a prophetic solar calendar.  This calendar projects to add a 30-day leap-month seven times in each 40-year cycle…in years #6, 12, 18, 24, 30, 36, 40.  Its variance from 365.2422 days per year is said to be only 4 hours 2 min over a span of 11,560 years!  Also a form of solar calendar is used in 1Enoch.  But the lunar aspect of the Levitical dispensation had 29 or 30 day months (for feasts)…and it’s less accurate.  (As another comparison, the estimated variance of the Gregorian calendar over 11,560 years may be around 80 hours, or 3 ⅓ days.  It too is less accurate than the ‘prophetic calendar’.)

Various lunar calendar and new moon reckoning dogmas for Levitical festivals can cause unnecessary division within the order of Melchisedek!  In 1Co.14:33, Paul says God is not of confusion/disorder!  Attempting to use a Levitical calendar in the Melchisedek order has resulted in a measure of confusion.

There’s a significant prophecy in Zechariah.  Again, Je.23:5-6 referred to the Lord/Messiah as the Branch.  Zec.3:8-9 the then Levitical high priest, named Yehoshúa/Yeshúa (Iesous or Jesus in the Greek LXX), was a symbol.  Zec.6:11-13 is about that ancient Yeshua. “Behold, a man whose name is the Branch. He will be a priest on his throne [kingly], and the counsel of peace will be between the two offices.”  That Yeshua had the same name as the future Branch; and back in 500 BC was a symbol of the Melchisedek priest/king!  A full 500 years prior to the Messiah’s human birth, God knew the Savior’s Name would be…Yeshua (in Hebrew & Aramaic)!

Let’s now read through Hebrews 5–7.  It’s about priesthood and Jesus in the order of Melchisedek.  The Levitical and Melchisedek priesthoods are further contrasted in these chapters.

He.5:1-11 there was much to say regarding the order of Melchisedek.  He.6:13-20 Jesus is high priest in the order of Mel.  6:18 the two immutable things God swore with an oath are found in 6:13-14 and 7:21.  That is, the Lord surely would bless Abraham and multiply his descendants, and Jesus is priest in the order of Mel forever.  (also ref 1Eno.69 regarding oaths.)

He.7:1-8 the priest-king Melchisedek had no genealogy, no beginning of days or end of life, and was made like the Son of God.  v.8 “He [Melchisedek] lives on.”  In Hebrews, Melchisedek isn’t portrayed as a mortal man!  Abraham was a mortal man.  Aaronite priests were mortal men with genealogy.

Wikipedia: Priesthood of Melchizedek “The basis of the Aaronic priesthood was ancestry; the basis of the priesthood of Melchizedek is everlasting life. That is, there’s no interruption due to a priest’s death (Heb.7:8,15-16, 23-25).”  The Levitical priesthood was hereditary.  ISBE “Melchizedek, a priest of highest rank, had neither predecessor nor successor in his great office.”

He.7:17 “You [Jesus] are a priest forever in the order of Melchisedek.”  Got Questions – Who Was Melchizedek? “This term ‘order’ would ordinarily indicate a succession of priests holding the office. None are ever mentioned, however, in the long interval from Melchizedek to Christ, an anomaly that can be solved by assuming that Melchizedek and Christ are really the same person.”

He.6:20 “Jesus…having become a high priest forever according to the order of Melchisedek.”  Poole Commentary Ps.110:4 “Forever’, not to be interrupted or translated to another person.”  Jesus is high priest forever.  Yet He.7:3, speaking of Melchisedek, “…Being made like to the Son of God, does remain a priest continually [g1336].” (Youngs Literal Translation.)  According to the writer to the Hebrews, Melchisedek is priest on into perpetuity.  Vincent Word Studies He.7:3 “The tenure of his [Melchisedek’s] office is uninterrupted.”  Are we to believe there are two high priests serving continuously and uninterrupted?!  Taken literally…if Melchisedek isn’t Jesus, then there are presently two high priests simultaneously!

Hebrews 7 also compares Melchisedek to Abraham.  He.7:4 “Consider how great this [Being] was!”  (The term for ‘man’ isn’t in the Greek text of v.4.)  The Being Melchisedek is even called great!

Abraham was highly honored and eminent, the spiritual father of the faithful, according to Paul (Ga.3:7, 29).  The Lord had told Abram in Ge.12:2-3, “I will make you a great nation, and will magnify your name….In you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”  God would change Abram’s name to Abraham, magnify it, and his posterity would be renowned on earth!

Yet He.7:4 indicates Melchisedek is greater than Abraham!  He blessed Abram.  He.7:7 ESV “It is beyond dispute that the inferior [Abram] is blessed by the superior [Melchisedek].” (Other translations render the Greek term kreítton, Strongs g2909, as “better” or “greater”.)  Barnes Notes “Melchizedek was thus superior to Abraham.”  Cambridge Bible “The inferior is blessed by one who is the Superior.”

{Sidelight: Some think Melchisedek was a title (like Caesar or Czar), not a personal name.  A Jewish tradition says Melchisedek was Noah’s son Shem.  But according to Ge.5:32 & Ge.10:22, Shem did have a literal genealogy (unlike Melchisedek).  Shem had a beginning and an end, a mortal man.  Furthermore, in scripture Shem is of lesser status than Abraham (or Noah), not greater.  Shem’s name is seen less than 20 times in the Bible, whereas Abram/Abraham appears over 300 times!  Also, in the LXX and Samaritan Pentateuch chronologies, Shem was dead long before Mel met Abram in Ge.14.}

He.7:9-12 “The priesthood being changed, there takes place a change in the law also.”  A change has occurred in some written law/toráh; in the sacrificial & ceremonial aspects.  There’s no Levitical priesthood or temple; they’re now obsolete as far as the church is concerned.

It’s changed because…Jesus fulfilled all things written about Him (but not everything written in the OT).  Let’s first notice, in Mt.5:17-18 Jesus said, “I did not come to abolish, but to fulfill [g4137]”.  Then after His resurrection, Jesus’ words in Lk.24:44 refer back to the earlier Mt.5:17-18, with added detail. “My words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things which are written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled [g4137].”  Jesus came to fulfill all things written about Him in the Law, etc.  Furthermore, Luke noted in Ac.13:29, “They carried out all that was written concerning Him”.  Jesus didn’t abolish or “fulfill” in our place the Lord’s moral principles (seen way back in Genesis for gentiles/non-Jews even)!

Just because Jesus obeyed God’s principles doesn’t imply that He did so in our stead, and we may act like the devil!  In 2Co.5:10, Paul said that each of us must appear before the judgment seat…Ro.14:12 to “give an account of himself to God”.

He.7:13-28 Jesus wasn’t a Levite; He was from the tribe of Judah.  v.14 “Our Lord descended from Judah.”  Jesus didn’t have to qualify genealogically in the sense of the Levitical priesthood.  The fact that He was from Judah (was Jewish) through Mary didn’t disqualify Him in the order of Melchisedek, though He wasn’t qualified for the Levitical order.  The Levitical priesthood was based on genealogy…it consisted of only one clan (Aaron’s) within the tribe of Levi.

Continuing into Hebrews 8…the Old Covenant is of the Levitical order, the New Covenant is the order of Melchisedek.  He.8:6-13 the Lev dispensation principles, those which aren’t also part of the order of Mel, were vanishing.  v.13 “Whatever is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to disappear.”

He.9–10 the Levitical order’s weaker animal sacrifices were continually repeated.  All their priests were sinning humans and were temporary (they kept dying, He.7:23).  The Lev order couldn’t transform hearts nor give ancient Israelites the Holy Spirit power to obey God.  (So they’d gone into captivity.)  Whereas the order of Mel transforms hearts via the Spirit, with the sinless Jesus high priest forever!

Fire from God fell to burn Levitical order animal sacrifices on the altar (Le.6:12-13, 9:24).  Tongues of fire fell on the heads of human “living sacrifices” of the Melchisedek order (Ac.2:1-3, Ro.12:1)!

He.10:9-14 Jesus’ one-time sacrifice ends the prior Levitical dispensation, with its ceremonial temple rites.  It establishes the succeeding order of Mel.  v.9 “He takes away the first, to establish the second.”

In Jn.6:4 & 7:2, John calls God’s OT Passover and Feast of Booths the “feast of the Jews” (not “feast of God”)…because the old Levitical dispensation, with its pilgrim feasts at the temple, is ending.  They don’t exist in the order of Melchisedek.

Mt.26:26-28 Jesus restored the order of Melchisedek with the symbolic sacred bread & wine of the New Covenant as its communion (from Ge.14:19 Melchisedek).  Jewish Christian historian Alfred Edersheim The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah 5:10:826-827 “With this celebration and new institution, the Jewish Passover forever ceased!”  The temple would soon be destroyed, and the pilgrim feasts at Jerusalem (their one authorized feast site then, never two simultaneously) would cease.

The OT Levites had no tribal land inheritance and were restricted in business (De.10:9; Nu.3:9, 18:20-21).  But leaders in the order of Melchisedek may work a common job, e.g. Ac.18:2-3.

The only Levitical injunctions and practices remaining…are those which are also present in the order of Melchisedek.  There are many.  Again, a detailed examination of Genesis shows that such injunctions (applicable for gentiles) existed prior to Moses and the Old Covenant.

He.13:10-14 “We have an altar which those who serve the tabernacle have no right to eat.”  Disbelieving Levitical priests, at temple feasts of the Jews, had no right to partake of the bread & wine of the Lord in the order of Melchisedek.  Yet New Covenant believers partake.  And we needn’t be physically circumcised to take that communion!  Father Abraham (Abram) wasn’t circumcised when Melchisedek shared bread & wine with him as Abram in Ge.14!  (Whereas physical circumcision is commanded to keep a Passover, e.g. Ex.12:48-49.  see the topic “Circumcision in the Bible”.)

Few of us today have knowledge of/proof of family ancestry in the tribe of Levi or its priesthood.  1Pe.2:9 “You [Christians, 4:16] are a royal priesthood.”  Yet even us non-Levites/non-Aaronites are adopted (Ro.8:14-16) into royalty…and are become the royal priesthood in the order of Melchisedek!  Re.5:9-10 of saints from all nations, “You have made them a kingdom, and priests to our God”.

To conclude, the OT verse most often quoted in the NT is Le.19:18b. “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”  But the OT (short) passage most often referred to in the NT is Ps.110:1-4 (which began this topic). “The Lord said to my Lord, ‘Sit at My right hand, until I make Your enemies a footstool for Your feet….You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchisedek.”  David Seilaff Who Was Melchizedek? “In fact, Psalm 110 is referred to in the New Testament more than any Old Testament section of Scripture.”  The order of Melchisedek is of such significance for Christ’s church!

Jesus is both our high Priest (He.6:20), and “King of kings and Lord of lords” (Re.19:16)…in the order of Melchisedek and the Kingdom of God!  Praise the Lord!

Zion in the Bible (2) – Heavenly Jerusalem

This topic is the continuation and conclusion to “Zion in the Bible (1)”.  Part 1 should be read first as background.  Little of the material and verses addressed in Part 1 is repeated here in Part 2.

The Hebrew term Zion (Strongs h6726 tsee-yóne, noun) occurs 153 times in the Old Testament (OT).  In Part 1, we looked at many of those verses where Zión occurs.

We saw that “Zion” expanded in scope, or migrated, as the OT scriptures progress chronologically.  Zion went from being: a Jebusite citadel, to “city of David”, to Jerusalem’s southern hill, to the Temple Mount [Moriáh], to Jerusalem in its entirety, to the land of Judah & Israel, to the whole Israelite people.

In the OT, “Zion” went from being a Canaanite fortress…to an entire people!  (see Part 1 for details.)

Here in Part 2, we’ll continue to trace the expansion of “Zion” in the Bible.

The concept of Zion takes on added meaning in the New Testament (NT).  The Greek Septúagint/LXX and NT term for Zion is Sion (see-ówn) g4622.  It occurs 7 times in the NT: Mt.21:5; Jn.12:15; Ro.9:33, 11:26; He.12:22; 1Pe.2:6; Re.14:1.  Following are those verses, along with Bible commentator remarks.

Mt.21:5 “Say to the daughter of Zion [g4622], ‘Behold, your King [Jesus] comes to you, humble, and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”  This verse refers to Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem.  (Jn.12:15 is a parallel account.)  Pulpit Commentary Mt.21:5 “The ‘daughter of Zion’ is Jerusalem herself, named from the chief of the hills on which the city was built [7 hills]. Of course, the term includes all the inhabitants.”  Here the expression “daughter of Zion” represents old Jerusalem and the Jewish people (see Part 1).

Ro.11:26 “Thus all Israel will be saved, as it is written: ‘The Deliverer will come out of Sion [g4622], He will remove ungodliness from Jacob. This is My covenant with them when I take away their sins.”  Bengels Gnomen Ro.11:26 “The Deliverer or Redeemer comes out of Sión and for good to Sion.” (ref Is.59:20 LXX).   JFB Commentary Is.59:20 “Paul [in Ro.11:26] applies this verse to the restoration of Israel spiritually.”  The scope of Zion expands to include the beginning NT church of Jewish Christians.  Barnes Notes Ro.11:26 “Zion…thus came to denote, in general, the church or people of God.”

1Pe.2:6 “For this is contained in scripture [Is.28:16]: ‘Behold I lay in Sion a choice stone [Jesus], a precious Cornerstone, and he who believes in Him shall not be ashamed.”  Poole Commentary 1Pe.2:6 “Or Sion is here to be understood of the gospel church, whereof Sion was a type.”  Barnes Notes Ro.9:33 “Mt Sion was the hill or eminence in Jerusalem, over-against Mt Moriah, on which the temple was built. On this [Zion] was the palace of David, and the residence of the court, 1Ch.11:5-8. Hence, the whole city was often called by that name; Ps.48:12, 69:35, 87:2. Also it came to signify the capital, the glory of the people of God, the place of solemnities; and hence, also the church itself: Ps.2:6, 51:18, 102:13, 137:3; Is.1:27, 52:1, 59:20. In this place it means the church.”  Zion also signified the church.

He.12:22 “You have come to Mount Sion, and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to countless thousands of angels.”  JFB Commentary He.12:22 “Antitypical Sion, the heavenly Jerusalem.”  Cambridge Bible “The names of Sion and ‘the heavenly Jerusalem’ are given to ‘the city of the living God’ (Ga.4:26, Re.21:2).”  Barnes Notes “The dispensation to which they had been brought was what conducted them directly up to the city of the living God, and to the holy mount where He dwelt above.”  Meyer NT Commentary “Mount Zion the heavenly Jerusalem is designated.”  Here Mt Zion represents more than the church…it also denotes the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of God!

Re.14:1 “Then I looked, and behold, the Lamb [Jesus] was standing on Mount Sion and with Him 144,000, having His name and the name of His Father written on their foreheads.”  Ellicott Commentary Re.14:1 “The Savior, the Lamb…is seen standing on the citadel of the heavenly city.”  Pulpit Commentary Re.14:1 “Zion is the new Jerusalem, the opposite extreme to Babylon (v.8).”  Barnes Notes “Stood on the mount Zion; that is, in heaven.”  Zion has taken on a heavenly presence.

Norman Holmes A Vision For Spiritual Zion “The true Zion in heaven is at the throne of God and is the center of worship.”  (cf. Re.5:11-14.)

The heavenly Jerusalem set the pattern for OT ancient Israel’s earthly tabernacle/temple counterpart.  After Israel had fled Egypt, God showed Moses a heavenly archetype.  The Lord cautioned Moses to construct Israel’s ancient tabernacle and its furnishings according to the model he envisioned (Ex.25:9, 40).  In Ac.7:44, Stephen recounted that God had spoken to Moses about the pattern for the tabernacle.  Old Covenant priests served as a “copy and shadow of the heavenly things, just as Moses was warned by God when he was about to erect the tabernacle; ‘See that you make all things according to the pattern.” (He.8:5)  And He.9:23-24 “It was necessary for the copies of things in the heavens to be cleansed…but the heavenly things with better sacrifices than these. For Christ didn’t enter a holy place made with hands, a mere copy of the true one, but into heaven itself.”  At God’s heavenly sanctuary.

Re.14:1 and He.12:22 (quoted above) reflect Sion/Zion as the heavenly city of God!  After Christ’s crucifixion, resurrection and ascension, He entered its holiest place (He.9:11-12, 24).

{Sidelight: The traditional Via Dolorosa route walked by Jesus to His crucifixion wasn’t on Mt Zion.  He was crucified outside Jerusalem (Jn.19:20).  Jesus cried out on the cross, Mt.27:46 “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”  Zion is the place of life with God, not of death.

R.C. Sproul The Crucifixion and Old Testament Prophecy “The site of Jesus’ execution was outside Jerusalem. Once He was judged by the Gentiles and condemned to be executed, He was led out of the fortress, onto the Via Dolorosa, and outside the walls of the city. Just as the scapegoat was driven outside the camp [Le.16:21-23, He.13:11-12], Jesus was taken outside Zion, outside the holy city where the presence of God was concentrated.”  Christ wasn’t crucified in Zion.}

From the above NT verses, “Zion” has further expanded in scope, migrating by steps.  Zion has gone from (in the OT): Jebusite citadel, to “city of David”, to Jerusalem’s southern hill/mount, to the Temple Mount [Moriah], to Jerusalem in its entirety, to the land of Judah & Israel, to the whole Israelite people…then to the NT church, and to God’s heavenly abode!  Zion wasn’t just a Canaanite castle.

Yet going way back…even centuries prior to King David, it seems a type of “Zion” existed in Genesis!  Jerusalem was anciently called Jebús.  Jg.19:10-11 “Jebus [h2982], which is Jerusalem.”  1Ch.11:4-5 “David and all Israel went to Jerusalem, which is Jebus….David took the citadel of Zion, the city of David.”  Zion was linked to the Jebusite [h2983] city of Jebus/Jerusalem in David’s day.  And before….

ISBE: Zion “Enormous quantities of early ‘Amorite’ (popularly called ‘Jebusite’) pottery show that the spot [Zion] must have been inhabited many centuries before the time of David [1030 BC]. The reverse is equally true; on no other part of the Jerusalem site has any quantity of such early pottery been found.”

There’s a link between Melchisedek-Zion-David from the book of Genesis (not addressed in Part 1).

Abrám/Abraham met Mechisedek in Ge.14:18-20.  “Melchisedek king of Salem [h8004] brought forth bread and wine; He was priest of God Most High.”

Where was this ancient Salem?  Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew Lexicon “Most Jewish commentators affirm that it [Salem] is the same as Jerusalem.”  Wikipedia: Jebusite “The Amárna letters call Jerusalem Úrusalim (1330s BCE). Also in the letters it is called Beth-Shálem, the house of Shalem.” Cambridge Bible Ge.14:18 “In the Tel-el-Amarna tablets Jerusalem appears with the name Uru-salim. Salem is the poetical, or archaic, name for Jerusalem in Psalm 76:2.”  Old Jerusalem was called Salem.

Ps.76:2 “In Salem is His [God’s] tabernacle, and His dwelling-place in Zion.”  Melchisedek was both king and priest on Mt Zion of ancient Salem/Jerusalem.  Wikipedia: Jebusite “Melchisedek was…in charge of Jerusalem.”

die2live/mt-zion-mt-moriah-mt-calvary “Zion is also the city of Salem, where the priest/king of Salem, Melchizedek, whose name means ‘king of righteousness’, received a tithe from Abram.”

The Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS) refer to Melchisedek and Zion.  Wikipedia: 11Q13 “11Q13, also 11QMelch or the Melchizedek document, is a fragmentary manuscript among the scrolls which mentions Melchisedek as leader of God’s angels in a war in heaven against the angels of darkness instead of the more familiar Archangel Michael. The text is an apocalyptic commentary on the Jubilee year of Leviticus 25. The DSS contain texts in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek; the language of 11Q13 is Hebrew; date of composition is circa 100 BC. In the fragmentary passage the term ‘Elohím’ appears a dozen times, mainly referring to the God of Israel; but in commentary on ‘who says to Zion ‘Your Elohim [God] reigns’ (Isa. 52:7) 11Q13 states that Zion is the congregation of all the sons of righteousness, while Melchizedek is ‘Your Elohim’ who will deliver the sons of righteousness from Belíal.”  The DSS too linked Melchisedek to Zion.  (also see the topics “Melchisedek Order Priesthood” and “Michael in the Bible”.)

David wrote of Melchisedek and Zion.  Ps.110:1-4 “The Lord will stretch forth thy strong scepter from Zion, saying, ‘Rule in the midst of your enemies….You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchisedek.”  (The order of Melchisedek both precedes and succeeds the priestly Levitical order.)  Melchisedek was a theophany/Christophany (or a type) of Christ, the primordial word of God (Jn.1:1).

Bob Sorge connects insights in his Why Sion Is So Important. “Melchisedek was king of Jerusalem (Salem) and also the priest of God Most High (see Gen.14:14-24). Since Zion was Jerusalem’s…most ancient neighborhood, the ‘old city’ if you will, it is reasonable to conclude that Melchizedek’s throne was in Zion proper (even though it wasn’t called Zion at the time). We could say, therefore, that Melchizedek came out of Zion in order to bless Abraham. Melchizedek was the first priest of God to appear in Scripture, and it was no coincidence that his throne was in Zion (called Salem at the time). Jesus Christ was later declared to be a Priest in the order of Melchizedek (Ps.110:4). As such, Jesus is the rightful heir to the throne of Zion.”

Now Christ abides and reigns from heavenly Mt Zion.

Ps.146:10 “The Lord will reign forever, your God, O Zion, to all generations. Praise you the Lord.”  Benson Commentary Ps.146:10 “Christ is set as King on the holy hill of Zion, and His kingdom shall continue in a glory that shall know no period.”  Pulpit Commentary He.12:22 “In the Psalms generally the holy hill of Zion continues to be viewed as the Lord’s immovable abode, where he is surrounded by thousands of angels, and whence he succors his people (cf. Psalm 48; 68; 125:1; 132; etc.).”

Parts 1 & 2 of this topic have traced the steps and meaning of Zion through the scriptures.  After Bible times, men have since named other sites and towns Zion or Sion.  In this sense, Zion/Sion has migrated or expanded elsewhere too.  (I’m not imputing scripture to the following places/sites, etc.)  For example:

Sion College in London was chartered by King Charles 1 in 1630 for clergy.  Zion Wildlife Garden in New Zealand is a sanctuary for endangered species.  Sion Hill in the U.S. Virgin Islands is an historic 18^th century sugar plantation.  Zion College (founded 1949) was a Bible institute in Chattanooga.  Several states in the USA have towns named Zion.  Zion, Illinois (pop. 24,000, north of Chicago) was founded by evangelist Alexander Dowie (in 1901), with the Zion Tabernacle.  I with my son’s family have climbed another Mt Zion, the 4,200 ft peak in the Olympic National Forest of Washington state.  The famous Zion National Park and Zion Canyon (so-named by Mormon pioneers) is in Utah.  Zion Williamson plays basketball for Duke University in North Carolina.  Zionism (of the World Zionist Organization) is an ideological political movement, begun in 1897, to establish a national home and state in Palestine for the Jewish people.

To conclude…How else may we interpret Zion from scripture?  Zion may be broadly understood as…where God’s presence was or is!  Zion and God’s presence was/is: in the place of Melchisedek, at the southernmost holy hill or mount in Jerusalem/Salem, in the OT nation of Israel, in the NT church, in heavenly Jerusalem above.

Ps.9:11 “Sing praise to the Lord, who dwells in Zion.”  Ps.50:2 “Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God hath shined.”  Expositor’s Greek Testament He.12:22 “The ideal Zion is the place of God’s manifestation of His presence (Ps.9:11, Ps.76:2).”

Our best environment is…the presence of God.  There’s no better place or state!

Gordon E. Gainey’s summation in Zion and the Melchizedek Priesthood: p.130 “Zion is the kingdom of God upon the earth.”  p.135 “Mt. Zion is a present reality.”  p.62 “Zion is now! Zion is also future.”  p.137 “Zion is not some mystical place. It certainly exists. It is past, present and future.”  Zion is forever.