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!

Tent/Tabernacle of David (1)

At the Jerusalem Council of around 49 AD, in Ac.15:13-18 the apostle James quoted an Old Testament (OT) prophecy of God. “After these things I [God] will return, and I will rebuild the tent of David, which is fallen….”  What was the tent of David?  This is about the tent or tabernacle of David.

Two ‘tabernacles’ existed simultaneously in ancient Israel for around 40 years, from circa (c) 1030 BC to c 991 BC.  (cf. 1Ch.15:1, 1Ch.16:37-40.)  The tabernacle of Moses was at Gibeón, and the tabernacle or tent of David was at the “city of David” in Jerusalem during that time.

The tent enclosure David pitched in Jerusalem provided a home for the ark of God for those 40 years.  Until his son Solomon completed the temple (c 991 BC), and the ark was brought into it (1Ki.7:51–8:1).

The ark of God was the most important object in God’s tabernacle Moses had built.  Christ, the God and good Shepherd of Israel, ‘dwelt’ above the ark between the cherubim (cf. Ex.25:22, Ps.80:1, Jn.10:11).  The ark resided in the Holy of Holies innermost room (Ex.26:34) of Moses’ tabernacle for 500 years.  From c 1611 BC – c 1102 BC (except when the Israelites took the ark with them into battle).

Then in the final days of Eli the high priest of Israel, c 1102 BC, the Philistines captured the ark of God (in battle) from Moses’ tabernacle at Shilóh, 1Sm.4:10-13, 18.  It would never return to Moses’ tabernacle!  The ark resided elsewhere, apart from Moses’ tabernacle, for 110 years (until c 991 BC).  During those 110 years, the Holy of Holies compartment of Moses’ tabernacle was entirely empty!

After King David subdued the Philistines, he wanted God’s ark brought up to Jerusalem (c 1030 BC).  1Ch.15:1 “In the city of David [on Mt Zión] he prepared a place for the ark of God and pitched a tent for it.”  That Hebrew term for “tent” is óhel, Strongs h168.  The Greek Septúagint term is skené g4633.

Unlike Moses’ tabernacle, the tent of David wasn’t a structure.  So the tent of David is never referred to as a mishkán h4908, Hebrew, in the OT.  David’s enclosure was just a tent.  Whereas Moses’ tabernacle was a mishkan wooden frame structure (with curtains and a tent roof).

2Sm.6:17 “They brought the ark of the Lord and set it in the tent [h168, Septuagint g4633] David had pitched for it; and David offered burnt and peace offerings before the Lord.”  Voluntarily.  Other than these dedicatory offerings, David didn’t sacrifice animals at his tent on Mt Zion.  No recurring animal sacrifices were done at David’s tent!  Moses’ tabernacle was for animal sacrifice, 1Ch.16:39-40.  Later, King Solomon did a one-time sacrifice at the tent of David and fed the people, 1Ki.3:15.  No more there.  (Solomon sacrificed at Moses’ tabernacle in Gibeon, and the Lord appeared to him, 1Ki.3:4-5.)

Ps.76:2 “His [God’s] abode [den/shelter h5520 soke] is in Salem, His dwelling place in Zion.”  While David reigned in Jeru-Salem, Christ’s “abode” was above the cherubim of the ark in David’s tent on Mt Zion.  David built his palace on Mt Zion.  (see the topic, “Zion in the Bible”.)  The ark represented the presence of God!  However, for all of David’s reign, God’s tabernacle (mishkan) of Moses and its furnishings was at Gibeon, not Zion.  (Note: Ps.76:2 may also apply to Mt Zion of the heavenly Jerusalem, cf. He.12:22 & Ga.4:26.  And Ps.76:2 “Salem” can tie back to Melchisedek in Ge.14:18.)

In the tabernacle Moses erected, the innermost Holy of Holies place (behind the second veil) early-on contained three items: #1 the ark with the Decalogue law, God’s testimony on tablets, inside (Ex.25:21, Ex.31:18, De.4:13); #2 Aaron’s rod that budded (Nu.17:10); #3 a memorial jar of manna (Ex.16:32-34).  ref He.9:1-5.  Later, the Book of the Law was also placed beside the ark (De.31:26, 2Ch.34:14-15).

But David brought only the ark into the tent.  The ark still contained God’s law of the Decalogue or Ten Commandments…even during Solomon’s reign (1Ki.8:1, 9; 2Ch.5:10)!  But gone from Moses’ Holy of Holies in Gibeon was Aaron’s rod that budded; it signified priestly Aaronide eminence in the Levitical order of ancient Israel.  Gone was the memorial jar of manna from their wilderness experience.  We may presume that Aaron’s rod and the jar of manna were lost when the Philistines captured the ark.

(Whenever…Christians are now God’s priesthood in the order of Melchisedek.  Aaronite priests are obsolete.  And Christ is our living bread of life.  The church eats of the “hidden manna”, Re.2:17.)

Les McFall The Chronology of Saul and David “The actual time from the death of Eli to the deposition of the ark in Jerusalem by David was 68 years.”  After the Philistines sent back the ark (1Sm.6:21–7:1), it sat in Abinadáb’s house at Kiriáth-jearím for near 70 years (c 1101 – c 1030 BC).  Until 1Ch.13:5-7.

David & Uzzáh attempted to retrieve the ark of God from Abinadab’s house.  That attempt was aborted because the ark wasn’t transported in the manner the Lord had prescribed (2Sm.6:1-12, 1Ch.15:11-15).  Then the ark resided in Obéd-edóm’s house for 3 months.  The Lord blessed Obed-edom’s household while the ark was there, before David brought it up to Jerusalem (1030 BC)!  The concept of God’s ark being at a person’s home wasn’t new with David.  (also see the topic “Ark of the Testimony – Journeys”.)

Why didn’t David just return the ark to God’s tabernacle at Gibeon, rather than bringing it to his palace on Mt Zion?  Zadók the priest served at Moses’ tabernacle in Gibeon (1Ch.16:39); but the ark upon which to sprinkle blood on the annual Day of Atonement was gone.  Yet David and the leaders of Israel all agreed to bring the ark up to the “city of David” at Jerusalem (1Ch.13:1-4, 12-13), not to Gibeon.

Following are 8 possible reasons why King David set up the “tent of David” at his palace on Zion:

#1 The priesthood had become corrupt in the days of Eli the high priest & his sons (1Sm.2:12-17, 22-26, 4:10-22), when Moses’ tabernacle was at Shiloh in the territory of the tribe of Ephráim, c 1102 BC.  David wanted the ark of God and His Presence in Jerusalem, but without the priestly corruption which had existed at Moses’ tabernacle in Shiloh (back when Samuel the prophet was in his 30s).

#2 David wanted to safeguard the ark by locating it farther away from Philistine territory.  Abinadab’s town of Kiriath-jearim or Baaláh (Jsh.15:9) was west of Jerusalem, on the border of Judah, near the tribal areas allotted to Benjamin & Dan.  Dr. Ralph Wilson David Brings the Ark to Jerusalem “Another reason may have been that since the Israelites had destroyed the Philistines’ idols [2Sm.5:21-22], David wanted to protect the ark, lodged only a few miles from their territory, from a reprisal.”

#3 Prior to Gibeon (but after Shiloh), Moses’ tabernacle had been at the priestly town of Nob…before David became king, when King Saul was chasing him.  David escaped to Nob (and ate of the priests’ showbread from the Holy Place), 1Sm.21–22.  Saul later had the residents of Nob killed!  1Sm.22:22 David felt responsible or guilty for their deaths, and avoided more association with Moses’ tabernacle.

#4 David wanted to increase knowledge of God in the Land among the people.  So he allowed for two sets of priests at two places of worship…at Moses’ tabernacle in Gibeon and at the tent/ark in Jerusalem.

#5 Again, the ark had recently been in a personal dwelling (for 70 years!), not in Moses’ tabernacle.  During the lifetime of David, the ark had never been with Moses’ tabernacle!  David wanted the blessing that had come to the household of Obed-edom to come to him and the people in Jerusalem!

#6 The Lord had had David build a sacrificial altar on Mt Moriáh at the threshing floor of Ornán (or Araunáh) the Jebusite (1Ch.21:18, 26-30; 2Ch.3:1).  Since God accepted David’s burnt offerings at that altar and ended the pestilence, David felt no need to go to the great altar at Gibeon to seek the Lord.

#7 God told David that his son Solomon would build a temple/house for God (1Ch.22:5-10).  David received the revelation of the pattern for Solomon’s temple (1Ch.28:11-21, 29:1-25), and began the preparations.  But the Lord didn’t permit David to construct the temple (1Ch.22:5-10).  Since Solomon would erect a stationary building for the ark (on nearby Mt Moriah, 2Ch.3:1), David saw no need to temporarily return the ark to Moses’ portable tabernacle at Gibeon.  (ref the internet article, “The Movement of the Ark and the Tent of God”.)

#8 After Saul’s demise, David as king saw it necessary to further unite the 12 tribes of Israel.  The ark of God was the most revered object from the days of Moses.  Bringing the ark to David’s palace on Mt Zion would make Jerusalem both the government capital and the religious center of the Holy Land.

{Sidelight: Some Bible readers speculate that David’s birth was illegitimate, that he wasn’t authorized to fully participate at Moses’ tabernacle.  So David didn’t want the ark in Gibeon.  Verses they use as backup: 1Sm.16:1-11 Jesse omitted his son David from Samuel’s important sacrifice; De.23:2-3 none illegitimate nor Ammonites could enter the assembly of the Lord; Jg.11:1-2 Jephtháh; 1Ch.2:13-17 & 2Sm.17:25 David’s two sisters had an Ammonite father, Nahásh (not Jesse); Ps.51:5 “In sin did my mother conceive me”; Ps.22:6-10, Ps.69:7-8, 19-20 his reproach was possibly due to his mother’s sin.

I won’t detail this line of thinking, but refer you to the following articles: What About David’s Mother; Ryan Johnson Overcoming An Illegitimate Identity; Professor Who Was King David An Illegitimate Son Of Jesse?; bjorkbloggen King David Said In Sin Did My Mother Conceive Me; Dean Smith King David’s Big Dark Secret and Why Did King David Set Up the Tabernacle of David?

However, David did enter Moses’ tabernacle at Nob!  And in hunger he and his men ate the priests’ showbread which had been in the Holy Place (1Sm.21:1-6).  So it seems David didn’t consider himself forbidden, at least not from the premises of Moses’ tabernacle.  Jesus said of David in Mt.12:3-4, “He entered the house [tabernacle] of God, and they ate the consecrated bread which wasn’t lawful for him to eat, nor for those with him”.  Interpret the questionable view of David’s illegitimate birth as you will.}

Above are 8 (or 9) possible reasons why David pitched a tent on Mt Zion for the ark of God.  Perhaps several are applicable.  It was in David’s heart to later build a permanent structure in Jerusalem for the ark (1Ch.17:1-ff).  However, the Lord said Solomon would build the temple (in Jerusalem, 2Ch.3:1).

But was it God’s will for David to first pitch a tent for the ark in Jerusalem?  David had consulted with all the leaders about bringing the ark from Kiriath-jearim.  1Ch.13:1-3 “David said to all the assembly of Israel. ‘If it seems good to you, and if it is from the Lord our God, let us bring back the ark of our God to us, for we didn’t seek it in the days of Saul.”  R. Wilson op. cit. “Bringing back the ark becomes a national event.”  But was the “tent of David” idea “from the Lord”?

Ps.78:68 “He [the Lord] chose the tribe of Judah, Mount Zion which He [the Lord] loved.”  This Psalm 78 was written by Asáph, who ministered before the ark at David’s tent on Mt Zion (1Ch.16:4-5, 37).  Mt Zion and the tent/tabernacle of David on it was God’s choice!  Pulpit Commentary Ps.78:68 “God, no doubt, inspired David with the thought of fixing his residence in ‘the stronghold of Zion’ (2Sam 5:9), and of bringing up the ark of the covenant into it (2Sam 6:12-17).”

The physical tent David pitched disappeared from history (after 991 BC).  David’s united kingdom of Israel was eventually divided, in the days of Solomon’s son Rehoboám.  The two nations of Israel and Judah would later both go into captivity, to Assyria and Babylon respectively.  But before captivity….

Approximately 240 years after Solomon moved the ark from David’s tent (and moved Moses’ tabernacle from Gibeon, 2Ch.5:5) into the finished temple of Solomon on Mt Moriah (c 991 BC)…the Lord gave Amos a remarkable prophecy to the house of Israel.

Am.9:11-12 Septuagint/LXX “In that day I [the Lord] will raise up the tent [skene g4633] of David that is fallen, and will rebuild it.”  (Here the Hebrew text term is sukkáh h5521, booth.  A booth was a temporary dwelling, not intended for reuse in other locations.)  The Lord said the day would come when He would again raise-up a “tent of David”, which David’s physical tent foreshadowed.

The tent David pitched for the ark…the Lord associated it with the future.  So David’s special tent, housing the ark with the mercy seat (2Sm.6:2) and the Decalogue, must have been according to God’s will!  The Lord approved.  (That is, as long as they transported the ark to the tent in God’s rightful manner.  Again, 2Sm.6:3-11 is the account of David’s initial failed attempt, transporting it incorrectly.)

Furthermore, not long after Amos, Isaiah also prophesied about the tent of David.  Is.16:5 LXX “A throne will be established in loving kindness. One will sit on it in truth, in the tent [skene g4633] of David, judging, seeking justice, and swift to do righteousness.”  (The Hebrew here for “tent” is ohel h168.)

This verse too applied to the future…to Christ and His church and His government!  Benson Commentary Is.16:5 “He [Isaiah] was carried forward to a contemplation of the kingdom of Christ.”  JFB Commentary “Language so divinely framed as to apply to ‘the latter days’ under King Messiah.”  Gill Exposition “This was typical of the church of God, where Christ sits and reigns as King, see Amos 9:11.”  Bob Sorge Why Sion Is So Important “Jesus is the rightful heir to the throne of Zion.”  The typological tent of David was pitched on Zion.

This topic is continued and concluded in “Tent/Tabernacle of David (2)”.  There we’ll look in the New Testament at the realization of the OT type.

Holy Spirit’s Identity

The identity of the Holy Spirit remains somewhat of a mystery to many Bible readers.  This topic is a composite of material excerpted from my previous topics relating to the Godhead: “Tri-unity of God”, “Godhead in Prehistory”, “Holy Spirit Personification”, “Holy Spirit versus Mariolatry”, “Names/Titles of God in the Old Testament”.

In the English language, the word “God” is customarily used for Deity.  Only the true God is Divine.

The Bible indicates there are 3 “Persons” in the Godhead, the Godkind or God Family: Father, Holy Spirit, Jesus the Son/Word.  They are identical in essence, fully divine, a tri-unity of subsistences having self-awareness.  The God Family is uni-plural, as “one” (echad, Hebrew Strongs h259) in nature.

The tripartite Godhead is revealed to us by Jesus the Son’s coming in the flesh and His words in the New Testament (NT), by other scriptures, and by the Holy Spirit (HS) indwelling us as Christians.  It’s been said in analogy that the Father is the wall outlet, the HS is the cord, Jesus is the lamp (Re.21:23).

Father God is in heaven.  God has operated through the HS and Jesus.  Ac.2:34 Jesus ascended into heaven and now sits there at Father’s right hand (and Jesus lives mystically in Christians, Jn.17:21-23 & Col.1:27).  The human Jesus wasn’t omnipresent.  The HS is on earth…omnipresent.  David wrote in Ps.139:7-10, “Where can I go from Your Spirit, where can I flee from Your Presence?”  Not anywhere.

The Father sent Jesus.  Jn.12:49 Jesus said, “The Father who sent Me has given Me commandment.”  The two are distinct.  The Father also sends the HS. Jn.14:26 “The Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send.”  Jesus too sends the HS (Jn.16:7).  So all three are distinct!  But neither Jesus nor the HS sends the Father!  They differ in order and subordination.  The human Jesus wasn’t omniscient.  Mt.24:36 “Of that day and hour no one knows, not the Son, the Father only.” (see “Jesus Is God…Jesus Has A God”.)

The HS belongs to and was part of Father God, has personality, but isn’t the totality of God.  God is a triad: 2Co.13:14 “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the HS be with you all.”  2Co.1:21-22 “He who establishes us in Christ and anointed us is God, who also gave us the Spirit.”  Ep.4:4-6 “There is one Spirit, one Lord, one God and Father of all.”  (That’s three!)  Ac.7:55 “Being full of the HS, Stephen saw Jesus standing at the right hand of God.”  He.9:14 “Christ, who through the eternal Spirit, offered Himself without blemish to God.”  1Co.12:4-6 “The same Spirit…the same Lord…the same God.”  (Again, that’s three.)  1Pe.1:2 “Elect according to a foreknowledge of God the Father, sanctified by the Spirit, sprinkled with the blood of Jesus Christ.”

The triune God is thrice holy: One Spirit…one Lord…one Father (Ep.4:4-6).  Is.6:3 “Holy, Holy, Holy is YHVH of hosts.”  A three-in-one Godhead.  The heavenly worshipers in Re.4:8 “Do not cease to say, Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God, the Almighty”.

The terms for God as “Father” and “Holy Spirit” rarely occur as such in the Old Testament (OT).

The Holy Spirit in the OT: Is.48:16 “The Lord God and His Spirit have sent Me.”  Job.33:4 “The Spirit of God has made me.”  Pr.1:20-23 “Wisdom lifts her voice, ‘I will pour out My Spirit on you.”

Every human has a spirit within.  Jb.32:8 “There is a spirit in man.”  Our human spirit gives biological life to our body of flesh (Ge.2:7).  Ja.2:26 “The body without the spirit is dead.”  Without our human spirit, we’re just a clod.  Our spirit in God’s image imparts self-awareness and intellect to our brain.  It’s a non-physical component which differentiates human mind from animal brain instinct.  Our spirit gives us a moral sense of conscience, based mostly upon the self and cultural customs & laws.  The HS will join with our human spirit (1Co.6:17); we become linked to God, able to obey God’s morality.

The Holy Spirit, ministering spirits (angels), our human spirits…aren’t an impersonal Star Wars type force!  Our human spirit is me, is you, within our flesh ‘suit’.  (see “Spirits – Made by God in Light”.)

Ontology is the study of being.  God, angels, humans are called personal beings.  But God’s Being isn’t finite or limited, as we are limited.  Scripture doesn’t define ‘person’ (the term we use in modern English), and doesn’t apply that term to the triune God.  The Latin persona was a ‘face’ worn by Greek/Roman dramatic actors.  Church fathers applied the Greek term hypostases (entities) to God.

The HS speaks in 1^st Person as “Me” and “I” in Ac.13:2. “The Holy Spirit said, ‘Set apart for Me Barnabas and Saul for the work which I have called them to.”  Also ref Ac.11:12, Jn.16:13, Mk.13:11, which indicate the HS is personal and speaks.  2Sm.23:2-3 “The Spirit of YHVH spoke by me. The God of Israel.”  The HS is God/YHVH.  But who was/is this Holy Spirit of God?

Theóphilus, the 6^th bishop of Antioch (born approximately 20 years after the apostle John died), was the first to use the term trinity/triad.  In 175 AD he wrote To Autolýcus, 2:10. “God, having His own Word internal within His own bowels, begat Him, emitting Him along with His own Wisdom before all things.”  Theophilus’ triad was “The Trinity of [Father] God, His Word, and His Wisdom.” (Autolycus 2:15)

Wikipedia: Theophilus of Antioch “Theophilus’s apology is most notable for being the earliest extant Christian work to use the word ‘Trinity’ (Greek: τριάς trias), although it does not use the common formula of ‘the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit’ to describe the Trinity. Rather, Theophilus himself puts it as ‘God, his Word (Logos) and his Wisdom (Sophía)’ [To Autolycus 2:15], perhaps following the early Christian practice of identifying the Holy Spirit as the Wisdom of God [Autolycus 1:7].”

“This is also expressed in the works of his contemporary, Irenáeus of Lyons, who writes [Ps.33:6], ‘By the word of the Lord were the heavens established, and by his spirit all their power. Since then the Word establishes, gives body and grants the reality of being, and the Spirit gives order and form to the diversity of the powers; rightly and fittingly is the Word called the Son, and the Spirit the Wisdom of God’. [Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching] ‘In like manner also the 3 days which were before the luminaries, are types of the Trinity, of God, and His Word, and His wisdom. And the 4^th is the type of man, who needs light, that so there may be God, the Word, wisdom, man.’ [To Autolycus 2:15]”

Irenaeus is called the most important theologian of his time.  He lived from 130–200 AD, having been taught by Polycarp (in Smyrna), who was a disciple of the apostle John.  

Residing in Lyons, France, Irenaeus wrote in Against Heresies. “The Son is rightly and properly called Word, while the Spirit is called the Wisdom [Sophia] of God”.  Ibid 4.7.4 “The Son and the Holy Spirit, the Word and Wisdom [Sophia], whom all the angels serve.”  4:20:3 “God tells us through the mouth of Solomon that Sophia is the Spirit.”  Sophia (Strongs g4678) is the Greek term for Wisdom.

Christian historian Robert Grant Greek Apologists of the 2^nd Century, p.169 “Theophilus and almost every early Christian theologian agreed the Logos (like Sophia/Wisdom) was originally in God”.

Jesus referred to the apocryphal Wisdom of Solomon (WSol).  cf. Mt.27:43 & WSol.2:13, 18; Lk.11:31 & WSol.8:1.  (The apostle Paul referred to WSol too.  cf. WSol.13:5, 8 & Ro.1:19-20 KJV “Godhead”.)

Jesus said the Queen of Sheba “Came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon” (Mt.12:42, 1Ki.10:1-4).  Jesus also referred to the apocryphal Wisdom of Sirach (WSir)/Ecclesiasticus.  cf. Mt.6:14 & WSir 28:2.  WSol was written ca 20 BC; WSir was written ca 180 BC in Hebrew.

WSol.7:22, 25 “In herself, wisdom is a spirit that is understanding, Holy. She is the breath of the power of God, and the emanation of the pure glory of the Almighty.”  Wisdom is the Holy Spirit, split-off or spirated or emanated through God’s breath/mouth.  WSol.8:3-4 “She glorifies her noble birth by living with God, and the Master of all loves her.”  Pr.8:30 “I [wisdom] was daily His delight.”

WSol and WSir reflect how Jews believed and interpreted Proverbs & Wisdom in latter BC times.  Wisdom is sophia (g4678) in Greek, and chokmáh (h2451) in Hebrew.  Orthodox Bible “The Holy Spirit receives eternal existence only from the Father.”  Wisdom says in Pr.8:25 LXX, “He begets [gennáo g1080] Me”.  Philo On Flight and Finding (p.325) “Wisdom, even if it be most ancient of all other things, still has only second place to that Omnipotent Being.”  Father God is the Most High God.

Solomon’s prayer of WSol.9:4, 10, 17, “Give me the wisdom that sits by Your throne…Send her forth from Your holy heavens…Send Your Holy Spirit from on high.”  Wisdom the HS sat beside God’s throne in the heavens, as a Queen beside the King’s throne.  The real ‘Queen of Heaven’ isn’t Ishtar, or other pagan goddesses (cf. Je.44:17)…rather, She’s the feminine HS.

In Lk.7:35, Jesus indicated His Mother is Wisdom, the HS.  Connecting in order the following seven verses will identify the (feminine) HS: Jl.2:28a, Pr.1:20, 23, De.34:9a, Nu.27:18, Mt.1:18b, Lk.7:35.

The Works of Philo, p.85, 331, 405 “The Word [Logos, Greek] has received wholly pure parents…God being the Father and husband of wisdom, the mother of the Word….the Divine Logos flows forth from Wisdom.”  Creation reflects/teaches that it’s impossible to have a father without having a mother!

In our various languages, we use terms which correspond to the ancient Hebrew & Greek terms chosen by the Bible writers to identify and describe the ‘Persons’ of the God Family.  Jewish and Christian theology usually refers to God in male language and images, yet agrees it doesn’t adequately express all that the Divine is.  The Godhead possesses all the masculine and feminine attributes.  God is so great!

Wisdom is a personified hypostasis (a Greek term used in early Christian writings) or entity of God’s divine essence.

God reflects masculine roles: Ps.103:13 Father.  Ho.2:16 husband.  Ps.98:6 king.  Ex.15:3 warrior.

God reflects feminine roles: Is.66:13 Mother.  Is.42:14 pregnant.  Ps.22:9 midwife.  Ps.123:2 mistress.

Again, Wisdom is the Holy Spirit.  WSol.1:4-5 “Wisdom won’t enter the soul that plots evil. For a holy spirit of discipline flees from deceit.”  Again, WSol.9:17 “Unless You have given him wisdom and sent Your Holy Spirit from on high.”  Nu.27:18 “Joshua the son of Nun, a man in whom is the Spirit.”  De.34:9 “Joshua the son of Nun was filled with the Spirit of wisdom.”  Omnipresent, at God’s throne in heaven, and within Joshua, was the HS Wisdom.  And Wisdom is “Her”.

Jesus was conceived in the virgin Mary by the HS (Lk.1:35 the HS came upon Mary); and John the Baptizer was filled with the HS in his mother’s womb (Lk.1:15).  Speaking of Himself and John, Jesus said in Lk.7:33-35, “Wisdom is justified by her children”.  Jesus, the Child conceived by Wisdom the HS, speaks of Wisdom as “her”!  (As did Proverbs, etc.)  Jesus’ words are authoritative and truth!

The Hebrew grammatical gender of Bible nouns has significance.  But this doesn’t mean God the HS is literally a woman!  Yet the HS is grammatically and figuratively “she/her”.

In OT scripture, the ancient Hebrew (Heb) language attached gender to Spirit essence.  The Heb term for spirit (rúach h7307, and Aramaic rúach h7308) is feminine (fem).  The Heb term for wisdom (chokmah h2451) is fem.  In the OT Septúagint/LXX and NT both, the Greek (Gr) term for wisdom is sophia g4678.  Solomon wrote in Pr.7:4, “Call wisdom your sister”.  Sisters are of course feminine, not masculine (masc).  In Pr.9:1-3, wisdom is “she/her”.  WSir.4:11 “Wisdom exalts her children.”  WSir.24:18 of Wisdom, “I AM the mother of love that is beautiful. I therefore, being eternal, am given to all My children who are picked by Him.”  (Father God picks His elect: Ep.1:3-5, 17, Jn.6:44.)  And Jesus knew Himself to be a Child of Wisdom/Sophia/“her” in Lk.7:35.

Elóah h433 is a Heb term for God, occurring 55 times in the OT (mostly in Job and poetic passages).  Jb.27:3 “The spirit of God [Eloah h433] is in my nostrils.”  The –ah ending is indicative of fem singular.  The most common OT Heb term for God is Elohím h430.  Elohim is a masc plural ending –im (Father and Son), combined with the fem singular root Eloah (HS/Wisdom) or possibly El.  Three.

Also the modern Heb fem term ‘shekínah’ represents the Divine Presence, the OT fire-cloud of glory.

Heb grammar too uses masc pronouns for God.  Heb & Aramaic has no neuter (no “it”); all nouns are masc or fem.  Again, the Heb term for spirit (ruach) is fem.  But unlike Heb, the Greek term for spirit (pneúma) is neuter.  The Latin term for spirit (spirítus) is masc.  Noun gender varies in languages.  In translated languages, gender doesn’t have the significance as in the original inspired Hebrew scripture.

In English, translators render pronouns with the Gr pneuma/spirit (neuter) as he masc, e.g. Jn.14:26. (or it neuter, Ro.8:26 KJV.)  Some of this is revisionism.  This practice subconsciously makes men seem more like God than do women.  Yet in 2Co.6:18, Paul wrote that God said, “You shall be sons and daughters to Me”.  In Jn.14:26, the Gr masc term paráclete is translated Comforter/Helper, and refers to the Gr neuter term Spirit.  Here translators chose to use the pronoun He.  But since God has both masc and fem characteristics (Is.42:13-14, Ps.123:2), Heb personal noun gender is more meaningful.  Later languages such as Greek, Latin, English don’t maintain the original Heb gender in translation.

The most ancient of the rare Old Syriac copies, the Siniatic Palimpsest (300s–400s AD), was found in 1892 in the Covenant of St. Catherine by Syriac Professor R.L. Bensly (Cambridge Univ).  Jesus’ words in Jn.14:26 read: “But She—the Spirit-the Paraclete whom He will send to you-my Father in my name —She will teach you everything; She will remind you of that which I told you.”  The Spirit is feminine to the Syriac church (as the ancient Aramaic ruach/spirit was fem), unlike Greek and Latin grammar.

J.J. Hurtak: “The Spirit is not called ‘it’ despite the fact that pneuma [spirit] in Greek is a neuter noun. Church doctrine regards the Holy Spirit as a person, not a force like magnetism. In the Eastern Church, Spirit was always considered to have a feminine nature. She was the life-bearer of the faith.”

The Westminster Leningrad Codex (1008 AD) is the oldest complete Heb manuscript.  In its ultra-literal interlinear English translation online: Is.11:2 “And she rests on him, spirit of YHVH.”  Ps.143:10 “Good spirit of you Elohim, she shall guide me.”  Nu.11:26 “The spirit, she is resting on them.”  Ezk.37:1 “She becomes hand of YHVH on me in spirit of YHVH.”  Jb.33:4 “Spirit of El, she made me; breath of Who-Suffices, she is keeping me alive.”  (Ec.12:1 “Remember Ones creating you.”…“Us” in Ge.1:26.)

From our Is.11:2. “The Spirit of the Lord shall rest on Him [Messiah], the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and strength, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.”  The LXX adds “godliness”.  Seven attributes!  And they’re all fem nouns!  Wisdom is primary (Pr.4:7).

In Pr.8:12-14, Wisdom speaks in 1^st Person. “I, wisdom, dwell with prudence, I find knowledge and discretion. The fear of the Lord. Counsel is mine. I AM understanding, strength is mine.”  These attributes are all fem!  Philo AI1 p.29…On Flight and Finding, p.325 “He called that Divine & heavenly Wisdom by many names….Indeed all the virtues bear the names of women.”  It’s not just coincidence.

Oswald Chambers’ Christian devotional, My Utmost For His Highest, is one of the most popular religious books ever written.  In it he wrote, “I am the Almighty God’ – El-Shaddaí, the Father-Mother God. The one thing for which we are all being disciplined is to know that God is real.”  God is both Father and Mother.  El Shaddai (h7706) has been described or defined as the ‘mighty breasted One’.

We may say the Father is the Source, Possessor, Director, Planner.  The Son is the Spokesman, the Executor, Mediator, Ruler.  The HS is Wisdom, the Omnipresence, the Comforter…and the Glory!

Father God is Jesus’ Father, and Jesus referred to Himself as the Child of Wisdom (Lk.7:35), His Mother.  In the NT, Jesus never called Mary, “mother”!  He referred to the surrogate Mary as “woman”.  Jn.2:4 “Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, what have I to do with you?”  Jn.19:26 “When Jesus saw His mother and the disciple He loved nearby, He said to His mother, ‘Woman, behold your son!”

Jesus was fully God in the flesh…both His Father and Mother are God!  The womb of Mary, the “woman” as Jesus lovingly called her, served to form Him in the flesh to become the God-Man.  The 300s AD Apostles Creed reads, “I believe in Jesus Christ, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary”.  Mary birthed Jesus.  Ga.4:4 “God sent forth His Son, born of a woman.”  Lk.1:35 “The angel said, ‘The Holy Spirit will come, and the power of The Highest will overshadow you [Mary]; therefore the Holy One to be born shall be called Son of God.”  Orthodox Study Bible Lk.1:35 “Note the revelation of the Holy Trinity: The Father (The Highest), the Son, and the Holy Spirit.”  The Father overshadowed the HS upon Mary, and God’s Son Jesus was conceived.

Chinese preacher Witness Lee was part of the Christian work started by Watchman Nee.  Lee’s Living With and In the Divine Trinity”, p.39 “Lk.1:35 shows the Holy Spirit coming upon Mary…the Most High, God the Father, overshadowing Mary…and the birth of the holy thing, the Son of God. Thus the entire Divine Trinity was involved in the conception.”  The Son was conceived into Mary by His divine Parents, who are both God.

Father God didn’t somehow have sexual relations with Mary, who was engaged to the man Joseph (Mt.1:18).  It was adultery to have sex with a woman married or betrothed to another.  De.22:23-27 God’s penalty for such adultery was death.  Surely, Father God wasn’t an (figurative) adulterer!

Furthermore, Mary was of a different kind…she was the human kind, not the Godkind.  God’s principle of biogenesis reflects each creation reproducing only according to its kind (ref Ge.1:11-12, 21, 24-25, 6:19-20, Mt.7:16, 1Co.15:38-39).  Father God is Spirit, not flesh, Jn.4:23-24.  The term incubus pertains to a spirit having sex with a human woman.  Heathen gods, such as Zeus/Jupiter, supposedly had sex with mortal women and produced offspring.

Philo Judaeus (25 BC–50 AD), The Works of Philo, AI2:14:49 “The mother of all things…the wisdom of God.”  Again, Jesus indicated He was the Child of her, Wisdom/Sophia, Mt.11:19 KJV.  Pr.1:20-23 “Wisdom lifts her voice, ‘I will pour out My Spirit upon you.” (cf. Jl.2:28a)  She is the Holy Spirit.

Early church writings in various countries attest to the feminine HS.  The fragmentary Gospel to the Hebrews was written in Greek (probably at Alexandria) in the early 100s AD, for Jewish Christians.  The HS is Jesus’ Divine Mother in its Christology.  In one quotation Jesus declared, “My mother, the Holy Spirit took Me, and conveyed Me to the great mount Tabor”.  (cf. Lk.7:35 regarding Jesus’ mother.)

Áphrahat (280–345 AD) wrote in Syriac in Persia. Demonstrations VI “The Spirit, She opens the heavens and descends, and hovers over the waters; and those who are baptized put Her on.”  From Aphrahat’s Demonstration X, “As long as a man hasn’t taken a wife, he loves and reveres God his Father and the Holy Spirit his Mother.”  (Re.19:7-9 is Jesus’ metaphorical marriage to Christians.)

Éphrem the Syrian (306–373 AD) was perhaps the most significant of all the Syriac language fathers, called ‘the greatest poet of the patristic age’.  His Hymnen de Ecclesia identifies the Spirit as feminine.

Robert Murray Symbols of Church and Kingdom, p.25 “The Syriac Fathers, as is well known, attributed female gender to the Holy Spirit in the first centuries after Christ; seeing the Holy Spirit especially as ‘Mother.”  The early Eastern Church originally believed the HS was She/Her.

But after some time, the Syriac church lost or suppressed the original OT & apocryphal Jewish concept of the fem HS or shekinah.  By the 500s AD, a masc HS was becoming more the norm.  Possibly this was due to Western influence, and because some heretical groups misused the feminine imagery.

Over the centuries, the Roman Catholic Church (RCC) has made Mary a counterfeit or substitute for the scriptural person of Wisdom/Sophia/Mother.  Yet a counterfeit presumes a prior genuine!  It was Wisdom who sat beside God’s throne as Queen (WSol.9:4).  She was beside YHVH at the beginning (Pr.8:22, 30).  The original Queen of Heaven (cf. Je.7:18) wasn’t a counterfeit Astarte or Isis…or Mary!

The surrogate Mary carried and birthed Jesus the Son of God.  She’s a godly woman.  But not a co-redemptrix or mediatrix; not due near-goddess status!  The RCC believes Mary was always sinless.  However, Mary herself indicated that she too needs a Savior!  Lk.1:46-47 Mary exulted, “My spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior”.  Mary knew she was a sinner needing a Savior, as does all of humanity.

The early Syriac writers didn’t present the HS as a literal woman.  But by the 500s AD she’d become masculine.  It seems the concept of a fem HS became dangerous to the structure of the church.  Even by the time the HS had become a confirmed member of the trinity (Council of Constantinople in 381 AD), the HS was described as masc, despite having nurturing fem qualities!  But Ge.1:2, 26-27 females too embody God’s image!  Male and female both are created in the image (masc) and likeness (fem) of God.  Martin Luther reportedly was ‘not ashamed of speaking of the HS in feminine terms’.

Count Zinzendorf (1700–1760) was leader of the Moravian church in Czechoslovakia and America.  To Zinzendorf, the HS was feminine, the Creator (Ge.1:2, 26 “Us”) and Mother.  He wrote, “She has created the world with the Savior and now is remaking every child until it is a new creation, and becomes one in the spirit with him; She nurses and watches until it is grown.”

Again, in the NT Jesus never referred to Mary as His mother (or to Joseph as His father).  By the early 300s AD, the church was embroiled in the Arian controversies.  Many didn’t want Jesus begotten before time began.  But in the 300s AD, many did want women suppressed.  A quandary existed.  So they hushed scriptures which related to Wisdom/Sophía the HS too having been “brought forth” in past eternity…though Wisdom herself says in Pr.8:25b LXX, “He begets [gennao g1080] Me”.

Over the centuries AD, Mother Wisdom/Sophia became assimilated into the cult of the virgin Mary.  It elevated Mary, the counterfeit or replacement for Wisdom the HS.  Mariolatry ensued in the RCC.

For more details relating to the divine God Family, see my other topics: “Tri-unity of God”, “Godhead in Prehistory”, “Holy Spirit Personification”, “Holy Spirit versus Mariolatry”, “Names/Titles of God in the Old Testament”, “Jesus is God…Jesus Has a God”, “Jesus Was the Old Testament God”, “Jesus Is the Messiah”, “Jesus’ Virgin Birth”, “Savior’s Name in Bible Languages”.

God Tabernacles With Humans (1)

In the Bible, the Lord often used imagery, figurative language and symbolism to create a mood and convey deeper meaning.  We can spend a lifetime reading the word of God, searching out the gems therein.  This is based on a revelation I received back in 1998.

God is so very much into relationships!  Jesus even said in Jn.17:3, “This is eternal life, that they may know You the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent”.  In this sense, eternal life is knowing, or having a relationship with, God.  God desires intimacy with the humanity He created.

It’s more than socializing with people at church.  Really knowing God involves learning God’s character, values, likes and dislikes.  Learning His sense of justice and fairness, and His governing principles for man to live by in society…with liberty and true justice for all.

Here we’ll journey through Bible history and read how the Lord dwells or ‘tabernacles’ (verb) with humanity, past and future.  Ultimately, a spiritual structure is being erected, which symbolizes a holy relationship.  The Lord is building the house for us all.  I’ll tie-together several images as we explore through scripture how God tabernacles.

David wrote in Ps.18:2, “The Lord is my rock and my fortress, my God, my Rock in whom I take refuge”.  The Lord is symbolically a Rock, a safe secure fortress and place of refuge.  God as the Rock is the first image presented here.  Is.26:4 “In Yah the Lord we have an everlasting Rock.”  He is the true Rock of ages!  And in 1Co.10:4 Paul identifies the Rock, “That Rock was Christ”.  (see the topic, “Jesus Was The Old Testament God”.)

Eden (Strongs h5729, Hebrew) existed as a place in or near Mesopotámia at the time Is.37:12 and Ezk.27:23 were written.  Ge.2:8 the Lord had planted a garden in a Eden (h5731).  The imagery of Ezk.28:13-14 set the king of Tyre (v.2, 18) with original man in the garden of Eden (according to Gill’s Exposition, Barnes Notes, JFB Commentary, and others). “You were in Eden, every precious stone was your covering. You were with [Septúagint/LXX] the cherub. You were on the holy mountain of God. You walked in the midst of the stones of fire.”  Here we read of Eden, precious stones of fire, a mountain, and cherub in the domain of the Rock.  These concepts will tie-together.

Although God created mankind for a relationship with Himself, the first humans sinned and were banned from the mountain garden.  Ge.3:24 “So He drove the man out, and at the east of the garden of Eden He stationed cherubim [plural] …to guard the way to the tree of life.”  Cherubs guarded the way back to God and eternal Life.  (Also see the topic “Tree Symbolism in Scripture”.)  The close relationship God desired with the first humans ended.  God’s holy Presence won’t cohabit with sin.

Much later God/YHVH/Christ/the Rock chose to dwell or ‘tabernacle’ (verb) with the descendants of Abraham, ancient Israel; to have a relationship with that people then above all others.  Christ would dwell with them in His “tabernacle” (noun).  The Hebrew Old Testament (OT) term is mishkán (h4908, noun).

The English word tabernacle comes to us from the Latin terms taberna and then tabernaculum.  It means a tent, hut, or booth.  A tabernacle is a portable dwelling, or place of worship or a shrine.  Our word tabernacle is both a noun and a verb.  The verb means ‘to dwell’, e.g. tabernacling, tabernacled.  When citing the OT, I’ll also reference Young’s Literal Translation (YLT).  It uses the term “tabernacle” for the Hebrew term “mishkan” (h4908), God’s OT sacred tent structure.

Christ the Lord told Moses how to construct the sacred mishkan/tabernacle of specific dimensions for Him to dwell in.  He instructed Moses to build it in Ex.25:9 YLT. “According to all which I Am showing thee, the pattern of the tabernacle [mishkan h4908].”  (cf. He.8:5.)  This tabernacle would be God’s sanctuary and “tent of meeting”, e.g. Ex.27:21.  (This wasn’t the temporary tent of meeting of Ex.33:7-9, which Moses had pitched to meet with the Lord prior to the tabernacle completion.)

In the Péntateuch, no subject has more written about it than God’s tabernacle.  It is referred to over 100 times in the OT.  Some details for its construction are recorded in Ex.26, e.g.  Christ’s tabernacle resembled a series of overlapping wooden frames in a rectangle, with fabric covering and animal skins as a roof.  This tent consisted of two compartments, a Holy Place (outer) and Holiest Place (inner).  The tabernacle was a large frame of boards overlaid with gold, upon which precious carpets were spread.

It was constructed at Mt. Sinai (ref Nu.10:11-12).  We don’t know exactly how the tabernacle was set up (ref Ex.40:1-8).  It had two veils which separated Christ, who inhabited the innermost sanctuary, from the priests who offered sacrifices out in the tabernacle court area.  He.9:3 “Behind the second veil there was a [inner] tabernacle [skené g4633, Greek] which is called the ‘Holy of Holies.”

Ex.25:10-22 in this inner Holiest Place (a 15-ft cube?) were two gold winged cherubs which guarded the mercy seat of the ark, above which Christ communed with Moses.  (Cherubim had guarded the way back to the Lord God in the garden of Eden.)

Ps.80:1 “Shepherd of Israel…You who are enthroned above the cherubim.”  Christ was the Shepherd of Israel, and He dwelt in the Holy of Holies.  Jesus said in Jn.10:11, “I Am the good shepherd”.

After Moses, only the Aaronic high priest was allowed to enter the Holiest compartment, once a year on the Day of Atonement.  (A non-priest trespasser must be killed.)  However, the Shekínah glory cloud of God was with them for 40 years, guiding Israel’s journey in the wilderness, Ex.40:34-36.  (Also see “Feast of Booths” and “Day of Atonement”.)

During their first few centuries in the Promised Land of Canaan, this portable tabernacle of God was transported to Gilgál, Shilóh, Bethél, Nob.  Then 2Ch.1:3, “At Gibeón, for God’s tent of meeting was there, which Moses had made in the wilderness.”  (see “Ark of the Testimony – Journeys”.)

King David wanted to build a stationary house (or temple) for the Lord, who’d accompanied Israel from place to place in His sacred tabernacle tent (1Ch.17:1-5).  David wrote in Ps.27:4-5, “That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord. In the secret place of His tent He will hide me; He will lift me up on a rock.”  Also Ps.61:4 “Let me dwell in Thy tent forever; Let me take refuge in the shelter of Thy wings.”  David deeply desired a relationship with YHVH/Jesus, his Lord and Protector, who “dwelled” between the cherubs’ wings.  (David wrote in Ps.110:1, “The LORD said to my Lord”.)

2Sm.6:17 David pitched a temporary tent for the ark of God by his palace in Jerusalem.  The tent housed the ark for close to 40 years total.  (see “Tent/Tabernacle of David” and “Zion in the Bible”.)  Christ tabernacled with David there for nearly 30 years, until David died.

But it was David’s son Solomon, not David, who built the ornate two-room first temple, a more permanent structure as a house for God.  Dr. Spiros Zódiates defines a temple as ‘a habitation of God’.  In the Holiest room, the inner wings of the two sculptured cherubim touched, while their outer wings touched opposite outside walls…so the four wings stretched from wall-to-wall (2Ch.3:8-13).

Although cherubs have been pictured as babies, or young adults, there is more evidence that their appearance resembled winged sphinxes.  Raanan Eichler What Kind of Creatures are the Cherubim? “The prevailing opinion in current scholarship is that the cherub is a winged sphinx.”  Professor W.F. Albright What Were the Cherubim? “The cherub…is the winged sphinx or winged lion with human head.”  The sphinx had the head of a human, a lion’s paws and tail, a bull’s body (hind), and an eagle’s wings.  ref Re.4:7, Ezk.1:10.  (also see “Spirits – Made by God in Light”.)

Josephus said in Antiquities of the Jews 8:4:1 that the wings of the cherubs in the first temple were spread to appear even as a “tent” covering the ark.  (The roof of Moses’ tabernacle was a tent.)

The grounds of the first temple also included a porch with two pillars (1Ki.7:21), chambers (1Ki.6:5-8), a court for the priests and a great court where the people worshiped (1Ki.6:36, 2Ch.4:9, Je.26:2).

The old tabernacle of Moses, with the holy utensils and the ark, was brought into Solomon’s temple in Jerusalem, 1Ki.8:4.  The glory cloud appeared as in the days of Moses (Ex.40:34-35)…it was so glorious, the priests couldn’t stand to minister (1Ki.8:6-11)!

Was the old tabernacle measurements equivalent to the space within the cherubim wings in the Holy of Holies of Solomon’s temple?  2Ch.3:8 indicates the inner room was 20 cubits square.  Historians have said the length of a cubit changed over time.  It’s unclear whether the original tabernacle was actually set into that space, or stored away.  Anyway, the tent ‘tabernacled’ in the first temple, so to speak!

From the heavenly vision of 1Enoch 39:6-7, “Mine eyes saw the Elect One of righteousness and faith, and I saw his dwelling place under the wings of the Lord of Spirits”.  (Symbolizing the prototype overall loving protection of Father God in the heavenlies?)

Christ the Word of God dwelt or tabernacled in His earthly temple sanctuary, in the midst of the OT people of Israel He loved.

Then in 586 BC, Nebuchadnézzar’s Babylon destroyed Solomon’s temple.  Christ departed His earthly sanctuary (Ezk.10:18-19)!

Exiled Jewish returnees from Babylon and Persia built Zerubbabél’s temple.  But there was no ark or mercy seat in it.  (see “Temple of Zerubbabel”.)

Neither was the ark in Herod’s temple sanctuary in the 1^st century.  Josephus Wars of the Jews 5:5:5 “The inmost part of the Temple…in this there was nothing at all…it was called the Holy of Holies.”

At that time a great event happened!  The primordial Word of God (Jn.1:1), the chosen Elect One/Jesus (Lk.23:35), actually lived in or tabernacled in a physical body in the 1^st century AD.

Jn.1:14 YLT “The Word became flesh and did tabernacle [skenóo g4637, Greek verb] among us, and we beheld His glory.”  Christ didn’t again dwell in the innermost room of a sacred tabernacle/tent or a temple building (Herod’s).  As Jesus, the pre-incarnate Word of God took on human flesh.  He was now able to have a closer personal relationship with those people He encountered on earth.

This topic is continued and concluded in “God Tabernacles With Humans (2)”.

Sabbath Day Became Sunday in Rome

This topic traces the church’s transition from meeting on the 7^th day sabbath to Sunday observance during the early centuries AD.  What factors led to the change?

Ge.2:1-3 “God blessed the 7^th day and made it holy.”  He sanctified His 7^th day cessation as holy time!  The vast majority of people today are unaware that since Creation a specific day of holy time comes & goes each week.  All things were created by Jesus the Word (Col.1:16, Jn.1:1-3, 14).  Jesus said the weekly sabbath was made for man, and He as Creator is Lord of the sabbath (Mk.2:27-28)!  Since Jesus said the sabbath rest was made for man, it is illogical to assume that God withheld knowledge of the sabbath day from man for millennia until the time of Moses!  (see the “Sabbath 7^th Day” series.)

We read in the New Testament (NT) that the saints of the apostolic church assembled together.  Originally the NT church was a gathering of people…it wasn’t the building where they met!  The Greek term rendered “church” is ekklésia, Strongs g1577; it occurs 118 times in the NT.

Lk.4:16 it was Jesus’ custom to attend the formal style of service of His day at synagogue (g4864) on the sabbath (g4521 sábbaton).  This custom resulted from the instruction God gave to Moses in Le.23:3. “On the 7^th day there is a sabbath of complete rest, a holy convocation. It is a sabbath to the Lord in all your dwellings.”  “Sabbath” is a holy day/period of cessation from certain activities.

But Jesus said His followers would become persecuted in synagogues, and eventually would have to leave them to avoid persecution.  Jn.16:2 “They will make you outcasts from the synagogue.”

Mt.18:15-20 Jesus authorized His own future assemblies or messianic Beit Din (‘House of Judgment’) with elders overseeing decisions…to “bind and loose” (forbid and permit), Mt.16:19.  Two or three local elders helped resolve internal disputes and made legal decisions for each local congregation.  Jewish synagogues were lay institutions with unpaid elders (zakén h2205, Hebrew).  Some Jewish Christians would call their own assemblies “synagogues” g4864, as James wrote in Ja.2:2.

But Jesus said church leaders aren’t to be lords (Mt.20:25-28).  Jesus is Lord (2Jn.1:3).  He is the ‘architect’ of His assembly (Mt.16:18)!  He died and rose again, and His NT church began in Acts 2.

All the earliest converts were Jewish Christians/Messianic Jews.  Then Ac.8:1-5, there was persecution at Jerusalem and a scattering (to Judea & Samaria) in the aftermath of Stephen’s martyrdom.

Then in Acts 10, uncircumcised gentiles (Cornelius et al) received the Holy Spirit too.

In Acts 13, Paul (Saul) went out evangelizing with Barnabas.  They went first to synagogues.  Eight synagogues are named in the NT where Paul is at synagogue.  Ac.13:14, 43-48 nearly all the people (Jews and gentiles) at Pisidían Antioch in Galatia went to synagogue on the sabbath day to hear Paul speak.  Paul said the gospel should be preached to the Jew first (cf. Ac.1:8).  Paul’s custom (and Jesus’ custom) was to attend synagogue on the sabbath day, ref Ac.17:1-2, 18:1, 4.

In Phílippi of Macedonia there were few Jews and no synagogue.  Yet Paul and Luke still worshiped on the sabbath day by the riverside with a few people to whom they could share the gospel, Ac.16:12-15!

Again, Jesus Himself attended synagogue on the sabbath day.  Lk.23:55-56 a few hours after Jesus died, the loyal Galilean women who witnessed His crucifixion “rested on the sabbath according to the commandment” (ref Ex.20:8-11).  The Jewish people (including Paul) have perpetuated the sabbath time God ordained at Creation.  The church emerged from this sabbath and synagogue background.  see the topic “Synagogue Influence on the Church”.

The gospel is also for gentiles, non-Jews (e.g. Ac.15:7-8).  Early-on these gentiles were God-fearers who frequented the synagogues (periphery of) on the sabbath day, Ac.13:14-16.  These God-fearers had different social customs, but believed the God of the Jews really is God! (cf. Ac.10:1-2.)

Jesus said synagogue persecution would come.  As Jewish Christians were forced out of synagogues, and the gospel spread into gentile areas, local assemblies with Jewish & gentile Christians together were raised up.  For various reasons, many of them began meeting after the sabbath day ended at sunset (Saturday evening), or on Sunday.  The reasons follow:

Earliest Christianity was viewed as another sect of Judaism.  Ac.24:5 Paul was a leader in the sect of the Nazarenes, Jewish Christians.  (see “Jewish Sects of the 1^st Century”.)

But near the end of the 1^st century, disbelieving Jews added a synagogue curse, the Bírkat HaMinim, upon Jewish Christian ‘heretics’ (so-called) in synagogues.  Everett Ferguson Backgrounds of Early Christianity “Gamaliél’s grandson Gamaliel II (active 80–120 AD) introduced into the Eighteen Benedictions the curse, ‘Let the Nazarenes and the heretics perish as in a moment, let them be blotted out of the book of the living’, which effectively excommunicated Christians from synagogues and formalized the break.”  Gary Morton Theological Vignettes “Around 100 years after the death of Christ, rabbis excommunicated the Christians, leaving them out of the synagogue and the Sabbath.”

Jewish Christians refused to recite the curse (against themselves), and quit the synagogues.  Marriage and forms of commerce with Christians became prohibited by Jews!

After the Jerusalem temple was destroyed in 70 AD, the Jewish temple tax was replaced by the fiscus judaicus tax of Emperor Vespasian (69–79 AD).  Jews paid it to the heathen temple of Jupiter Capitolinus!  Emperor Domitian (81–96 AD) broadened the levy to include other people who observed Jewish customs or lived like Jews.  (The tax continued until 360 AD.)

But if Christianity became a separate religion from Judaism…it wouldn’t be subject to the tax!  That’s what occurred.  Christianity became separate, no longer considered a sect of Judaism.

Lawrence Schiffman Christianity Parting of the Ways “The emperor Nerva (96–98 CE) freed the Christians (probably including the Jewish Christians) from paying the fiscus judaicus, the tax decreed as a punishment in the aftermath of the [Jewish] revolt of 66–73 CE. The Romans now regarded the Christians in general as a separate group.”

This discriminatory tax, paid to a pagan god, motivated gentile Christians to quit Jewish customs.  The customs included meeting on God’s 7^th day sabbath.  Historically, there was racial bias & animosity between Jews and gentiles anyway (ref Ac.11:2, 21:28).  Ingrained differences existed.  In any event….

Jewish and gentile Christians began the practice of meeting after the sabbath ended at sunset, or on Sunday…distinguishing them from hostile disbelieving Jews who met in synagogues on the 7^th day!

Also a factor in Sun-day meetings was the association of Jesus with the sun.  In scripture, Jesus is the prophesied “Sun of Righteousness” (Mal.4:2), and the symbolic “Sunrise from on high” (Lk.1:78).  Furthermore, Christ rose from the dead on a Sunday.  Commemorating the day of the week on which Jesus was resurrected became a primary reason for traditional Sunday observance over the centuries.

However, the 1^st day/Sunday isn’t referred to as ‘Resurrection Day’ in scripture.  That doesn’t appear until later writings.  Jesus didn’t designate worship of Him or rest on a Resurrection Day or Sundays!  Rather, that’s man’s tradition.  God never commanded in scripture Sunday/1^st day observance as a sabbath.  The leading NT apostles, Peter-John-Paul, didn’t try to change 7^th day holy time to Sunday!  Of note, Sunday isn’t mentioned in 1Clement, written from Rome to Corinth in the late 1^st century.

The Epistle of Barnabas, of uncertain authorship, is dated ca 100 AD.  It posits that the 7^th millennium fulfills God’s 7^th day sabbath rest.  Barn.15:9-10 “The 8^th day, that is, the beginning of the other world. In which cause we observe the 8^th day with gladness, in which Jesus rose from the dead.”  It advocates commemorating the eschatological 8^th day on the 1^st day of each week.  However, this epistle contains bias against Jews.  Graham Harter The ‘Letter of Barnabas’ “There is a definite undercurrent of hostility towards the Jewish people.”  Joe Watts Thoughts on Barnabas’s Epistle “Barnabas is stating that everything from Moses to Jesus is simply wrong. Barnabas several times says the covenant is ours (i.e. Christians) and not the Jews.”  Barnabas’ error contradicts Je.31:31 & He.8:8, which clearly states the New Covenant is with Israel/Judah.  Regardless of bias, Barnabas indicates Sunday meetings had begun.

The gentile Justin Martyr (100–165 AD) noted to a Jew in Dialogue With Tryphon XVI, “Cursing in your synagogues them that believe in Christ”.  Justin First Apology, Ch 68 (ca 150 AD) “But Sunday is the day on which we hold our common assembly, because it is the first day of the week and Jesus our savior on the same day rose from the dead.”  Sunday meetings were becoming widespread by 150 AD.

Also Sun–day meetings attracted heathens from old sun–worship (ref Ezk.8:16, Jb.31:26-28, 2Ki.23:5, 11, De.4:19) and from Míthraism.  Usage of the 7-day planetary week grew in the 1^st century.  (However, ancient Israelites and the Jews based their 7-day week on Ge.1:1–2:3 & Ex.16:22-30, and the Assyrians also had a 7-day week.)  The good news that Jesus died for the sins of the whole world (Jn.4:42) was accepted by peoples who’d viewed blood sacrifices as pleasing to their many heathen gods, 1Co.8:5 & 10:20.  (also see “Evangelism in the Apostolic Church”.)

The desire to attract pagans to Jesus led to more Sunday worship.  But this isn’t to say that all heathen gentiles as Christians worshiped the sun on Sun-day.  However, as these pagans came into the church, some of their past festive practices and art became assimilated…e.g. sun-disks, mistletoe, wass-ale-ing.

Pagan practices added to tensions between Jewish and gentile Christians, past idolators.  Gentiles BC had been viewed as outsiders, distinct from Jews.  (see “Gentiles’ in the Bible”.)  Racism existed.  The church gradually split into Jewish and gentile factions.  Gentiles began to outnumber Jews in the church.

In addition to persecution from disbelieving Jews (in and out of synagogues), Christians suffered persecutions from the heathen Roman Empire on-and-off for approximately 300 years.

In 274 AD, Roman Emperor Aurélian made the ‘Invincible Sun’ the official protector of the Empire!

Then in 312 AD, Emperor Constantine accepted a form of Christianity!  Christianity was formally recognized as a religion in 313 AD at Milan.  As a political move, Constantine instituted Sunday rest in his edict of 321 AD. “On the venerable day of the sun let the magistrates and people in cities rest.”  Although he was supposedly converted in 312 AD, Constantine still venerated the Sun/Sol in 321 AD.  Wikipedia: Sol Invictus “Constantine’s official coinage continues to bear images of Sol until 325 AD. His triumphal arch was carefully positioned to align with the colossal statue of Sol by the Colosseum.”

Sylvester I was Pope (314–335 AD) during Constantine’s reign.  “The same pope [Sylvester I] decreed that the rest of the sabbath should be transferred to the Lord’s Day [Sunday].”  Quoted by Rábanus Máurus (776–856 AD), archbishop of Mainz, Germany in De Clericorum Institutione (On the Institution of the Clergy), bk. 2, chap. 46, in MPL, Vol. 107, col 361. Trans. from the Latin.

Eusebius (264–340 AD), bishop of Caesárea and court theologian for Constantine, wrote in his 338 AD Commentary on the Psalms, (Ps.92) Vol. 23, cols 1171-2. “All things whatsoever that it was the duty to do on the Sabbath, we have transferred to the Lord’s Day.”  Rome and the church…men…made this change.  Not God!  Pressure from Rome and ‘the Church’ led to increased Sunday observance.

At the 363 AD Council of Laodicea, sabbath observance was officially banned. “Christians shall not Judaize by resting on the Sabbath, but must work on that day, rather honoring the Lord’s Day, resting then.”  To an increasing extent, the 7^th day sabbath had become changed to Sunday!

In the Edict of Thessalonica of 380 AD, Christianity became the state religion of the Roman Empire.

Later, Pope Gregory 1 even associated sabbath day rest with Antichrist!  He wrote in 597 AD, Letters 13:1 “It has come to my ears that certain men of perverse spirit have sown among you some things that are wrong and opposed to the holy faith, so as to forbid any work being done on the Sabbath day. What else can I call these [men] but preachers of Antichrist.”

And yet it was Christ…not Anti-christ…who’d revealed His 7^th day sabbath rest to Moses/Israel!  e.g. Ex.16:11-30 manna, 20:8-11 keep the sabbath day holy.  (see “Jesus Was The Old Testament God”.)

{Sidelight: It appears the NT church government was more an oligarchy, not a hierarchy.  As Peter, John & James went to the physically circumcised, Barnabas & Paul went to the uncircumcised gentiles (Ga.2:7-9).  Php.1:1 this letter was addressed also to the overseers/bishops (plural) and deacons in Philippi.  Plural bishops in one city.  In the apostolic church, there was no Pope!  The Holy Spirit is the ‘vicar of Christ’, so to speak.  The apostolic church wasn’t an indolent, immoral, corrupt monopoly.} 

But many Christians disregarded man’s attempt to change or ban meetings on God’s sabbath.  The 5^th century church historian Scholásticus wrote in Ecclesiastical History, Bk 5, Ch 22. “Although almost all churches throughout the world celebrate the sacred mysteries [of the Lord’s Supper] on the sabbath of every week, yet the Christians of Alexandria and at Rome have ceased to do this.”  Bk 6, Ch 8 “I mean Saturday and Lord’s Day of each week, on which assemblies are usually held in the churches.”

Furthermore, his contemporary Salmínius Sozómen wrote in Ecclesiastical History, Bk 7, Ch 19. “The people of Constantinople, and almost everywhere, assemble together on the sabbath, as well as on the first day of the week, which custom is never observed at Rome or at Alexandria.”  Rome essentially changed the sabbath to Sunday!  Others have followed suit.

Peter Heylyn, The History of the Sabbath, 1613. “Ambrose, the celebrated bishop of Milan, said that when he was in Milan he observed Saturday, but when in Rome observed Sunday. This gave rise to the proverb ‘When you are in Rome, do as Rome does.”  (Ambrose lived in the latter 300s AD.)

History indicates that some Christian masters in the Roman Empire gave their slaves both Saturday and Sunday off from work.  The late 4^th century Apostolic Constitutions, Bk 8, Ch 33. “Let the slaves work five days; but on the Sabbath Day and the Lord’s day let them have leisure to go to church for instruction in piety….The Sabbath is on account of the creation, and the Lord’s day of the resurrection.”

Yet the 7^th day as holy time/rest remains unchanged in scripture, regardless of other meeting days!  Roman Catholic Archbishop James Gibbons admitted in The Faith of Our Fathers (1876). “You may read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and you will not find a single line authorizing the sanctification of Sunday. The Scriptures enforce the religious observance of Saturday, a day which we never sanctify.”  Albert Smith, Chancellor of the Archdiocese of Baltimore, replied for the cardinal in a letter of Feb 10, 1920. “If Protestants would follow the Bible, they should worship God on the Sabbath Day, that is, Saturday. In keeping Sunday they are following a law of the Catholic Church.”  Not a law of God.  (I’m not 7^th Day Adventist.)  Again, ref the “Sabbath 7^th Day” series.

To recap, the main reasons behind the change from the 7^th day sabbath rest/observance to Sunday:

#1 Jewish Christians were forced out of synagogues which kept the sabbath; the synagogue curse was added.  #2 Rome levied the fiscus judaicus tax against those who observed Jewish customs (such as the sabbath).  #3 Prejudice between Jews and gentiles.  #4 Sunday meetings distinguished Christians from disbelieving Jews who met in synagogues on the 7^th day.  #5 Since Jesus rose on a Sunday, men began the tradition of observing Sundays.  #6 Heathens accustomed to pagan sun-worship were attracted to Christianity by Sun-day meetings.  #7 Roman Emperor Aurelius made the ‘Invincible Sun’ the official protector of the Empire; Emperor Constantine accepted Christianity and mandated “rest on the venerable day of the sun” in cities.  #8 The institutional church council outlawed 7^th day sabbath rest.

Thus Sunday meetings became prominent over the centuries, and through Roman Catholic Church influence.  Yet man cannot change the actual 7^th day holy time sanctified by God from the beginning!  God’s word in the scriptures is authoritative, regardless of man’s traditional practices or decrees.

However, the word ‘sabbath’ means ‘cessation’…not ‘worship’, not ‘go to church’.  (Though worship and church are done on the sabbath.)  We may worship the Lord and attend church gatherings/events any or every day.  But only the 7^th day sabbath is holy time, ordained by God for man at Creation.

Jesus Was the Old Testament God

The Bible indicates the Godhead is a tri-unity…Father, Holy Spirit, and Son Jesus.  Many if not most Bible readers think the God who was seen and active in the Old Testament (OT) was the God whom Jesus referred to as His “Father”.  Most readers view this OT God as being strict and more judgmental than their perception of Jesus in the New Testament (NT).  Here we’ll look at scriptures which reveal the identity of the Deity who was seen and heard by humans in the OT.

Jn.1:1 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.”  v.14 “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”  The Word (Lógos in Greek, Mémra in Aramaic), who was also God from the beginning, later became Jesus in the flesh.  Jn.17:5 God the Word had glory with the Father before the world existed.  Jn.17:24 Jesus spoke of, “My glory which You [Father] gave Me”.  What do the scriptures show of God the Word in the OT before He became Jesus in the flesh?

In the Song of Moses, De.32:3-4 “I proclaim the name of YHVH; ascribe greatness to our God! The Rock.”  v.18 “You [Israel] neglected the Rock who begot you, the God who gave you birth.” (cf. 2Ki.22:2 Septúagint/LXX.)  The apostle Paul identified their figurative Rock in 1Co.10:4. “That Rock was Christ.”  Continuing, 1Co.10:9 “Neither let us test Christ, as some of them also tested Him, and were destroyed by serpents”.  This incident to which Paul referred was in Nu.21:5-6. “YHVH sent fiery serpents and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died.”  The primordial Word of God, who became Jesus the Christ…was YHVH, the OT God/Rock whom His people tested, according to Paul!

Isaiah wrote in Is.6:1, 5 “I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted. My eyes have seen the King, YHVH of hosts.”  Isaiah saw God.  In Jn.12:41-44, John identifies specifically who Isaiah saw. “Isaiah saw His glory, and he spoke of Him. Many even of the rulers believed in Him, but because of the Pharisees they weren’t confessing Him lest they be put out of the synagogue. Jesus said, ‘He who believes in Me.”  According to John, Isaiah saw the pre-incarnate Jesus, the Word of God, as King on the throne!  Isaiah didn’t see Father God.  Jesus said, no man other than He has seen Father God….

Jesus declared in Jn.6:46, “No man has seen the Father, except the One who is from God; He has seen the Father”.  Jesus said in Jn.1:18, “No man has seen God at any time. The only begotten God [Jesus] has explained Him.”  Only the Word who became Jesus Christ has seen awesome Father God!

Yet God was visibly seen on many occasions in the OT!  Ex.24:1-11 “Moses went up with 70 of the elders of Israel, and they saw the God of Israel.”  After Moses wrote down the Old Covenant, which the God of Israel gave them, they saw God.  According to Jesus, the Father was never seen.  Also, YHVH said in Nu.12:7-8, “My servant Moses, with him I speak mouth to mouth, he beholds the form of YHVH”.  Jacob said in Ge.32:30, “I have seen God face to face, yet my life has been preserved”.  This wasn’t the Father who was seen in these OT passages…it was the pre-incarnate Christ, the Rock.

Abraham saw God and two angels in Ge.18:1-ff. “YHVH appeared to him by the oaks of Mamré. He [Abraham] looked, three men were standing opposite him. They did eat.” (v.1-3, 8)  The three even shared a meal with Abraham!  The Lord remained talking with Abraham, while the two angels went on to Sodom (Ge.19:1).

Jesus told the Jews in Jn.8:56-58, “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it. Truly I say to you, before Abraham came into being, I AM.”  The Word/Jesus, not Father God, is the I AM who appeared as a human seen by Abraham.  (God also appeared to Abrám in Ge.12:7.)  God said to Moses in Ex.3:14, “You shall say to the sons of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you”.  Abraham, Moses, Isaiah, and others in the OT saw the pre-incarnate Jesus, who was also YHVH/I AM of ancient Israel.

Joshua was told to remove his sandals in the presence of the Commander of the Lord’s host in Jsh.5:13-15. “For the place you are standing is holy. Joshua did so.”  Jesus/the Word, who commands His host of angels (Mt.13:41, 26:53), was seen there…not the Father.  Compare Ex.3:4-6, 14 where Moses too must remove his sandals in the presence of God/I AM.  (also see the topic, “Michael in the Bible”.)

Prior to the Word Jesus being seen as God in the OT, He and the Holy Spirit (HS) were the Creators (under the overall direction of the Father).  Ps.33:6 “By the Word of YHVH the heavens were made, and by the Spirit of His mouth all their host.”  Jn.1:1-3, 10 “All things came into being by Him [the Word]. He was in the world and the world was made by Him.”  Col.1:16 “All things have been created through Him [the Son/Word] and for Him.” also see He.1:2.  The Word/Jesus/Light was Creator God.

Ge.2:1-3 “By the 7^th day God completed His work which He had done, and He ceased/rested on the 7^th day. Then God blessed the 7^th day and sanctified it.”  It was Jesus who ceased or rested from creating on the 7^th day.  It was Jesus who set apart the 7^th day (not the 1^st day or the 6^th day), ordaining it as holy time.  Therefore Jesus is truly Lord of the sabbath, as He said in Mk.2:27-28. “The sabbath was made for mankind. The Son of Man is Lord of the sabbath.”  (Jesus never revoked His 7^th day holy time.)

The following two passages are more evidence that Jesus Christ was the Lord God who appeared in the OT.  Quotes are from the Greek LXX/Septuagint; we can compare the same Greek terms in our NT:

Moses told Israel in De.10:17 LXX, “The Lord your God, He is Lord [Strongs g2962] of lords [g2962]”.  The God of Israel was “Lord of lords.”  Re.17:14 “The Lamb will overcome them, for He is Lord [g2962] of lords [g2962].”  Jesus the Lamb is “Lord of lords”…same as the OT God of Israel!

God declared in Is.45:21 LXX, “I AM God, and there is not another besides Me; a Savior [g4990], there is none but Me”.  1Jn.4:14 “The Father has sent the Son to be the Savior [g4990] of the world.”  Jesus the Son is the Savior…and He was the God/I AM in the OT, seen by Isaiah!  There’s no other Savior.

1Co.1:1, 5:7 the Jewish Christian Paul (with the Corinth synagogue ruler Sosthénes, Ac.18:17) wrote of “Christ our Passover”.  YHVH told Moses in Ex.12:13, “When I see the blood I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you”.  In mercy, YHVH/“Christ our Passover” passed over the houses of the Israelite firstborns.  And it is this Christ who was the solid Rock of OT Israel, according to Paul.

In Ex.20:6, the Lord God said He is “Showing love to a thousand generations who love Me and keep My commandments”.  Jesus said in Jn.14:21, “He who has My commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves Me; and I will love him”.  The Word/Jesus is Lord in the OT, and He spoke the Decalogue.

In Jn.1:18, the Son Jesus said that He declares the Father.  Jesus came to reveal His nature.  Jesus said in Jn.17:25-26, “Righteous Father, the world has not known You. I have made Your name known to them”.  OT Israel hadn’t known the Father.  The OT term for “Father”, referring to God, rarely occurs.

Jesus said in Jn.5:37, “The Father who sent Me has borne witness of Me. You have neither heard His voice at any time, nor seen His form.”  Father God was visibly unseen and audibly unheard in the OT.  (Not until Jesus & John the Baptizer heard the Father’s voice bear witness of Jesus at His baptism.)  Yet De.4:33, Israel heard God speaking at Sinai.  Christ the Word, not the Father, was seen & heard in the OT.  (also see the topics, “Tri-unity of God” and “Jesus Is God…Jesus Has a God”.)

Again, according to John, it was the Lord Jesus who Isaiah saw high & lifted up.  Je.1:4-5 LXX “The Word/Logos [g3056] of the Lord came to me saying, ‘Before I formed you in the belly I sanctified you.”  v.9 “The Lord stretched out His hand and touched my mouth.”  The word of God came to other prophets, such as Ezekiel & Zechariah, and they delivered the message.  None but Jesus has seen the Father.  It was Christ the Word/Lord who came to Jeremiah, spoke in 1^st Person, and touched his lips!

Ex.19:9-11 Christ the Word came down on Mt. Sinai.  All the Israelites were aware of Him.  v.16 a thick cloud protected them from seeing His glory (ref De.4:12).  Ex.20 Christ spoke His Decalogue or so-called Ten Commandments (including His weekly 7^th day Sabbath command), which He inscribed on tablets (Ex.31:18).  Following in Exodus 21–23, Christ spoke His judgments to Moses.  Then in Ex.24 Moses wrote them down in the book of the covenant (v.4-7)…and he with 70 elders saw God the Word (v.9-11)!  (However, man’s flesh is limited and cannot fully see His glory, e.g. Ex.33:18-23.)

After Exodus, the entire 27 chapters of Leviticus are the instructions of Christ the Word, the God they’d seen!  Christ gave Moses those instructions while they were still at Sinai (Le.27:34).  Including His law in Le.11 (v.46) regarding the clean & unclean creatures He created.  Jesus knows which ones are fit for human consumption!  The gentile Noah also had been aware of God’s distinction (Ge.7:2).

Lk.1:32 Jesus is the Son of the Most High God.  Ac.17:23-31 the Most High Father was an “Unknown God”.  The OT writers were aware a Most High God exists (ref Ge.14:18, Ps.7:17, 110:1), but He was generally unknown to all but a few.  Ac.7:48-49 “The Most High doesn’t dwell in sanctuaries made by hands.”  (The Father’s residence was in heaven, Jn.14:2-3).  It wasn’t the Father who spoke mouth-to-mouth with Moses (Nu.12:7-8) and sat above the cherubim on the ark in Israel’s man-made sanctuary.

Ps.80:1 “O Shepherd of Israel, You who sits between the cherubim.”  That Shepherd who communed with Moses was…Christ the Word!  Jesus said in Jn.10:11, “I Am the good Shepherd”. (ref 2Ki.19:15, Zec.13:7, 1Pe.2:25, Is.37:16.)  Christ was the God of Israel, the Rock and Shepherd.  (Josephus Wars of the Jews 5:5:5 indicated there were no sculptured cherubim in Herod’s temple…the sanctuary was entirely empty!  Jesus was out ministering in the Land; He no longer ‘sat’ between the cherubim then.)

He.13:8 “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.”  The Word/Jesus said in Mal.3:6, “For I AM YHVH, and change not”.  The Word/Jesus doesn’t change His character; nor did He change the moral principles He gave to ancient Israel.  Re.14:12 speaks of “the perseverance of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God”.  They were Jesus’ commandments in Ex.20, His command of the 7^th day sabbath, His commands for ecosystem balance of clean/unclean, in Leviticus, Numbers, etc.  (see the “Sabbath 7^th Day” series, and “Unclean versus Clean Food”.)

But Israel as a whole didn’t like Christ the Rock’s commandments.  Le.26 the Word warned ancient Israel of His punishments for disobedience.  Israel disobeyed anyway.  So Jesus sent them into captivity…the northern kingdom of Israel to Assyria, then the southern kingdom of Judah to Babylon in 597 BC.  Later when the Word/Jesus came in the flesh, the leaders of the Jews (of the people He’d loved and rescued from ancient Egypt) even wanted Him killed (e.g. Jn.5:18)!  They set Him up to die!

Some Bible readers and critics consider the God of the OT a cruel God.  Márcion (85–160 AD) was from Póntus, located at the southern coast of the Black Sea (today northeastern Turkey).  He didn’t think YHVH was the same God spoken of by Jesus, so he didn’t accept the YHVH of the OT.  To Marcion, the God active in the OT wasn’t Jesus or Jesus’ Father.  Marcion’s ‘canon’ was only 11 books…10 epistles of Paul plus part of Luke’s gospel.  Marcion ‘picked and choosed’; he was extreme.

It’s a misconception to view the OT God as harsh or cruel.  The Word/Christ was the Executive and Spokesman God seen in the OT.  Christ wasn’t harsh, cruel, impulsive, or changeable.  Christ would have spared ancient Sodom, had only 10 righteous people been found there (Ge.18:32)!

Though Jesus wasn’t harsh, He was just.  Jesus’ justice system for His ancient theocracy perhaps did reflect a measure of tough love.  For example, Jesus acknowledged even in Jn.8:7, “Let him cast the first stone”.  Christ’s penalty for adultery was death (though a ransom may be paid instead).  The laws and morality given to Moses/Israel are Jesus’ laws and morality.  The OT too is Christ-centered.  His morality may seem strict to some.  But His are the laws of the Kingdom of God!

For that matter, the NT book of Revelation has much killing…it’s even been called horrific!  Re.6:16 “Hide us from the presence of the wrath of the Lamb [Christ].”  Yet the Lamb’s love exceeds His wrath.

Ancient Israel was Jesus’ theocracy.  Many or most of His ritualistic prescriptions cannot be done apart from Jerusalem (temple).  In the NT, the Jewish people had come under Roman jurisdiction; they were no longer governed by Jesus’ theocracy.  And the NT writings (e.g. Paul’s) reflect changed living conditions under Roman rule of law.

The pre-incarnate Word of God wasn’t just sitting in heaven judging harp music day after day prior to His becoming Jesus in the flesh!  He was the God active in the OT.  Jesus wasn’t a rebellious son who came to do away with His Father’s commandments.  They are YHVH the Savior’s commandments too.  The Father and Son are of like-mind.  Jesus did and said what His Father taught Him (Jn.8:28).  De.30:10-14 the principles of Christ, the Rock of Ages, are doable.

Have we been deluded by false teaching to think that Jesus came to do away with the morality of laws He gave ancient Israel?  Jesus said in Mt.5:17, “Don’t think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I didn’t come to abolish but to fulfill [g4137].”  Christ didn’t come to abolish His OT moral laws and principles of living!

Jesus referred to His Mt.5:17 remarks later after His resurrection in Lk.24:44. “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, the Prophets, and the Psalms must be fulfilled [g4137].”  It was the things prophesied and written about Jesus the coming Messiah that must be fulfilled…not His morality/laws which can govern and regulate society and the Kingdom!  As recapped in Ac.13:29 concerning Jesus, “When they had carried out all that was written concerning Him, they took Him down from the cross”.

Surely, Jesus didn’t think Roman laws or the laws of the nations of this world are superior to the laws He gave His theocracy!  Jesus’ morality & character is the same yesterday, today and forever (He.13:8).

Christ’s OT laws prohibiting blasphemy, murder, adultery, theft, etc. are truly moral and just today.  The holy time of His 7^th day sabbath still comes & goes every week since Creation…man cannot stop time.  Unclean creatures carrying worms & parasites are still unfit for humans to eat…as in Noah’s day.

But all the OT ceremonial jots & tittles regarding the obsolete Levitical priesthood can no longer be done.  He.7:12 “The priesthood being changed, there must be made also a change of the law.”  Jesus said the temple was to be destroyed (e.g. Mk.13:1-2).  After He fulfilled prophecy, dying as the final sacrifice…there’s no more need for animal sacrifices, tithing to a Levitical priesthood, pilgrim feasts with temple rituals.  Attempting to do those ceremonial things elsewhere or on one’s own terms would actually be disobeying Christ’s specific OT statutes!  The Kingdom is now the order of Melchisedek.

Ps.119:142 “Thy righteousness is everlasting, and Thy law is truth.”  v.151 “All Thy commandments are truth.”  v.172 “All Thy commandments are righteousness.”  That’s all the commandments of the Word Jesus…in both the OT and NT.  In the NT, Jesus or the HS reiterated some, but not all, of Christ’s OT commandments.  OT sins such as beastiality, cannibalism, fathers marrying their own daughters, e.g., are still sins for Christians…even though those prohibitions aren’t repeated in the NT.  To only accept Jesus’ NT commands as valid, while ignoring His OT commandments, is short-sighted.

However, it requires a circumcised heart to do His commandments.  Most of ancient Israel didn’t have the HS.  They failed to be a right example to the nations.  The rhetorical question of De.4:8-9, “What great nation is there that has statutes and judgments as righteous as this whole law? Therefore take heed lest you forget the things your eyes have seen, and they depart from your heart.” (see “Two Covenants – Heart of the Matter”.)  No other ancient nation received such grace as did Israel, so blessed with Christ’s righteous laws/justice system!

But they stumbled over the Rock of Israel, who Peter (and Paul) said is Jesus.  1Pe.2:8 “A stone [g3037] of stumbling [g4348] and a Rock [g4073] of falling; for they stumble because they are disobedient.”  In Is.6:5, Isaiah saw Christ the Lord.  Is.8:13-14 LXX “Sanctify the Lord. You shall not come against Him as a stumbling [g4348] stone [g3037], neither as against the falling of a rock [g4073]; but the houses of Jacob are in a snare.” (also Ro.9:32-33.)  Most Jews opposed and rejected their Lord come in the flesh.

Yet for New Covenant Jewish Christians and gentiles grafted-in, God said in Je.31:33 (LXX Je.38:33) and He.8:10, “This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days, I will put My laws in their mind and write them on their hearts”.  The HS writes Christ’s just laws/morality (Jesus the same yesterday, today and forever) on the hearts & minds of willing Christians.  His laws will thus become our morality, and won’t depart from our hearts.  Thereby we won’t fail, unlike ancient Israel.

Jesus is Lord!  He was “the LORD” active in the OT.  As we repent and keep obeying Christ the Word…we will be those “who keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus” (Re.14:12).  And we’ll be those who have right to the tree of life (Re.22:14)!  Thank You, Lord.

Tri-unity of God

In the English language, the word “God” is customarily used for Deity.  Is.43:10 “Declares YHVH, ‘Before Me there was no God formed, neither will there be after Me.”  Only the true God is Divine.

The true God is a uniplural Being.  Yet the God-kind is one/unified (echád Strongs h259, Hebrew).  De.6:4 “YHVH our God, YHVH is one [echad h259].”  However, Adam & Eve were to be one in Ge.2:24. “A man shall cleave to his wife, and they shall be one [echad h259] flesh.”  The two of them were one, echad!  Ezr.2:64 “The whole assembly united as one [echad h259] man was 42,360.”  In this verse, 42,360 souls were as one!  So we see the term echad/one is numerically plural in these verses.

The Hebrew term yachíd (h3173) meant absolute oneness, sole, or the one and only.  In the Old Testament (OT), yachid is never used in reference to God.  Jdg.11:34 “She was his only [yachid] child.”  The LXX Greek equivalent term monogenés (g3439) refers to Jesus, God’s only begotten Son, in Jn.1:14, 18.

God, as the God Family, consists of the Father, Holy Spirit (HS) and Jesus the Son.  The Word/Logos from eternity past later became the human Jesus, Jn.1:1-5, 14.  (see the topic “Godhead in Prehistory”.)  Ge.1:1-3 reflects the Father, HS, and the Word/Light who would become Jesus.  The first “Us” verse in Genesis, where the “Us” refers to the uniplural God, is Ge.1:26-27. “God said, ‘Let Us make mankind in our image, according to our likeness. In the image of God, male and female.” (not in the image of angels.)  Other such “Us” verses in Genesis are Ge.3:22, 11:7, LXX 2:18.  Also Is.6:1, 8 “I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Who shall go for Us?”.  And Ge.19:24 reflects plural YHVHs. “YHVH rained on Sodom & Gomorrah fire from YHVH out of heaven.”  YHVH (h3068 Hebrew) is the Lord.

God as a Father in the OT: Moses said in De.32:6, “The Lord, is not He your Father?”  Also see Is.64:8, 63:16.  Mal.2:10 “Do we not all have one Father? Has not one [echad] God created us?”

God the Father is supreme in the Godhead (as we’ll see).  Father God is the Source of all life (even of Jesus, Jn.5:26 & 6:57).  The Father chooses the time of calling His elect, Ep.1:3-5 & Jn.6:44.

Jesus the Son in the OT: Ps.2:7, 12 “YHVH said to Me, You are My Son, Today I have begotten You. Do homage to the Son.”  (YHVH isn’t referring to David.  Jesse, not God, begat David.)  Pr.30:4 “Who has ascended up to heaven and descended? What is His name or His Son’s name?”  Jn.6:62 Jesus said, “What if you should see the Son of Man ascending where He was before?”  Jn.1:18 Jesus said no one has seen Father God at any time.  In the OT Péntateuch, the God seen was the Word/Rock/Son/Angel, the Messenger of YHVH. ref Ge.31:11-13, 18:1, Ex.24:10, Is.6:1 & Jn.12:41-44.  De.32:18 & 1Co.10:4 according to the apostle Paul, “That Rock was Christ”.  (see “Jesus Was The Old Testament God”.)

The primordial Word of God, the Messenger of the Lord, took on flesh as Jesus/Yeshúa (Hebrew).  Neither the Father nor the HS took on flesh.  As human, Jesus could bridge the gap between Creator and creation.  1Ti.2:5 “There is one Mediator between God and men, the human Jesus Christ.”  He.4:14-15 Jesus as such is High Priest.  In Je.23:5-6, the Messiah would be both a human descendant of David, and YHVH!  Harvard’s Jacob Neusner Judaisms and Their Messiahs, p.275 “An early Judaism myth portrayed a supernatural God-Man King Messiah as Savior and Redeemer of Israel.”  He is Jesus.

The Holy Spirit in the OT: Is.48:16 “The Lord God and His Spirit have sent Me.”  Job.33:4 “The Spirit of God has made me.”  Pr.1:20-23 “Wisdom lifts her voice, ‘I will pour out My Spirit on you.”

Father God is in heaven.  God has operated through the HS and Jesus.  Ac.2:34 Jesus ascended into heaven and now sits there at Father’s right hand (and Jesus lives mystically in Christians, Jn.17:21-23 & Col.1:27).  The human Jesus wasn’t omnipresent.  The HS is on earth…omnipresent.  David wrote in Ps.139:7-10, “Where can I go from Your Spirit, where can I flee from Your Presence?”  Nowhere.

Although the Godhead is tripartite, a common trinitarian view is partly incorrect.  That is, the Bible doesn’t reflect the three in the Godhead as equal in authority.  Father God has the greatest authority!  Jesus said in Jn.14:28, “The Father is greater than I”.  1Co.15:27-28 Jesus is forever subject to Him.

The Father sends Jesus.  Jn.12:49 Jesus said, “The Father who sent Me has given Me commandment”.  The two are distinct.  The Father also sends the HS.  Jn.14:26 “The Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send.”  Jesus too sends the HS (Jn.16:7).  All three are distinct!  But neither Jesus nor the HS sends the Father!  They differ in order and subordination.  The human Jesus wasn’t omniscient.  Mt.24:36 “Of that day and hour no one knows, not the Son, the Father only.” (see “Jesus Is God…Jesus Has A God”.)

Father God is so very great!  Jn.6:46 & 5:37 no human has ever seen His form.  They hadn’t heard His voice.  Not before Jesus and John the Baptizer heard the voice of Father God formally testify of His Son at Jesus’ baptism.  ref Jn.1:32-34 & Mk.1:9-11.  The (OT) Voice heard by God’s people was that of the Word, the Lord Jesus, e.g. Ge.18:1, 13, Jn.8:56-58.  Jesus said in Jn.10:27, “My sheep hear My voice”.

Ontology is the study of being.  God, angels, humans are called personal beings.  But God’s Being isn’t finite or limited, as we are limited.  Scripture doesn’t define ‘person’ (the term we use in modern English), and doesn’t apply that term to the triune God.  The Latin persona (or Greek prósopon) was a ‘face’ worn by Greek/Roman dramatic actors.  Church fathers applied the Greek term hypostáses (subsistences or entities or individuals) to God.

Several verses in the New Testament (NT) reflect the tripartite Godhead.  First, I should say, 1Jn.5:7 KJV is only in late manuscripts.  And the Mt.28:19 phrase, “Baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit”, wasn’t in the text Eusebius quoted ca 300 AD.  But there are many other verses….

2Co.13:14 “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the HS be with you all.”  2Co.1:21-22 “He who establishes us in Christ and anointed us is God, who also gave us the Spirit.”  Ep.4:4-6 “There is one Spirit, one Lord, one God and Father of all.”  (That’s three!)  Ac.7:55 “Being full of the HS, Stephen saw Jesus standing at the right hand of God.”  He.9:14 “Christ, who through the eternal Spirit, offered Himself without blemish to God.”  1Co.12:4-6 “The same Spirit…the same Lord…the same God.”  (Again, that’s three.)  1Pe.1:2 “Elect according to a foreknowledge of God the Father, sanctified by the Spirit, sprinkled with the blood of Jesus Christ.”  All these verses indicate the three ‘Persons’ of the Godhead, the God Family.

As God, they are identical in essence, fully divine, a tri-unity of subsistences having self-awareness, sinless.  It’s been said as an analogy that the Father is the wall outlet, the HS is the cord, Jesus is the lamp (Re.21:23).  The tripartite Godhead is revealed to us by Jesus the Son’s coming in the flesh and His words in the NT, by other scriptures, and by the HS dwelling within us as Christians.

The terms for God as “Father” and “Holy Spirit” rarely occur as such in the OT.  Very few men had the HS in OT times; and prior to the NT, Jesus hadn’t yet come to reveal the Father.  (see “Life and Death – for Saints”.)  Jesus said in Jn.4:24, “God is Spirit”.  In Mt.10:20, Jesus spoke of Christians having “The Spirit of your Father who speaks in you”.  The HS belongs to and was part of Father God, has personality, but isn’t the totality of God.

Every human has a spirit within.  Jb.32:8 “There is a spirit in man.”  Our human spirit gives biological life to our body of flesh (Ge.2:7).  Ja.2:26 “The body without the spirit is dead.”  Without our human spirit, we’re just a clod.  Our spirit in God’s image imparts self-awareness and intellect to our brain.  It’s a non-physical component which differentiates human mind from animal brain instinct.  Our spirit gives us a moral sense of conscience, based upon the self and cultural customs & laws, not the HS.  Yet the HS will join with our human spirit (1Co.6:17); we become linked to God, able to live God’s morality.

Mt.1:18 “Mary was found to be with Child by the HS.”  The HS as God conceived Jesus in the womb of the surrogate mother Mary.  Kind begets kind.  So even as flesh, the Word/Jesus was of the Godkind.

The HS is very God, distinct from the Father.  Jn.15:26 “The Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father.”  Orthodox Bible “The HS receives…eternal existence only from the Father.”  1Co.3:16 “Don’t you know that you are the temple of God and the Spirit of God lives in you?”  The Father and Jesus are in heaven…Christians wouldn’t be God’s temple if God the HS didn’t dwell within.  Lk.3:21-22 “Jesus was baptized. The HS descended upon Him in bodily form as a dove, and a voice came out of heaven, ‘You are My beloved Son, in Thee I Am well-pleased.”  The Father sent the HS as a dove upon Jesus the Son, then the Father’s voice spoke to Him from heaven.  That’s three!  Father God didn’t appear as the bird.  And Jesus isn’t an angel’s son.  1Jn.5:10 “God [not an angel] has testified about His Son.”

The HS is a Who, not a what, not an impersonal power such as magnetism or centripetal force.  The following verses reflect HS personality:  Peter said to Ananias in Ac.5:3-4, “You lied to the HS. You weren’t lying to men but to God.”  The person of the HS can be lied to and is God!  1Co.2:10-11 “Who knows the inner thoughts of a man, except the spirit of the man. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. The thoughts of God no one knows except the Spirit of God.”  The HS has an intellect and knowledge, as does our human spirit.  Ro.8:26-27 “The Spirit intercedes for us with deep groanings. And He who searches the hearts knows the mind of the Spirit.”  The HS has a mind and prays for the saints, unlike an impersonal ‘force’, so-called.  (see “Holy Spirit Personification”.)

The HS speaks in 1^st Person as “Me” and “I” in Ac.13:2. “The Holy Spirit said, ‘Set apart for Me Barnabas and Saul for the work which I have called them to.”  Also ref Ac.11:12, Jn.16:13, Mk.13:11, which indicate the HS is personal and speaks.  2Sm.23:2-3 “The Spirit of YHVH spoke by me. The God of Israel.”  Again, the HS is YHVH/God.

Ro.15:30 “By our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit.”  The HS is a ‘Person’ who can love!  (1Jn.4:8 God is love.)  1Co.12:11 and Ac 20:28 the Person of the HS has a will and appoints overseers in the church.  The Person of Jesus also has a will.  Mt.11:27 “The Father, who the Son wills to reveal.”

The church is the metaphorical bride of Christ (e.g. Re.19:7-9).  Christians (the “bride”) are persons.  Re.22:17 “The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come.”  The Spirit and the bride speak, as persons.  Jesus is symbolically the Lion, Lamb, Word, arm (of the Lord, Is.53:1)…yet Jesus is a distinct person!  Jesus is also referred to as, “The power of God and the wisdom of God” (1Co.1:24).  Yet Jesus is clearly personal, as the four gospels reveal.  The HS isn’t just the power (or force) of God.

Is.63:10 “They rebelled and vexed His HS.”  Ep.4:30 “Don’t grieve God’s HS, by whom you are sealed.”  The HS seals believers…and can be vexed or provoked, and grieved or made sorrowful.  He.10:29 “Sorer punishment to he who has insulted the Spirit of grace.”  The HS can be insulted.  To think that an emotionless ‘force’ can be vexed, grieved and feel insulted…seems absurd!  Jn.15:26 the HS testifies of Jesus.  Any spirit who denies Jesus is false!  Yet…Mt.12:31-32 “Blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven.”

Forces such as magnetism and centripetal force don’t: have a mind, speak, pray, love, or hear and comprehend lies.  Whereas the Bible says the HS does: have a mind, speak, pray, love, hear and comprehend lies.  The HS can be vexed, grieved, insulted, blasphemed!  To repeat, the HS is personal…not just a powerful but emotionless ‘force’ from God!  (also see “Holy Spirit’s Identity”.)

Benny Hinn Welcome Holy Spirit, p.29 “There’s glory in grasping the Personhood of the Holy Spirit….your life will never be the same.”  ibid, p.199 “The Spirit is the Author of the Book.”

A church denomination I won’t name published an article about the Holy Spirit.  Their position is, “The HS is not God. It is the most powerful force in the universe. The HS can be poured out, an impersonal characteristic.”  But we read verses above, such as Ac.5:3-4 and 1Co.3:16, which indicate the HS is God.  Their article went on to say, “Only God can change hearts” (as if the HS isn’t God).

But the HS is God and does change hearts.  Ro.5:5 “The love of God is poured out in our hearts by the HS.”  2Co.1:22 “He gave us the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts.”  Ro.15:30 it’s by “The love of the Spirit.”  God’s love is “poured out” or shed abroad through the Person of the HS.  The Holy Spirit personally loves as God.  (And the HS is symbolically “poured out” as living water, Jn.7:38-39.)

Is.53:12 prophesied of Jesus, “He poured out Himself to death”.  Jesus the “Person” also “poured out” Himself or His soul.  1Sm.1:15 Samuel’s wife Hannah describes her supplication to God. “I have poured out my soul before the Lord.”  Jb.30:16 Job’s sore complaint, “My soul is poured out within me”.  David said in Ps.62:8, “Pour out your heart before God”.  In the Bible, the soul and even the heart of a person can be “poured out”!  Hannah, Job, and David are persons.  Jesus and the HS are divine Persons, in a manner “poured out”, so to speak.

Angels are also spirits, “ministering spirits” in He.1:14 (they aren’t the Holy Spirit).  An angel is a spirit who, likewise, isn’t just an impersonal force (e.g. the angel Gabriel, Lk.1:19).

Ministering spirits (angels), the Holy Spirit, our human spirits…aren’t an impersonal Star Wars type force!  Our human spirit is me, is you, within our flesh ‘suit’.  Again, the HS is changing our hearts!  We, as God’s temple of the HS, connect with God…the HS joined with our human spirit (1Co.6:17).  God will be all-in-all, Ep.4:6!

Finally, the triune God is thrice holy.  One Spirit…one Lord…one Father (Ep.4:4-6).  Is.6:3 “Holy, Holy, Holy is YHVH of hosts.”  A three-in-one Godhead.  The heavenly worshipers in Re.4:8 “Do not cease to say, Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God, the Almighty”.  Yea, and Amen.

Feast of Booths/Tabernacles

When Jesus incarnated in the Holy Land, He kept the Old Testament (OT) feasts the Lord gave to Israel (including the Jews).  Jn.7:2 NASB “Now the feast of the Jews, the Feast of Booths, was at hand.”  In the Jn.7 verses that follow, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for this pilgrim feast.

It was celebrated annually, usually in early October, beginning around 15 days after the September equinox.  (The start date varies slightly from year-to-year; their calendar differed from ours.)  What did this week-long, or 8-day, festival celebrate?  Why was it called the Feast of Booths?  That’s a strange name for a feast.  To understand why it was called that, let’s go back to the book of Exodus.

Most Bible students are generally familiar with the Exodus account where the Lord God freed Moses and the Israelites from Egyptian bondage.  This topic will note their first camps upon departure, their time in the wilderness, and the memorial relation to the later Feast of Booths they’d celebrate in the land of Canáan.  (There was no Feast of Booths prescribed in Egypt.)

As they were leaving Egypt that spring, in Ex.12:37-38 “The sons of Israel journeyed from Ramesés to Sukkóth [Strongs h5523, Hebrew], 600,000 men on foot”.  Rameses was another name for the Góshen area of Egypt where the ancient Israelites lived, and/or a city in Goshen (Ge.47:6, 11).  There were perhaps two million Israelites, counting the women & children with the “mixed multitude”.

The proper noun Sukkoth (h5523) meant ‘booths’, according to Strongs Bible Dictionary, ISBE, etc.

At least two places are named Sukkoth (h5523) in the Bible.  The one was there in Egypt.  Another was east of the Jordan River, in the area of Canaan which would later be allotted to the Israelite tribe of Gad.

A few centuries earlier, the patriarch Jacob had stopped at the other Sukkoth as he was re-entering the land of Canaan from NW Mesopotámia.  Ge.33:17 “Jacob journeyed to Sukkoth [h5523] and built for himself a house, and made booths [sukkót h5521] for his livestock; therefore he named the place Sukkoth [h5523 Booths].”  The term sukkot is the plural of sukkáh/booth h5521.  Those booths referred to a temporary hut, shelter, or lean-to.  Booths/sukkot were erected for people or livestock.  Unlike tents, such booths weren’t portable.

Much later the prophet Jonah built a temporary booth for himself just east of Nineveh.  Jnh.4:5-6 “He made a booth [h5521] and sat under it. The Lord appointed a plant and it grew up over Jonah to be a shade over his head. Jonah was very glad to have the plant.”  Those make-shift booths provided partial protection from the elements.

When the Israelites left Egypt, they remained in the wilderness for 40 years (Ne.9:21).  But they didn’t dwell in open-air huts/booths for that time!  Such huts were used by harvesters, and are uncommon in the desert.  The wilderness climate in that area could be harsh, with intense heat and bitter cold.  Furthermore, in the dry wilderness there wasn’t enough forestland or necessary foliage for men to keep erecting a lean-to as family dwellings…not for all those people for 40 years!

Rather, in the wilderness the Israelite families lived in tents.  Ex.16:1, 16 indicate that God began the manna provision 30 days or so after they left Egypt. “Gather it every man according to the number of persons each of you has in his tent [óhel h168].”  Ex.33:10 “All the people would arise and worship, each at the entrance of his tent [h168].”

Fred H. Wright Manners and Customs of Bible Lands “The Children of Israel lived in tents during their 40 years in the wilderness.”  Dr. David HaCohen When and Where the Israelites Dwelt in Sukkot “When staying in places for short periods, people use tents and don’t live in booths (i.e., sukkot), which are heavy and unwieldy. Wandering people don’t use booths.”  Also Nu.11:10, 16:27; De.1:27; Jsh.3:14 are some of the verses which show the Israelites living in tents for those years…not in booths.

Tents were made of animal skins or cloths/canvas, and were portable.  The term sukkot (h5521 booths) is never used as wilderness dwellings for the Israelites, except when it refers to the “Feast of Booths”.

Yet the Lord instructed Moses that native-born Israelites in the Land of Canaan were to keep an annual “Feast of Booths” (h5521) in the early autumn.  The Feast of Booths is specifically noted in ten OT verses: Le.23:34; De.16:13, 16, 31:10; 2Ch.8:13; Ezr.3:4; Ne.8:14; Zec.14:16, 18, 19.

The translation of words into other languages is sometimes imprecise.  Also the meanings of words within a language change over time.

The Feast of Booths is called the Feast of Tabernacles in many Bibles (Tyndale, KJV, etc.).

Our English word ‘tabernacle’ comes from the Latin words tabérna and then tabernáculum, used to translate the OT Greek Septúagint term skené (g4633).  Tabernaculum meant a booth, hut, tent, or place of worship.  It may be portable or stationary.  And our noun ‘tabernacle’ too is a rather general term.

In scripture, “tabernacle” most often referred to the portable sacred tent in which the Lord dwelt among the Israelites during the centuries prior to the construction of Solomon’s temple.  The Hebrew OT term mishkán (h4908) is translated “tabernacle”.  The roof of God’s mishkan/tabernacle structure was a tent (h168; g4633 Septuagint/LXX) covering made of goat’s hair and ram skins, Ex.26:1, 7-14.

However, in the LXX, the term skene (g4633) was used as the translation for both mishkan/tabernacle (h4908) and ohel/tent (h168)!  The term skene isn’t explicit, and misunderstandings have resulted.

In the previously noted ten OT verses where “Feast of Booths” (sukkot h5521) occurs, the LXX NETS has the following: “Feast of Tents” (skene g4633) in Le.23:34; De.16:13; 2Ch.8:13; Ezr.3:4; Ne.8:14.  “Feast of Tent Pitching” (skenopegía g4634) in De.16:16, 31:10; Zec.14:16, 18, 19.  A stationary hut or lean-to shelter isn’t apparent in those LXX verses!  In Jn.7:2, this feast is literally the “Feast of Tent Pitching” (g4634).  Some Bibles render Jn.7:2 the “Feast of Booths”, others the “Feast of Tabernacles”.

So we see that in part, the mix of terms used in translations is a problem of derivation and semantics.

Philologos: Booths, Tabernacles, Tents and Huts “Rather than speak of…tabernacles that aren’t tabernacles and booths that aren’t booths, it is indeed more sensible to say Sukkot.”  As Jews call it.

The Hebrew mishkan (h4908) is rendered tabernacle in English.  But in the Hebrew OT the autumn feast is never called the “Feast of Mishkan”, even though the Lord dwelt in His tabernacle.  Nor is this feast called the “Feast of Ohel” (h168 tents), even though the Israelites dwelt in tents in the wilderness and a tent covered God’s tabernacle.  Rather, this autumn feast is called the Feast of Sukkot/Booths.

Let’s look at the Feast of Booths, starting in Le.23:34 NASB. “On the 15^th of this 7^th month is the Feast of Booths [Sukkot h5521] for seven days to the Lord.”  The Latin Vulgate version (400 AD) has “fériae tabernaculorum” for “Feast of Booths”.  The Tyndale Bible (1530 AD) has “Feast of Tabernacles.”

Lev.23.39-40 “When you have in-gathered the crops of the Land [of Canaan], on the first day you shall take the foliage of beautiful trees, palm branches, and boughs of leafy trees and willows, and you shall rejoice before the Lord for seven days.”  Israelites were to travel to one location and on the first day of the Feast gather boughs and branches to erect their family booths/huts (and then worship nearby at God’s tabernacle or temple).  Ne.8:14-18 repeats these instructions for this Feast.

(Note: For a Feast of Booths today, many Jews traditionally erect in their own yards open-air booths with boughs, branches and leafy roofs.  They’re made of foliage and last a week or so before decaying.)

Continuing with Le.23:42-43. “For seven days all the native-born in Israel shall live in booths [h5521], so that your generations may know that I had the sons of Israel live in booths [h5521] when I brought them out from the land of Egypt. I AM the Lord your God.”  What!?

It seems something in that passage doesn’t add up!  Above were noted several scriptures which say the ancient Israelites lived in (portable) tents after departing Egypt…not in booths!  So why would God want their descendants to know the Israelites had lived in booths (and not tents) when leaving Egypt?

Again, families didn’t actually live in booths for 40 years.  Rather, what Le.23:43 meant is…their first camp upon leaving was…the Egyptian town of Sukkoth (h5523), which means ‘booths’!  Probably it was a place of such shelters.  Pulpit Commentary Ex.12:37 “The meaning of the word ‘Succoth’ is ‘booths’…Huts made of reeds are common at the present day in the tract SE of Tunis [Egypt].”  Ellicott Commentary “The district SE of Tanis…in which clusters of ‘booths’ have been at all times common.”

Ex.12:37, Nu.33:5, the supposed Book of Jasher 81:5…corroborate this first stop on their journey.  JFB Commentary Le.23:43, regarding the future Feast of Booths, “In memory of their first lodging at Sukkoth, they [later] kept the feast in shelters formed from tree boughs.”

Some ancient peoples observed sacrificial harvest festivals.  Moses had said to Pharaoh in Ex.8:27 (also in Ex.3:18, 5:3), “We must go a three days’ journey into the wilderness and sacrifice to the Lord our God as He commands us”.  (This occasion would be during their first keeping of the Feast of Unleavened Bread that spring.)  Finally, in Ex.12:31 an exasperated Pharaoh relents. “Get out from among my people, and go, worship the Lord, as you have said.”

The Feast of Booths commemorated this.  The place Sukkoth signified their deliverance and freedom!  They were no longer a slave people.  Thus the Feast of Sukkot/Booths was a celebration of the exodus from Egypt.  (The remembrance is akin to the Passover in Egypt.)  They became the free people of God!

Nu.33:3-5 “They journeyed from Rameses on the 15^th day [by night, De.16:1]…and camped in Sukkoth.”  Then late in the 2^nd afternoon, 16^th Abíb, they camped in Ethám at the wilderness (Nu.33:6; Ex.13:20; Jash.81:7).  Then late on the 3^rd day, 17^th Abib, by Pihahiróth (Nu.33:7; Ex.14:2; Jash.81:12).

When the Israelites hadn’t returned from worship after three days…Pharaoh’s army chased them after the 5^th day (from Jash.81:13-14).  Ex.14:9 Pharaoh overtook them by Pihahiroth/the sea.  Traditionally, the ancient Israelites crossed through the sea on the 7^th day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread.

{Sidelight: At the time of their exodus from Egypt, God commanded the Israelites to observe the 7-day Feast of Unleavened Bread (not to be confused with the autumnal Feast of Booths).  De.16:3 their bread was unleavened because they left in haste.  (Also leaven can represent sin…ref Mt.16:6, 12; 1Co.5:6-8; Ac.20:6.)  The Lord said in Ex.12:15-17, “Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the 1^st day you shall have a holy assembly, and another holy assembly on the 7^th day. You shall observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread, for on this very day I brought your hosts out of the land of Egypt.”  The holy occasion of the Passover meal occurred on the 1^st day just before the Egyptian firstborn were killed (Ex.12:8, 29).  The holy assembly of the 7^th day occurred just after the Egyptian army was killed (drowned) in the sea.  This spring Feast also commemorated Israel’s deliverance and freedom!

Poole Commentary Ex.12:16 “The 7^th day, because then Pharaoh and his host were drowned in the sea. As on the 1^st day when the firstborn were killed; so their deliverance was begun on the 1^st and completed on the 7^th day, and therefore those [two] days deserve a special character of honor.”  Rabbi Greg Killian The Seventh Day of Pésach “All of the Egyptian army, their horses…died on the 7^th day of Pesach [Passover]. They all were killed by water. Moses and Miriam sang/‘will sing’ a song to HaShém [the Name].”  Ex.15:1-22 is the song of deliverance, sung on the 7^th day for their holy assembly at the shore of the sea.  The traditional Book of Jubilees 49:23, “You [Israelites] celebrated this festival [Unleavened Bread] with haste when you went forth from Egypt till you entered into the wilderness of Shur [Ex.15:22]; for on the shore of the sea you completed it”.  So only the 1^st and 7^th days of the annual Feast of Unleavened Bread, not the intermediate days, were commanded by the Lord as holy convocations for Israel.  They’d become free!  (also see the topic “Passover and the Exodus Timing”.)}

The Israelites then spent 40 years in the wilderness…so long a time was due to their ensuing sin and unbelief (Nu.14:22-23).  The autumn Feast of Sukkot/Booths didn’t celebrate those sins and 38 years of dying in the wilderness!  The Le.23:42-43 command that they’d keep a memorial Feast of Booths in Canaan was given by God in the 1^st year after leaving Egypt, while they were at Mt. Sinai (Le.27:34)!  Following the Ex.12 Passover in Egypt and their exit, they kept the next year’s Passover in Nu.9.  They broke camp at Sinai in the 2^nd month of the 2^nd year (Nu.10:11-13).  This was before their wanderings!

It wasn’t until more than a year after departing Egypt that God decreed most of the males over age 20 would die in the wilderness (Nu.14:26-38).  Excluded from this decree were Joshua & Caleb, Levites (cf. Nu.14:29 & Nu.1:46-47), women.  And that they’d then wander for 38 more years.

The Feast of Sukkot/Booths wasn’t to celebrate their disobedience or 40 years in the wilderness!  And again, it wasn’t that they dwelt in lean-to shelters of foliage for 40 years.  Rather…their first camp as a free people was at the place called Sukkoth/Booths (in Egypt).

In scripture, the Feast of Booths is also called the Feast of Ingathering (h614), Ex.23:16, 34:22.  They would gather-in the later summer crops of the Land of Canaan.  The Feast of Ingathering was at the end of the fig, grape, pomegranate harvest.  It was a festival of rejoicing (Le.23:40).  Not only being thankful for their harvest, but they were to rejoice in the memory of their deliverance from Egyptian bondage prior to entering Canaan.  (Also De.16:13, their custom was to live in booths while harvesting grapes.  This custom has survived in Palestine.  ref International Standard Bible Encyclopedia: Wine, and Jewish Encyclopedia: Tabernacles, Feast Of.)  also see my topic “Feasts of the Lord and the Jews”.

But there’s yet more significance to the Feast of Booths.  Notice Is.4:5-6, “The Lord will create over Mt. Zion a cloud by day and flaming fire by night. There will be a booth (h5521) to give shade from the heat by day and refuge and protection.”  Isaiah indicated that God’s cloud is another type of booth.

The Shekéenah glory cloud was as a booth, providing God’s protection & shelter.  Previously the Israelites experienced this, beginning when they were entering the wilderness.  Ex.13:20-22 “They set out from Sukkoth [h5523 Booths] and camped in Etham on the edge of the wilderness. And the Lord was going before them in a pillar of cloud by day to lead them on the way, and a pillar of fire by night.”

So God’s glory cloud as a booth/sukkah (Is.4:6) began protecting them as they left Sukkoth the place of booths!  (God later even provided a plant to shade Jonah in his booth/sukkah.)  The Shekinah glory began sheltering Israel as they departed Sukkoth the place of booths/shelters!  Again Le.23:42-43, so future generations at the Feast of Booths would remember how God had delivered and protected them.

In Nu.16:42, 20:6, the glory cloud was still appearing (to guide Moses).  Ne.9:19-21 says the Shekinah glory accompanied them for all 40 years in the wilderness!  God’s cloud by day and fire by night gave some covering from the heat, and provided some warmth from the cold, of the wilderness/desert.

De.1:2 it was actually only an 11-day journey from the Horéb mountains to Kadésh-barnéa…near where the Israelites spent 38 years.  Yet in spite of their disobedience, the Shekinah glory remained with the Israelites the whole time.  The Lord is so compassionate and gracious!

The Feast of Sukkot/Booths signified God’s providence, His loving care and protection.  Then, decades after being delivered from Egypt (representative of bondage)…following the 7-day Feast of Booths, the 8^th day celebration (Le.23:39) of Shémini Atzerét or ‘eighth assembly’ signified the new order of things for Israel as now free in the Promised Land!  (In addition, see “God Tabernacles With Humans”.)

Thanks be to God for His continual loving care and protection…in which we too, His New Covenant people in the order of Melchisedek (Ps.110:4), are privileged to share!