Angels in the Trees – 2
“…that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world” Phil. 2:15
Acacias, not Mulberries
So, acacia wood is at the heart of the Holy furniture. The Tabernacle is a wilderness world glorified by Spirit-filled men and brought into the tent of God,[1] under the wing of Boaz, under the friendly firmament of a new Covenant, under the great tree that grows to shelter the nations.
As this tree, the Tabernacle was cruciform and daubed with blood. Jacob’s ladder was a bloody tree to heaven.[2] It is the cruciform man, Jesus. As with His mother, Israel, He has a crown of stars, warrior children. Angels are the stars of the Old Testament; the saints are the stars (“lights”) of the new (Daniel 8:10, 12:3; Phil. 2:15).
In the book of Numbers, the tribes were arranged around the Tabernacle, the door to God’s throne, in twelve constellations. They moved across the wilderness like the stars across the night sky. With their campfires around the Shekinah, they were a crown of glory for their King, a Pentecostal Eve army for a blood-covered Adam.
This adds another level both to 2 Samuel 5 and to the warnings to Israel before the Jewish war. In 2 Samuel 5, it was a stirring in the tops of the acacia trees. In Luke 21, it was a stirring above the Holy City. Here’s an excerpt from an article by Ernest L. Martin:
“Christ Jesus told the apostles that when they (or any of the saints) would see Jerusalem surrounded by armies then let the people of God flee from Jerusalem and Judea. ‘When you shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh’ (Luke 21:20).
The meaning of this verse has puzzled many people. How can it be that when Jerusalem is completely surrounded (encircled on all sides) with armies, then the people of God are told to flee the whole area of Judea (of which Jerusalem is a part)? If this is the strategy, then it seems that Christ is saying to surrender to the armies. But this is not what Christ meant in his warning.
In actual fact, this prophecy of Christ Jesus was fulfilled to the letter in the period just before the war that destroyed Jerusalem from A.D.67 to 70. We have the eyewitness account of Josephus himself (he was the Jewish historian who accompanied the Roman armies to Jerusalem and saw or reported all that occurred in Judaea within that three and a half year event that occurred in the heavens that could not be identified as having its origin on earth. This was clearly a ‘sign’ from heaven and I have not the slightest hesitation in stating that it was an exact fulfillment of what Christ Jesus said would occur that is recorded in Luke 21:20. Note what Josephus said happened just before the war with the Romans commenced.
On the twenty-first of the month Artemisium [the last day of the 2nd Passover season In A.D.66, there appeared a miraculous phenomenon, passing belief. Indeed, what I am about to relate would, I imagine, have been deemed a fable, were it not for the narratives of eyewitnesses and for the subsequent calamities which deserved to be so signalized. For before sunset throughout all parts of the county [everywhere throughout Judea] chariots were seen in the air and armed battalions hurtling through the clouds and encompassing the cities (War,VI.5.3 or Loeb VI.298, emphasis mine).
This is the very thing that Christ Jesus said to watch for. And then (about two weeks later) Josephus tells us:
Moreover, at the feast which is called Pentecost, the priests on entering the inner court of the temple by night, as their custom was in the discharge of their ministrations, reported that they were conscious, first of a commotion and a din, and after that of a voice as of a host, ‘We are departing hence’ (War, VI.209,300).
With these two signs what did the Christians in Jerusalem and Judea do? Eusebius tells us that this is the time they began to leave the region because of the command of Christ and went to a city called Pella on the east side of the Jordan River (Ecclesiastical History, III.5). They and the apostles obtained safety from the holocaust that soon enflamed Jerusalem and Judaea.
Chariots and armed forces seen in the skies all over Judaea and encompassing the cities of the Jews was similar to times recorded in the early history of Israel. Angelic powers (in this case, good angels) accompanied the armies of Israel when it was the normal period (in ancient Times) for hostilities to occur. The Bible says: ‘And it came to pass, after the year had expired, at the time angels go forth to battle, that David sent Joab, and his servants with him, and all Israel; and they destroyed the children of Ammon” (II Samuel 11:1). The King James translators (and most modern ones) read the Hebrew as ‘kings,’ not ‘angels.’ But there is no reason whatever for reading the text as ‘kings.’ The verse was intended to show that angelic powers were there to aid Israel in their battles when they went to war.
A further reference (which even corroborates angelic connections with wars or the preparations for wars on earth) is 11 Samuel 5:23-24. God said to David that when he heard “the sound of a going [forth] in the tops of the mulberry trees, then you [David] shall bestir yourself [to war].” This swishing sound in the tops of the trees of a turbulent waving action of the wind was recognized by David as caused by the Lord and his angelic hosts going to battle with David (see also Genesis 32:1.3 and II Kings 6:17 about angels accompanying God). But in A.D.66, instead of helping Israel win the war with the Romans that the people of Judaea were about to start, the angelic hosts were seen in the clouds in chariots and as armed soldiers encompassing the cities of Judaea and enclosing them on all sides for capitulation. This is precisely what Christ Jesus said to watch for in his Olivet prophecy.”[3]
A stirring in the tops of the acacias meant the Incense Altar army, the fragrant cloud of the Lord of Hosts, was on the move to scatter God’s enemies.[4] After AD70, the end of the Old Covenant and the installation of a human government in heaven [5], it is the saints who are the cloud of glory.[6]
_______________________________________
[1] See Unashamed Artisans.
[2] See Servanthood Dominion.
[3] From Are UFO’s Real?
[4] This is exactly the same picture as David’s five smooth stones going before him. See The Holy Headbutt.
[5] See Jesus’ New Broom.
[6] The word Shekinah is feminine. The city of God, greater Eve, is a tent for the light of the Lamb. For more on long hair as “female” glory see Power on Her Head. and for the New Jerusalem as a robe see Healing in His… Tassels?
