A Man of Beasts
“He said to him, ‘Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.’ And he brought him all these, cut them in half, and laid each half over against the other. But he did not cut the birds in half. And when birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away.” (Genesis 15:9-11)
When Abram asked for a sign concerning the Lord’s promise concerning an heir, the Lord carried it out with animals slain and displayed upon the Land. In the Covenant-literary structure of Genesis 15, the animals were slain and laid out at “Pass-over,” and the Lord’s chariot (as a Head and Body) “passed-through” at Atonement, (matching Pass-over” chiastically) picturing Joshua and Israel entering Canaan. (See Pass-over and Pass-through, and compare the charts on pages 93 and 115 of Bible Matrix.)
What is also interesting is the “architecture” of the sacrifice. We do not know which animals were considered “clean” by the Lord in Noah’s time, but the number of sacrificial animals was now limited to five. They correspond to the architecture of the Tabernacle. If we include Abram in his deep sleep (as a “covering”) and the birds of prey representing the curse of the Law, in the following diagram we have the complete “footprint” of the humaniform house made entirely out of birds and beasts.
Comments on the diagram:
- In Circumcision, God tore Greater Adam in two. However, the Covenant Head cannot be crushed, hence the birds were “bruised” but not divided. Pigeon and dove are one kind but the pigeon is domesticated and the dove is wild (symbolizing Israel and the nations).
- The heifer is the Land, the Bronze Altar. The goat is the Bridal people, the Incense Altar. The ram is the Firstfruits, Isaac.
- The 3 year-old animals are “half a house.” The serpentine “power of the air,” is the scavenging birds, as was the raven after the flood.
- Notice the movement from Word, to Sacrament to Government, from Abram to Israel to Land.
This “sacrificial Man” is a picture of the Jew-Gentile divide, and its architecture prefigures a number of characteristics of the Covenant history which follows:
Firstly, that the Spirit would be working in both Jews and Gentiles but in different ways, as Paul describes for us in Romans 2. The “binary” dividing line was Circumcision, expounded in the above-beside-below architecture of the Law.
Secondly, that Israel in the Land was Adam and the Land animals, the Mediatory Body. As long as Israel submitted to God as a nations of priests, she and her house were safe from the beastly kingdoms. Every time the Spirit departed, her house would be torn down.
Thirdly, this four-cornered “Altar” was a model of the Land itself, an Adam formed out of dust and awaiting the Spirit.
Finally, this “Tabernacle Man” has legs. Israel’s faithful priesthood would lead to Israel’s kinghood. When she was at rest in the Land, the Temple would be built. Its two pillars, Jachin and Boaz (Priest and King) would rest over the Altar-Land as a sign of dominion, ready to “walk with God” as a Prophet.
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See also Half-Man, Half Beast.
ART: Transfiguration – Lewis Bowman
