Bully's Blog

The Bible contains some patterns that are frequently repeated. Sometimes these are inverted or reversed to make a point.

For the ancient world, a garden, a house, a city or a temple was like a woman. An invading army, after storming through the gates of a city, would rape the virgins. It was a brutal reminder that, like the women, the conquered city was not impregnable.

“In order to understand this, we have to think like ancient Hebrews, and not like modern people… Adam was supposed to guard the garden, and he was also supposed to guard his wife.

The Song of Solomon compares the woman to a garden several times in the course of the book. In all languages, the words for city, garden, and the like are feminine, and we speak of a city as “she” in English today.

Let us take a look at the city in the Bible, remembering that what is said of the city is also true of the house, tent, Temple, Tabernacle, and other enclosed homes for humanity. The city has walls and gates. The purpose of these walls and gates is to keep the enemy out. The goal is that the city be impregnable, and note that English word – it directly connects the city with the woman. Thus, the city has to be a virgin, sealed against attack. Jerusalem is referred to as an impregnable virgin repeatedly in Scripture (2 Kings 19:21; Is. 37:22; Jer. 14:17; 18:13; Jer. 31:21; Amos 5:2). The attack on Jerusalem is thus the rape of a city (Lam. 1:15; 2:13)… Just as Eve was “built” from Adam (using an architectural term, Gen. 2:22), so Jerusalem would be rebuilt as a virgin (Jer. 31:4)… Thus, the safety and security of the virgin daughters of Israel was a symbol of the safety and security of the whole land. Their inviolability corresponded to the inviolability of the whole culture (Lam. 1:4; 2:10).”

In the case of Babylon, its walls and gates were impregnable. The city was built on the Euphrates river, which ebbed into the city under the wall. Even the banks of the river were protected by metal gates from any invaders who could hold their breath long enough. Under Belshazzar, Babylon lost her virginity (Isaiah 47:1-3), and during the feast her river gates had been left open.

In a brilliant military manoeuvre, Cyrus the Great gave the signal for his troops upstream to divert the river. The invading army marched into the city dryshod and took it with little resistance.  There were hints of this in the prophecies of both Isaiah (44:27) and Jeremiah (50:38, 51:36). The waters of the bringer of the “flood” were dried up. The Land was rising from the deep.
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James B. Jordan (concerning the virginity of Jephthah’s daughter), Judges: God’s War Against Humanism, p. 211-212. Download from www.biblicalhorizons.com

“Then the sixth angel blew his trumpet, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar before God, saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, “Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.” Revelation 9:13-14

To purify the Land of the sins of the nation or the High Priest, the horns of the Incense Altar were smeared with blood from the sacrifice at the bronze Altar. These four angelic commanders, who were previously held back, were horns looking for blood.*

The fifth trumpet, alluding to Joel 2, had summoned clouds of Babylonian locusts (Judaisers) with hair like women (false Nazirites) from Herod’s false altar to devour the Land. Like those in Joel, these are ‘mighty men,’ the result of the compromise of the sons of God with idolatry (Genesis 6).

Now, the sixth trumpet brought a response from the true Altar of Incense—an unimaginable cloud of true Nazirites. The position of this event in the structure of the passage alludes to Joshua’s conquest of Canaan. But as a ‘Trumpet’, this was only a warning. The sixth bowl would bring the final conquest: Armageddon.

The sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates, and its water was dried up, to prepare the way for the kings from the sunrise.

Like the Jews returning from Babylon, and Abraham when he first entered Canaan, they crossed the great river Euphrates in their baptism into Christ. Just as Cyrus “parted” the Great River to conquer Babylon, the river of death was parted to allow the true saints to inherit the heavenly country. Old Jerusalem became Jericho – the city devoted to destruction.

This was an army of true Nazirites who had not broken their vow:

These are the ones who were not defiled with women, for they are virgins. These are the ones who follow the Lamb wherever He goes. These were redeemed from among men, being firstfruits to God and to the Lamb. (Revelation 14:4)

Instead of storming the open gates and raping the virgins, here an army of “virgins” crossed the Euphrates, stormed into Babylon and purified the daughters of men culture around them.

(*This refers to the Hebrew for corners and commanders being the same word.)

Why were Jerusalem’s “gates” left open to the enemy? Josephus records miraculous warning signs during the period of Revelation’s Trumpets. Once again, the death angel stood at the threshing floor holding a sword over the city for the king’s “numbering” of the saints:

“Thus were the miserable people persuaded by these deceivers, and such as belied God himself; while they did not attend nor give credit to the signs that were so evident, and did so plainly foretell their future desolation, but, like men infatuated, without either eyes to see or minds to consider, did not regard the denunciations that God made to them.

Thus there was a star resembling a sword, which stood over the city, and a comet, that continued a whole year. Thus also before the Jews’ rebellion, and before those commotions which preceded the war, when the people were come in great crowds to the feast of unleavened bread, on the eighth day of the month Xanthicus, [Nisan,] and at the ninth hour of the night, so great a light shone round the altar and the holy house, that it appeared to be bright day time; which lasted for half an hour. This light seemed to be a good sign to the unskillful, but was so interpreted by the sacred scribes, as to portend those events that followed immediately upon it…

“Moreover, the eastern gate of the inner [court of the] temple, which was of brass, and vastly heavy, and had been with difficulty shut by twenty men, and rested upon a basis armed with iron, and had bolts fastened very deep into the firm floor, which was there made of one entire stone, was seen to be opened of its own accord about the sixth hour of the night. Now those that kept watch in the temple came hereupon running to the captain of the temple, and told him of it; who then came up thither, and not without great difficulty was able to shut the gate again. This also appeared to the vulgar to be a very happy prodigy, as if God did thereby open them the gate of happiness. But the men of learning understood it, that the security of their holy house was dissolved of its own accord, and that the gate was opened for the advantage of their enemies. So these publicly declared that the signal foreshowed the desolation that was coming upon them.”

“Besides these, a few days after that feast, on the one and twentieth day of the month Artemisius, [Jyar,] a certain prodigious and incredible phenomenon appeared: I suppose the account of it would seem to be a fable, were it not related by those that saw it, and were not the events that followed it of so considerable a nature as to deserve such signals; for, before sun-setting, chariots and troops of soldiers in their armour were seen running about among the clouds, and surrounding of cities. Moreover, at that feast which we call Pentecost, as the priests were going by night into the inner [court of the temple], as their custom was, to perform their sacred ministrations, they said that, in the first place, they felt a quaking, and heard a great noise, and after that they heard a sound as of a great multitude, saying, “Let us remove hence.”*

*Flavius Josephus, The Wars of the Jews, (vi:v:3), quoted from David Chilton’s compilation in Paradise Restored, A Biblical Theology of Dominion. The chariots in the clouds were also reported by the Roman historian Tacitus: “In the sky appeared a vision of armies in conflict, of glittering armour. A sudden lightning flash from the clouds lit up the Temple. The doors of the holy place abruptly opened, a superhuman voice was heard to declare that the gods were leaving it, and in the same instant came the rushing tumult of their departure.” (Tacitus, The Histories,translated by Kenneth Wellesley).

There are many books on Revelation that draw out some excellent applications. But when it comes to interpreting the finer details, they fluff it.

They are reading Revelation through frosted glass. General shapes can be made out – the “universals” – but their audience ends up with a showbag full of ideology, a religion set adrift from the shore of reality, a Jesus whose feet never quite touch the ground. The Bible speaks in symbols, not ideology, and the symbols are anchored in reality. Joseph and Daniel are historical figures, but they are also symbols.

Joseph and Daniel interpreted the dreams of their kings. Then, as wise men, with the king’s seal of authority, they brought their prophecies about in history. Jesus opened the mystery of the New Covenant at His ascension (the seven-sealed scroll). Then, He measured out its consequences in history.

This is no mere ideology—no fluffy generic truth. It happened in the first century – the seals, the trumpets and the bowls.

No more reading Revelation through frosted glass. Interpretation first, then application.

In recaptulating Israel’s history, the seven letters in Revelation 2-3 confirm that the true Israel was transformed by the death and resurrection of Christ, progressing from Firstfruits through Pentecost to Trumpets. James Jordan writes:

“[Bible chronology] is a history of how the Divine Parent educated the core and centre of the human race, and then of how He called all nations to be grafted into that Olive Tree history so as to receive the benefit of it… The human race had matured to the point where it was fitting for Messiah to come, and come not only to save the race, but to bring the race to maturity… And then we can notice that the seven churches in Revelation 2-3 are each associated with a particular time in Old Covenant history. We can begin to apply the societal wisdom we have begun to learn from Israel’s history to address the particular problems and issues in our own churches. Is your church most like Pergamum? Well, that’s the wilderness church. Perhaps your church is made up of people who need to be addressed in a Law-oriented fashion. If your church is like Thyatira, maybe a strong dose of Psalms. If like Sardis, you need Jeremiah. And so forth.”

http://www.biblicalhorizons.com/biblical-horizons/no-195-how-to-do-reformed-theology-nowadays-part-4/

Peter Leithart observes that both Esther and Herodias’ daughter are promised up to “half the kingdom.”

There are echoes in the story of the book of Esther, at least in Mark’s version of John’s execution. Matthew tells us that when the daughter of Herodias danced before Herod, he promised with an oath to give whatever she asked. Mark records Herod’s words somewhat differently: He promises not just to give what she asks, but promises to give up to half his kingdom (Mark 6:22-23). This is the same promise that Ahasuerus gives to Esther when she says she has a request for him (5:3, 6).

In both passages, we have a woman, a queen, requesting something from a king. In both stories, we have a king promising half his kingdom. We could even say that both Esther and Herodias are asking for someone’s head. Esther knows that Haman is plotting to kill all the Jews, and she is asking for his life in order to protect the Jews.

But there the similarities end. Esther appeals to the king to save the faithful in Israel, while the daughter of Herodias is instructed instead to ask for the head of a faithful man, albeit a troubler of Herod’s kingdom, a prophet who has made life difficult for Herod because of his faithfulness. Instead of being like the protective Ahasuerus in Esther, Herod is more like Haman, seeking to wipe out the true Israel.

http://www.leithart.com/2008/06/21/herodias-and-esther/

Esther, like Deborah, and Jael, typifies Mary, the warrior bride whose offspring would crush the head of the serpent. A Nazirite growing his hair during a ‘holy war’ vow identified him with submission and purity. John uses Nazirite symbols to describe the bad Nazirites, the Judaising “locusts” troubling the church.

“And they had hair as the hair of women, and their teeth were as the teeth of lions.” Revelation 9:8 (and Joel 1:6)

They were negative-Nazirites, men who had taken vows to destroy the apostles (Acts 21:23). With the charm (and hair) of an army of Absaloms, their holy war was stamping out the Son of David. They were the false warrior bride, Herodias, seeking the head of the true Nazirite, Christ, in revenge for the victory over Goliath at the cross. This Herodias-Jezebel-Babylon of superseded Judaism would wipe out the true Israel at any cost.

by Jack Van Deventer

My Dear Woodworm,

As your most affectionate uncle and Senior Commander in Satan’s Army, I hereby write you to maintain your ongoing efforts to destroy the Enemy’s Church. You are but a Junior Tempter now, but with continued success you will surely rise through the ranks. Your orders are to attack and weaken the clergy, the leaders of the Opposition.

Your attack on the clergy should occur on three fronts. First, while allowing the preacher to pound the pulpit with regard to the truth of the Scriptures, have them deny their applicability. Tell them that the Old Testament is for ancient Israel, not for us. Teach them to hate God’s Law as being irrelevant, outdated, and harsh.

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“The apocalyptic beliefs of the first Christians have been proved to be false. It is clear from the New Testament that they all expected the Second Coming in their own lifetime. And, worse still, they had a reason, and one which you will find very embarrassing. Their Master had told them so. He shared, and indeed created, their delusion. He said in so many words, ‘this generation shall not pass till all these things be done.’ And he was wrong. He clearly knew no more about the end of the world than anyone else. This is certainly the most embarrassing verse in the Bible.”

(From C. S. Lewis, “The World’s Last Night” (1960), found in The Essential C.S. Lewis, p. 385)

Either C. S. Lewis was right, or Jesus was. The choice is obvious. All those things came to pass.

“A river of fire was flowing and coming forth from before him…”
Daniel 7:10

This aspect of the vision points us back to Jacob’s ladder, which had angels ascending and descending upon it (Genesis 28:12). These are angels who bear the flaming sword of Genesis 3, which bars mankind from paradise, but which also mediates between God and mankind when it comes down from His throne to light the fire on His earthly altar (Leviticus 9:24; 2 Chronicles 7:1). Fulfilling the prophecy, it is the fire that came down from Jesus on the day of Pentecost to light the fire on His new altar-people (Acts 2), which is pictured again in Revelation 8:3-5.

James B. Jordan, The Handwriting on the Wall, p. 392.
Available from www.americanvision.org