Now,
for the secrets that Jewish sages and mystics
have endeavored to pry from the Scriptures for ages. By the 12th century, rabbis
believed the sacred texts could be interpreted on several levels of meaning.
Levels of meaning.
1. Peshat, the literal or plain meaning. The literal meaning may be lost in
translation if some significant words are omitted. For instance, in the opening
line of the Bible (Gen 1:1), “In the beginning
God created the heaven and the earth” (Bªre'shiyt
bara' 'Elohim 'et hashamayim wª'et ha’arets.), the translators left out the
word et (which indicates that the
verb action is on the object, not the subject).
2. Remez, the esoteric or allegorical hint of something deeper. In the
same example, the word et, spelled
with the first and last letters of the Hebrew alphabet (aleph and tav) alludes to
the eternal nature of God. Hence, “'Elohim
'et” means God is “Alpha and Omega,
the beginning and the end, the first and the last” (Rev 22:13b, etc.).
3. Derash, the homiletical or practical application. Each letter of the
Hebrew alphabet has a meaning. The aleph
in et stands for “bull,” known for
its power, while the tav symbolizes a
“sign, mark, or cross.” Combined, they can mean “power of the cross or mark of
God.”
4. Sod, the mystical or hidden meaning. The first letter of the first
word, “Bªre'shiyt,” is bet, represented by a “house.” A married
man builds a house for his wife. So, when God created heaven and earth, He was
building a house for His “bride.”
The first three methods are closely similar to those used in
Christian hermeneutics. The rabbis used the acronym PaRDeS (“Paradise ”) as a mnemonic
device for remembering the four levels.54 There are even more
methods in the mystical Jewish Kabbalah. Practitioners hold that there are
“seventy gates” of wisdom, that is, 70 different means of interpreting the text
of the Torah.55
God keeps secrets.
Paul says that God, even before He created the universe, reserved secrets
for us. “No, we speak of God's secret wisdom,
a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time
began” (1 Cor 2:7, NIV; cf. Eph 3:9). The LORD often spoke through the
prophets, but owing to the people’s disobedience He sometimes blinded them to
His messages. “For the LORD has poured
out on you The spirit of deep sleep, And has closed your eyes, namely, the
prophets; And He has covered your heads, namely, the seers” (Isa 29:10, NKJV).
God had revealed to Daniel many of His secrets. Oddly, at the
outset of the 6th century B.C., the angel Gabriel told Daniel to hide
the secrets already given him. “But thou,
O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end… And he said, Go thy way, Daniel: for the
words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end” (Dan 12:4a,9; cf. Isa
29: 10-14)). The secrets were to be revealed again only at the “time of the
end.”
Meantime, seeking to know some of God’s secrets is not forbidden,
but, rather, an honorable endeavor: “It
is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honour of kings is to search
out a matter” (Prov 25:2). Surprisingly, to gain spiritual insight, all we
have to do is ask: “If any of you lack
wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth
not; and it shall be given him” (James 1:5; Luke 11:9).
Secrets
will be known.
Christ said all secrets would eventually be uncovered. “For there is nothing covered, that shall
not be revealed; neither hid, that shall not be known” (Luke 12:2).
However, God’s secrets cannot be discerned through men’s insight or
intelligence alone. “Knowing this first,
that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation” (2
Peter 1:20 ). God Himself
will reveal His secrets: “But there is a
God in heaven that revealeth secrets” (Dan 2:28 ; also 2:22 ,47).
Since the Scriptures have been inspired by the Holy Spirit, they can best be
explained by Him. “Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is
come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but
whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to
come” (John 16:13; also Eph 3:5; 1 Cor 2:10,12).
God usually reveals secrets – to enable men to do His will. “The secret things belong unto the LORD our
God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for
ever, that we may do all the words of this law” (Deut 29:29). Or to warn us
about coming judgments. “Surely the
Sovereign LORD does nothing without revealing his plan to his servants the
prophets” (Amos 3:7, NIV).
The secrets of God will continue to be revealed until the end of
the present world order at the Second Coming of Christ. “But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin
to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as he hath declared to his
servants the prophets” (Rev 10:7).
Only for a few?
God
reveals His secrets only to the worthy: “So then, men ought to regard us as servants
of Christ and as those entrusted with the secret things of God” (1 Cor
4:1-2, NIV; also Ps 25:14; Prov 3:32 ).
Christ revealed secrets to only a few of His closest disciples, not to all
people. “He answered and said unto them,
Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven,
but to them it is not given” (Matt 13:11 ).
Why? “Because narrow is the gate and
difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it” (Matt
7:14 , NKJV).
Biblical
prophecies
Many of God’s secrets are in the form of prophecy. Prophecies are found in just one
holy book: the Bible. They are absent from the texts of other religions. This
sets the Judeo-Christian faith apart from all others. Bible scholar Wilbur
Smith, wrote about the Bible: “It is the only volume ever produced by man, or a
group of men, in which is to be found a large body of prophecies relating to
individual nations, to Israel, to all the peoples of the earth, to certain
cities, and to the coming of One who was to be the Messiah.”56 Bible
prophecies primarily concern God’s chosen people, Israel
Nature of prophecy.
Most
people are under the impression that prophecies are purely predictions of
future events. Those are predictive prophecies, which are simply the best known
kind. Basically, a prophecy is any Spirit-inspired utterance of
God’s divine will by a prophet. Some prophecies may be past events in
retrospect. For instance, Isaiah 14:9-15 and Ezekiel 28:12-19 speak of
Lucifer’s corruption in a much earlier time.
There are
straightforward prophecies, framed in plain language,
and “veiled” prophecies, couched in symbols and mysterious metaphors.
Prophecies are usually “in context,” that is, part of a prophet’s
discourse on a given topic. Other times, though, prophecy may be “out of
context” – distantly or even totally unrelated to the subject spoken about. In Isaiah and Ezekiel’s prophecies
above, the subjects are the kings of Babylon Tyre
Predictive prophecies.
It
is predictive prophecies that conclusively prove the omniscience of God. The
all-knowing Creator declared some 2,750 years ago: “Behold, the former things are come to pass, and new things do I
declare: before they spring forth I tell you of them” (Isa 42:9; also
46:10). Predictive prophecy is “history told in advance.” Since God is outside
space-time, He knows the beginning and the end, and everything in-between.
The
Holy Scriptures contain at least 1,817 predictions concerning 737 topics in
8,352 verses.57 These prophecies represent 27% of the 31,093 verses
in the Bible. Some prophecy teachers used to think that the Bible was around
33% prophecy. Around the end of the 20th century, the estimate rose
to 50%. Today, some prophecy analysts claim the Bible is likely 75% prophecy,
since many actual historical incidents and stories in the Bible are “types” or
prophetic models of future events.
A
predictive prophecy is fulfilled in several ways. It may occur as plainly
foretold. Or it may have a partial or staggered fulfillment -- with one or
several parts of the prophecy occurring first, then the other parts later.
Daniel’s prophecy of the 70 “weeks” of years (490 years -- Dan 9:24 -27) is a well-known example. The
first 483 years had been fulfilled precisely until Christ, but the last 7 years
are still in abeyance. There may also be multiple fulfillment – with the same
prophecy coming true several times at various periods under different
circumstances. Hosea 11:1-2, which predicted Israel’s fall into idolatry, also
came true in the Holy Family’s flight to Egypt and return to Nazareth (Matt
2:14-21). Jeremiah 31:15-16 foretold the Jews’ return from Babylonian
captivity, but it also prefigured Herod’s slaughter of innocent children (Matt 2:18 ).
Fulfilled
prophecies
A
prophecy cannot be true unless fulfilled. Although most Biblical prophecies
foretold events far beyond the lifetimes of the prophets -- hundreds, even
thousands of years in advance, many prophecies, astonishingly, have already
been fulfilled! Authors Norman Geisler and William Nix wrote: “No unconditional
prophecy of the Bible about events to the present day has gone unfulfilled… As
a result, fulfilled prophecy is a strong indication of the unique, divine
authority of the Bible.”58 Let us examine a few fulfilled Biblical
prophecies.
Egyptian
bondage.
The LORD told
Abraham on the 14th day of the first month (Abib) in 1921 B.C. that
his descendants would be persecuted in a foreign land for some 400 years. “And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety
that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve
them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years” (Gen 15:13). The
Israelites left Egypt in the Exodus led by Moses in 1491 B.C. “And it came to pass at the end of the four
hundred and thirty years, even the selfsame day it came to pass, that all the
hosts of the LORD went out from the land of Egypt” (Ex 12:41).
Babylonian
captivity.
God had
said the Jews would be held captive in Babylon Judea for the first time and took Jews captive to Babylon Jerusalem Temple Jerusalem Babylon Jerusalem
Some
skeptics say these ancient events are false history made up by biased writers
to affirm the veracity of the Bible. Let us consider one of the greatest
prophecies in the OT that, although highly improbable, has been fulfilled beyond
any shadow of doubt in our very own time.
Diaspora
and regathering.
God many times
foretold that, as a punishment for their sins, He would disperse the Israelites
across the face of the earth (the Diaspora).
“And the LORD shall scatter thee among
all people, from the one end of the earth even unto the other” (Deut 28:64a,25;
Jer 8:3,34:17; Ezek 4:13 ;
Mic 5:7; etc.). Moreover, their land of “milk and honey” would become desolate.
“And I will bring the land into
desolation: and your enemies which dwell therein shall be astonished at it. And
I will scatter you among the heathen, and will draw out a sword after you: and
your land shall be desolate, and your cities waste” (Lev 26:32-33; etc.).
In 70 and
135 A.D. Roman legions suppressing Jewish revolts razed Jerusalem About a
million Jews were massacred, over 100,000 were taken as slaves, while other
survivors fled to far-flung places. Rome Judea the new name Palaestina, and Jerusalem
Over
1,800 years of successive Roman, Arab, Crusader, Mameluke, Turkish, and British
rules, the once flourishing Holy Land truly
became desolate. In 1267, Jewish philosopher Nachmanides saw Jerusalem Palestine Holy
Land !”63
Regathering. Yet, God had also promised to regather
Israel
After
centuries of persecution and pogroms
(massacres) in their host countries, the Jews began to dream of aliyah (“ascent”) or return to the land.
In 1882 Jewish youths in Russia Basel , Switzerland Palestine
At the
end of the 15th century, there were just about 4,000 families in Jerusalem Palestine Israel
Restoration. The Lord had also sworn: I will also cause you to dwell in the
cities, and the wastes shall be builded. And the desolate land shall be tilled,
whereas it lay desolate in the sight of all that passed by. And they shall say,
This land that was desolate is become like the garden of Eden; and the waste
and desolate and ruined cities are become fenced, and are inhabited (Ezek
36:33-35, Amos 9:14, etc.).
The Jews
built new homes and buildings outside the old walls of Jerusalem new city
Millions
of trees were planted. The swamps of Galilee
were drained to become tropical farms that made Israel California Middle
East .” As the new trees grew, rainfall increased over 10% every
decade (Joel 2:23; Isa 35:7).68 By the end of the 20th
century, Israel had 350 million plus fully grown trees.69 More than
80% of Israel’s fruits and vegetables are exported to neighboring Arab and
European nations (Isa 27:6). Israeli factories manufacture chemicals,
fertilizer, processed food, textiles, paper, plastics, electronic and military equipment,
scientific instruments. From just $6 million in 1948, exports have risen to
over $80.5 billion in 2010, 35% of which are high tech and R&D products.
Cut diamonds, a traditional industry, grew from $2.8 million to $8.9 billion in
the same period. In all, Israeli exports multiplied by 13,400%!70
The
dispersion and regathering of the Jews after some 1,800 years is Biblical
prophecy fulfilled right before our parents’ and our very own eyes. It
constitutes an astounding miracle that proves beyond any doubt that the Bible
is truly the Word of an eternal and all-knowing God.
Messianic
prophecies.
No
prophecies presaged the coming of any of the founders of other religions in
their holy books. On the other hand, hundreds of prophecies foreshadowed the
birth, death, resurrection, and ascension to heaven of the Messiah (including
His yet future Second Coming). Christ had been so clearly foretold in the
Scriptures that the people expected Him long before He was born. Christ, unlike
the founders of other religions, did not create a new calling for Himself. He
came to assume a calling that had been described much earlier by the prophets.
Inventor-evangelist
Martin Hunter observes that “Christ fulfilled 333 prophecies out of 333
prophecies in the Old Testament… According to the theory of probability in
mathematics… Christ overcame mathematical odds of 1 over 84 as a fraction with
97 zeros then following that 84. That means it required odds of infinity…
certifying that Jesus Christ is the authentic Son of God.”71 Let us
take a look at a few of those 333 OT prophecies that the Messiah fulfilled in
the NT:
From the tribe of Judah Shiloh (‘peace-maker’/’Prince of peace’) come; and unto him shall the gathering of
the people be” (Gen 49:10/Matt 2:2; Heb 7:14 ).
From the family of David: “And when thy days be fulfilled, and thou shalt sleep with thy fathers,
I will set up thy seed after thee, which shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I
will establish his kingdom. He shall build an house for my name, and I will stablish
the throne of his kingdom for ever” (2 Sam 7:12-13/Luke 1:32).
Born of a virgin: “Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin
shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel (‘God with
us’)” (Isa 7:14 /Matt 1:18 ).
Born in Bethlehem: “But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the
thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be
ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting” (Mic
5:2/Matt 2:1).
Sold for 30 pieces of silver: “And I said unto them, If ye think good, give me my price; and if not,
forbear. So they weighed for my price thirty pieces of silver” (Zech 11:12 /Matt 26:14-15).
Money paid for potter’s field: “And the LORD said unto me, Cast it unto the potter: a goodly price
that I was prised at of them. And I took the thirty pieces of silver, and cast
them to the potter in the house of the LORD” (Zech 11:13 /Matt 27:5-7).
Nailed
to the cross: “For dogs have compassed me: the assembly of
the wicked have inclosed me: they pierced my hands and my feet” (Ps 22:16 /John 20:25 ; Luke 24:39).
Counted among criminals: “…and he was numbered with
the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors”
(Isa 53:12b/Matt 27:38).
Lots cast for His garments: “They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture” (Ps
22:18/John 19:23-24a).
Gall and vinegar to drink: “They gave me also gall for my meat; and in my thirst they gave me vinegar
to drink” (Ps 69:21/Matt 27:34).
Darkness at noon :
“And it shall come to pass in that day,
saith the Lord GOD, that I will cause the sun to go down at noon , and I will darken the earth in the clear
day” (Amos 8:9/Matt 27:45).
No bones broken: “He keepeth all his bones: not one of them is broken” (Ps 34:20; Ex
12:46b/John 19:33)
Buried in rich man’s tomb: “And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death”
(Isa 53:9a/Matt 27:57-60a).
Raised from the dead: “For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer
thine Holy One to see corruption” (Ps 16:10 /Luke 24:4-6a).
Incredibly,
for every prophecy about Christ’s first advent, there are approximately eight
more predicting His Second Coming. The Messianic prophecies yet to be fulfilled
are those about the “Rapture” (catching up of the elect); His victory at the
last great battle on earth at Armageddon; His reign as King of kings during the
Millennium; His role in the Last Judgment and the Kingdom of God -- some 2,345
prophecies more (2,025 in the OT and 320 in the NT).72
Symbols
and similes
Many times, Biblical prophecies are clothed in symbolic language –
to conceal their meanings from the profane. The interpretive method Jewish
sages, Bible scholars, mystics, and other researchers use is called “hermeneutics,”
the science of explaining hidden meanings in Scripture.
As we know, no man can interpret prophecy on his own (2 Peter 1:20 -21). That is probably why God
placed many of the keys and clues to interpreting prophecy in the Scriptures
themselves! In short, the Bible interprets itself.
Below are some of the most significant similes and metaphors in
both the OT and NT, together with their meanings. Although they often have
several meanings, this list is limited to the few prophetic ones:
Metaphors and
meanings.
Beast:
kingdom, government (Dan 7:3-7; Rev 13:1-18).
Blood:
life, death (Lev 17:11; Deut 12:23: Isa 34:3; Ezek 14:19).
Cloud:
multitude, angels (Ezek 38:9; Matt 24:30; Heb 12:1; etc.).
Dogs:
wicked men (Ps 22:16; Matt 7:6; Rev 22:15; etc.).
Dragon:
Satan (Rev 12:3-4,7-9,13-17; 13:2,4,11; 16:13; etc.).
Earth:
mankind (Gen 6:11; etc.); desolate land (Rev 13:11).
Field:
the world (Matt 13:38).
Fig
tree: Israel (Jer 24:1; etc.; Nah 3:12; Matt 21:19; etc.).
Fire:
destruction (Ps 18:8; etc.); Holy Spirit (Matt 3:11; etc.).
Fish:
the Church, believers (Matt 13:47-48).
Flood:
invaders (Isa 8:7-8; Jer 46:7; Dan 11:22, etc.).
Garments:
salvation (Ecc 9:8; Isa 52:1; Luke 24:4; Rev 3:4; etc.).
Grass:
people, mortality (Isa 40:6-7; Ps 103:14-15; 90:5-6).
Hail:
God's wrath (Isa 28:2; Ezek 13:13; Hag 2:17; Rev 8:7; etc.).
Hand:
labor, work (Prov 10:4; Ecc 9:10).
Head:
mountain, kingdom (Dan 2:38-41; Rev 17:9).
Horn:
king (Rev 17:12).
Lamp:
guide (2 Sam 22:29; Ps 18:28; 119:105; Prov 6:23).
Light:
truth, holiness (Rom 13:12; 2 Cor 4:6; Eph 5:14; 1 Peter 2:9).
Moon:
idolatry (Deut 4:19; Job 31:26-28; etc.).
Mountain:
kingdom (Isa 2:2; Jer 51:25; Zech 4:7; etc.).
Oil:
God’s Name (Song 1:3); Spirit (1 Sam 10:1,6; Isa 61:1; etc.).
Rock/stone:
God (Deut 32:4; Ps 18:2; etc.); Christ (1 Cor 10:4; Ps 118:22; Eph 2:20; 1 Pet
2:4-8, etc.).
Sea/waters:
multitudes, nations (Rev 17:12).
Star:
angel (Judg 5:20; Job 38:7; Ps 147:4; Rev 1:20; etc.).
Sun:
glory (Ps 84:11; Matt 17:2; Rev 1:16; etc.).
Sword:
war (Lev 26:25; etc.); Word of God (Eph 6:17; Heb 4:12).
Tree:
enemy of Israel (Ezek 31:3,18; Dan 4:20-22).
Wilderness:
place of refuge (Ex 15:22; Isa 35:1; Rev 12:14).
Wind/whirlwind:
war (Jer 18:17; Dan 11:40; Amos 1:14).
Woman:
church, religion (Jer 6:2; 2 Cor 11:2; Rev 17:5; etc.).
Nebuchadnezzar’s
dream.
Let us examine one famous prophecy filled with symbols. Babylon
Daniel, then a Jewish captive in Babylon 2:38 -44). The
first four parts of the image signify four successive kingdoms that subjugated
the Jews, as history bears out. The “head
of gold” stands for Nebuchadnezzar and his wealthy kingdom of Babylon Macedonia Greece Rome Roman Empire ,
united with peoples denoted by clay. (These look like the ten kings in league with
the Antichrist in Rev 17:12 .)
The “stone cut out without hands” is
Christ, who will defeat the forces of Antichrist (“smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and brake
them to pieces”) at Armageddon. That “the
wind carried them away” means war would expunge all these kingdoms. The
eternal kingdom
of God
Biblical “types”
Closely related to prophetic symbols are “types” in the
Scriptures. Persons, objects, places, and incidents serve as prophetic models
that foreshadow future events. Hundreds of “types” are in the stories of Adam,
Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joshua, Caleb, Job, Joseph, Ruth, David, Solomon,
Elijah, Samuel, Samson, and many other Biblical personages, including objects
and articles in the text of the Bible.
Abraham sacrificing
Isaac.
A most detailed example of Biblical “typology” is when God tested
Abraham by asking him to sacrifice his son Isaac to Him: “And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest,
and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering
upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of” (Gen 22:2). Abraham as
a “type” personifies God, who sacrificed His Only Begotten Son, typified by
Isaac, nearly two thousand years later at Golgotha .
“And Abraham rose up
early in the morning, and saddled his ass, and took two of his young men with
him, and Isaac his son, and clave the wood for the burnt offering, and rose up,
and went unto the place of which God had told him” (Gen 22:3). The two
young men represent two groups of spiritually saved people God will take with
Him.
“Then on the third day
Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw the place afar off. And Abraham said unto his young men, Abide ye
here with the ass; and I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again
to you” (Gen 22:4-5). The “third
day” means Christ would be crucified in the third millennium from God’s
first covenant with Abraham. Abraham’s instruction for the young men to wait
prophesies Christ’s return (Second Coming) to His waiting followers.
“And Abraham took the
wood of the burnt offering, and laid it upon Isaac his son; and he took the
fire in his hand, and a knife; and they went both of them together” (Gen 22:6). As Isaac
carried the wood for the sacrifice up Mount Moriah Golgotha
(the same hill?) to be crucified. The “knife”
and the “fire” suggest the wars
and destruction that God would inflict upon the Jews for rejecting and killing
His Only Begotten Son.
“And Isaac spake unto
Abraham his father, and said, My father: and he said, Here am I, my son. And he
said, Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?
And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering:
so they went both of them together” (Gen 22:7-8). Indeed, God Himself would provide the “lamb” for the offering – Christ, “the
Lamb of God.”
“And they came to the
place which God had told him of; and Abraham built an altar there, and laid the
wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the
wood. And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son”
(Gen
22:9-10). Isaac’s quiet acquiescence prefigured Christ’s stoic acceptance of
His death on the cross.
“And the angel of the
LORD called unto him out of heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham: and he said,
Here am I. And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any
thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not
withheld thy son, thine only son from me. And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and
looked, and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns: and
Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the
stead of his son” (Gen 22:11-13). The thicket around the ram’s horns presaged the
crown of thorns on Christ’s head. The ram that replaced Isaac was a “type” of
the Lamb of God who substituted His life for sinful humanity. Isaac was spared
from death on the third day, prophetic of Christ’s resurrection from the dead
on the third day.
Objects and things.
On occasion, inanimate objects may prophetically represent
persons, things, even units of time. Such is one prophecy of “types” in an
incident that took place nearly 3,500 years ago: “And they commanded the people, saying, When ye see the ark of the
covenant of the LORD your God, and the priests the Levites bearing it, then ye
shall remove from your place, and go after it. Yet there shall be a space
between you and it, about two thousand cubits by measure: come not near unto
it, that ye may know the way by which ye must go: for ye have not passed this
way heretofore” (Josh 3:3-4).
The “ark of the covenant”
is a “type” for Christ, whom the people must follow “two thousand cubits” behind. “Cubit” is a “type” for “year,” the
veiled prophecy connoting that after 2,000 years faithful believers are to
follow Christ to where He went (“ye have
not passed this way heretofore”). Where? Paradise !
Several other veiled prophecies in the Bible strongly suggest that the elect
would go to meet Christ some 2,000 years after His ascension (Hos 6:2; Est 5:1;
John 2:1; 2 Pet 3:8; etc.).
Prophetic Psalms
Editor-publisher
J.R. Church (Prophecy in the News)
revealed in his 1983 book Hidden
Prophecies in the Psalms his startling discovery that the Psalms, besides
poetry and wisdom, contain year-to-year messages to the Jews. He had realized
that in the Psalms, the 19th book of the Bible, Psalm 1 is a
prophecy for the year 1901 (19+1=1901), Psalm 2 for 1902, and so on. Each psalm
prophesies events in the national life of the Jews or simply reflects their
sentiments for a given year. Let us take a closer look at two of the most
telling prophetic psalms.
Liberation
of Jerusalem.
Psalm 17
seems to picture events in Jerusalem in late 1917, towards the end of World War
I. “Keep me as the apple of Your eye; Hide
me under the shadow of Your wings, From the wicked who oppress me, From my
deadly enemies who surround me” (Ps 17:8-9, NKJV).
The
Turks, who ruled over Jerusalem Holy City London Jerusalem Jerusalem
On Dec.
10, Allenby had all available aircraft do a reconnaissance flight over Jerusalem Jerusalem
Rebirth
of Israel.
The
rebirth of Israel
On
May 14, 1948 , as
the British mandate over Palestine midnight , the
Jews unilaterally declared an independent state of Israel Egypt Syria Lebanon Iraq Transjordan ,
(three of them ruled by kings) – with Palestinian guerillas, attacked the tiny
newly born state.
“…they saw [her] and were
astounded; they fled in terror” (Ps
48:5, NIV). One interesting anecdote tells of how the ragtag, ill-equipped
Israeli fighters overcame the numerically superior and heavily equipped Arab
forces. At one point, when the odds looked formidable, the Israelis gathered
all available motor vehicles – cars, taxis, buses – and removed the exhaust
manifolds that kept the engines quiet. At dusk, they drove their clattering
vehicles toward the enemy lines. In the half-dark, the Arabs thought the
Israelis had launched a massive armored attack and fled, abandoning their
modern tanks.
“Trembling seized them there, pain
like that of a woman in labor” (Ps
48:6, NIV). The verse speaks of childbirth -- the rebirth of Israel
“You destroyed them like ships of
Tarshish shattered by an east wind” (Ps
48:7, NIV). “Tarshish” means the
lands at and beyond the western end of the Mediterranean
Sea : the British Isles among
them. The “ships” were thus those of
the Royal Navy, which transported British troops to war zones. The British,
their resolve broken by years of war and Arab-Jewish terrorist activities (“shattered by an east wind”), had earlier
turned over the Palestine problem to the United Nations in 1947 and preferred
not to intervene in the new conflict.
“As we have heard, so have we seen
in the city of the LORD Almighty, in the city of our God: God makes her secure
forever” (Ps 48:8,
NIV). The verse affirms the permanent establishment of the state of Israel Jerusalem
Fig
tree prophecies
The
number “48” seems to be a Biblical milestone not only in the OT, but also in
the NT, wherein Christ strangely demonstrated the likeness of Israel 21:18 -19).
The
fig tree was like Israel
In
three gospels, Christ spoke metaphorically of the rebirth of Israel – as a fig
tree coming back to life with new leaves: “Now
learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and putteth
forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh” (Matt 24:32; Mark 13:28; Luke
21:29). If we add the chapter and verses numbers, divide the sums by 3 to get
the averages, round them up, then add the quotients, the prophetic number “48”
comes up again!
Book
|
Chapter
|
Verse
|
Total
|
||
Matthew
|
24
|
:
|
32
|
||
Mark
|
13
|
:
|
28
|
||
Luke
|
21
|
:
|
29
|
||
58
|
89
|
||||
Divide
by:
|
3
|
3
|
|||
19*
|
+
|
29*
|
=
|
48
|
|
*(Rounded)
|
Biblical landmark.
Furthermore,
the significance of the number “48” is manifest not only in the book of Psalms
and the Gospels, but is also apparently a landmark for the entire Bible
itself.
The Open Scroll writer-publisher Bob Schlenker
points out that the book of Psalms is the 19th book from the
beginning of the Bible, Genesis. Counting backward from the last book of the
Bible, Revelation, we find that Psalms is the 48th book. Put the two
numbers together (19+48), and we get “1948” – the year the nation of Israel
The Bible Code
Scholars, mathematicians, and computer scientists are
discovering hidden messages in the Bible that leave them stunned. Secret words,
phrases, and even whole sentences appear to be encoded in the original Hebrew
text of the Scriptures. The codes can be read by taking letters at regular
intervals: every 7th letter, 49th, 153rd, 862nd,
name it. Researchers call the arrangement “Equidistant Letter Sequencing”
(ELS).
Centuries-old
technique.
Jewish mystics are
known to have painstakingly extracted messages
encrypted in the Torah
letter-by-letter since the 12th century. Rabbi Moses Cordevaro wrote
in the 16th century: “The secrets of the Torah are revealed… in the
skipping of the letters.”75
Early in the 20th century, as a 13-year-old lad
in Slovakia
The 18th
century Gaon (Genius) of Vilna , Lithuania
Faster with
computers.
The advent of
computers has exponentially expedited the search for encoded words in the
Bible. A computer program capable of millions of calculations per second can
examine millions of possible combinations of the 304,805 Hebrew characters of
the Torah in minutes, something no man can accomplish manually even in a
lifetime.
The Torah codes first
attracted widespread attention in August 1994 with the article “Equidistant
Letter Sequences in the Book of Genesis” by Israeli scientists Doron Witztum,
Eliyahu Rips, and Yoav Rosenberg in the Statistical
Science Journal. Six years earlier, the authors had submitted the work
featuring the names of 34 prominent 9th-18th century
Jewish men, encoded in the Torah with their respective dates of birth or death.
The editors were incredulous and demanded that the authors add 32 more Jews
from the same period. The scientists complied and came up with the same results
-- for a total of 66 Jewish personages, complete with their dates of birth or
death!78 The editors subjected the data and methodology to rigorous
and repeated peer reviews and analyses, and eventually printed the article. The
authors ended their article with these words: “We conclude that the proximity
of ELS’s with related meanings in the Book of Genesis is not due to chance.”79
Bible
Code: the book.
Michael Drosnin, a
former reporter for the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal, following
interviews with Eliyahu Rips, conducted his own computer search and in early
1997 came out with a book, The Bible Code,
which became an instant best-seller. The popularity of the book has led
countless other investigators of diverse backgrounds to join the hunt for
hidden messages in the Scriptures.
To date, thousands of encrypted
messages have been brought to light, about such varied topics as: World Wars I and II; Hitler and the Holocaust;
the atomic bomb; the Lincoln, Gandhi, Kennedy, Sadat, Rabin assassinations; Apollo
moon-landing; Watergate and Nixon; Saddam Hussein and the Gulf War; the
American Revolution; the Napoleonic wars; Shakespeare; Bach, Mozart, Beethoven;
Rembrandt, Picasso; Edison, Marconi, the Wright brothers; Newton, Einstein;
terrorist activities; and untold others.
Rips speculates: “Theoretically, there is no limit to the
amount of information that could be encoded… In the end, the amount of
information is incalculable, and probably infinite.”80
Unbiblical
codes.
Equidistantly spelled
words have also been found in other lengthy texts, such as the Hebrew
translations of War and Peace, Moby Dick,
the penal code. And even in short ones: “Rabin” is seen in the software
license on envelopes of Microsoft software products.81
However,
the words found in secular works are scattered in no particular order, whereas
in the Torah the words are clustered. It is only in the Bible codes that
related words and phrases about the same topics are grouped together in close
proximity, showing coherent relationships.
God’s
own code?
Some people say the Bible Code is the discovery of the
millennium. The system is so simple, yet so comprehensive that it is beyond Moses,
or any man, no matter how intelligent, to have woven hidden messages about the
future into the narrative text of the Torah. Investigator Jeffrey Satinover
remarks, “The code points to one thing and one thing only: the authorship of a
document in which it is found.”82 The Code
looks like God's own handiwork – undeniable proof that the Creator is
truly the Author of the Bible.
Rips observes that ELS “is only the first, crudest level of
the Bible code… It is almost certainly more levels deep, but we do not yet have
a powerful enough mathematical model to reach it… It is probably less like a
crossword puzzle, and more like a hologram. We are only looking at
two-dimensional arrays, and we probably should be looking at three dimensions,
but we don’t know how to.”83
Ancient Jewish tradition tells of seventy gates of wisdom or methods
of deciphering the Torah. The Bible Code, according to Sefer HaZohar (“Book of Splendor”), is only one of those – in fact,
the fiftieth.84
Unpredictable
future.
The Bible Code cannot be used for predicting the future. Doron
Witztum, creator of the ELS mathematical model, says: “It is impossible to use
Torah codes to predict the future.” Rips adds: “All attempts to extract
messages from Torah codes or to make predictions on them are futile and are of
no value.”85
For
instance, Drosnin in his 1997 book
showed two future years linked to an atomic holocaust: 2000 and 2006. There
were jitters when the second intifada
or Palestinian revolt erupted in 2000. Next, heavy fighting between Israel Lebanon
Drosnin’s
remark echoes ancient Jewish wisdom. “Everything is foreseen, but freedom of
action is given,” thus intones the Talmud, the medieval commentary on the
Torah.
Altered letter spacing
The
original script of the Hebrew Scriptures consisted mostly of consonants – with
no vowel markers, upper case (capital) or lower case (small) letters, punctuation
marks, and even spaces between words. The reader
himself had to mentally provide the missing indicators to make sense of the
text. According to mystical tradition, secret messages can be brought to light
by altering the spaces between the letters of the text.
Rabin
assassination.
On Nov. 4, 1995 ,
as part of their annual Torah reading schedule, Jews in their synagogues around
the globe read Genesis 15:17-18, wherein God gave Abraham and his descendants
all the land from the Nile in Egypt Euphrates in modern Iraq river of Egypt Euphrates .”
When the spaces
between the letters in the passage are altered every second or third letter, “lamp that passed between those pieces” can
be read as “A fire, an evil fire into Rabin, decreed by God.”
In the evening
of that fateful day, a gunman assassinated Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak
Rabin. The Jewish leader was killed at night -- “when the sun went down, and it was dark”. Prophecy analyst Bob
Schlenker noted that the mention of the word “fire” twice foretold the two
bullets that were fired into Rabin.89
The tragedy seems to have stemmed from the “land-for-peace” deal
Rabin forged with then U.S. President Bill Clinton and Palestinian leader
Yasser Arafat on Sept. 13,
1993 . The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) would recognize the
state of Israel Israel Israel
Watergate and Nixon.
Another example of a hidden prophecy found through altered
letter-spacing is the infamous Watergate scandal involving then U.S. President
Richard Nixon. The encrypted prediction is in Numbers 3:24 – “And
the chief of the house of the father of the Gershonites shall be Eliasaph the
son of Lael.”
According to Drosnin, in the entire Bible the word “Watergate” in
Hebrew characters can be found only in this passage. When the spacing is
rearranged between the letters of the Hebrew words “And the chief of the house of the father of the Gershonites…” the
clause can be read in English as: “President, but he was kicked out.”90
Biblical numerics
Many believe that the study of symbolic or mystical use of numbers
originated with the Jews. Some experts on Bible numerics note that one out of
every five verses in the Scriptures contains a number.91 Christ
Himself spoke of numbers a number of times. For instance… “But the very hairs of your head are all numbered” (Matt 10:30 ).
Greek philosopher-mathematician Pythagoras (ca. 580-500 B.C.)
adopted the Jewish tradition to explain the origin and phenomena of the
universe.92 He and his followers taught that numbers were the
essence of all things – the universe was built on and could be explained by
numbers. (Incidentally, that is exactly what theoretical physicists are doing
today.)
In the Bible, numbers have spiritual meanings attached to them.
Multiples – by doubling, tripling, squaring, etc. – usually have the same
meanings of the cardinal numbers, but intensified.93
Meanings
of numbers.
Let us look at the meanings of some numbers in the Bible. Caution:
Biblical numerics should not be confused with occult numerology, a form of
divination that is abominable to God (Deut 18:10 -12).
1 – “oneness, beginning”: one God; one body, one Spirit, one Lord,
one faith, one baptism; creation; Only Begotten Son; one lost sheep; etc.
2 – “division/opposition”: heaven and earth; light and darkness;
man and woman; good and evil; heaven and hell; Old and New Testaments.
3 -- “completeness”: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; Christ
is the way, the truth, and the life; who is, was, and is to come; crucifixion
in the third hour: three hours of darkness; resurrection on the third day; etc.
4 -- “the world”:
north, south, east, west; spring, summer, fall, winter; four rivers in Eden
5 -- “grace of God”: for atonement of sin (burnt offering,
peace offering, sin offering, trespass offering, meat offering); five
ministries for God’s grace (apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors,
teachers); etc.
6 -- “man/weakness”: man
created on sixth day; six days of work; the land planted for six years; Hebrew
slaves served for six years; etc.
7 -- “fullness/perfection”:
the Creation week; seven Spirits of God; seven colors of the rainbow; seven
holy days; seven branches of the lampstand; seven gifts of the Spirit; seven
last years before the end; etc.
8 -- “new beginning”:
eight persons in Noah’s Ark
9 – “finality/fruition”:
nine fruits of the Spirit; nine gifts of the Spirit; nine beatitudes; Israel
10 – “law/responsibility”: ten patriarchs before the Flood (Adam
to Noah); Ten Commandments; tithe is one-tenth of a man’s increase; high priest
uttered God’s Name ten times on Day of Atonement; ten virgins; the universe was
created with ten words, according to the rabbis;94 etc.
12 – “organizational
completion”: twelve months in a year; twelve signs of the Mazzaroth (Zodiac); twelve tribes of Israel; twelve judges who
ruled Israel; twelve apostles; twelve foundations and twelve gates of New
Jerusalem; twelve kinds of fruit of the tree of life; etc.
13 – “disobedience”:
man’s life span decreased to 1/13th (900+ to 70 years) after the
Flood; Nimrod, who defied God, was 13th man from Ham, son of Noah;
“dragon” is found 13 times in Revelation; the 13th sin of Israel in
the Exodus was their refusal to possess the land; etc.
14 – “salvation”: events
on the 14th day of the month -- God made His covenant with Abraham;
the Passover lamb that saved the Israelites from the last plague in Egypt
17 – “triumph”: Noah’s Ark Red Sea on the 17th
day; Jacob lost his 17-year-old son Joseph, who later cared for him 17 years in
Egypt
18 – “oppression”:
years Israelites served Moab and Israel oppressed by the Philistines and
Ammonites; sum of the number of the beast (6+6+6), who will oppress the saints
at the time of the end; etc.
24 – “priesthood”: David divided priesthood among 24
descendants of Aaron; 24 elders around God’s throne; Christ, as High Priest in
heaven, will do 24 things for the saints (Ps 72 = 24 x 3); etc.
40 – “trials/testing”:
40 days and nights of rain at the start of the Flood; Moses spent 40 years in
Egypt, 40 in Midian, and 40 in the wilderness; he was 40 days with God on Mt.
Sinai; God gave Nineveh 40 days to repent; the devil tempted Christ 40 days;
etc.
42 – “the coming of
Christ”: 42 generations from Abraham to Christ;
the beast will continue in power 42 months; Jerusalem will be trodden by
Gentiles 42 months; the “woman,” (remnant of Israel) will hide from the dragon
1,260 days or 42 months; the end will come after “a time, times, and an half” (3-1/2 years or 42 months); etc.
70 – “probation”: average
life span of man is 70 years; Israel Babylon
Biblical alphanumerics
Interestingly,
the Hebrew letters were first used as numerals before they were used to sound words.
Sages and mystics have gained new insights on the holy Scriptures from the
numerical values of the letters. The Hebrew alphabet has 22 letters, most of
which are consonants. The first nine letters have values of 1 to 9, the next nine
10 to 90, and the last four 100 to 400. (See Hebrew alphabet, with symbols and
values, in the Appendix.) Later, when sofits
or word-ending forms for five letters came into use, the Hebrew numerals
increased from 22 to 27 characters, with the five new letter-numbers having
values of 500 to 900.
Similarly,
the Greeks and the Romans used the characters of their alphabets for both
numbers and letters. The Romans, however, used only six letters: I, V, X, L, C,
and D for 1, 5, 10, 50, 100 and 500, respectively. (Incidentally, the six
letter-numbers add up to 666.) The use of M for 1,000 came much later.
Exegetical methods.
Jewish
mystics and rabbis use four major methods of exegesis or interpretation of the
numerical values of the Hebrew Scriptures95:
1. Gematria. A corruption of Greek geometria
or grammateia, this entails the substitution
of numbers for letters. The values of letters in a word are added up to arrive
at a total with a meaning.96
Hebrew
words with the same values are considered identical to each other. For instance, in the mystical term for God, Ein
Sof, Ein has a total of 61 (1+10+50), which is also the
value of Adon (1+4+6+50), "Lord” or “Master.” Sof (60+6+80)
has a value of 146, the selfsame total of Olam (6+30+70+40), “world” or
“universe.” Thus, Ein Sof (“Without
End”) is synonymous to Adon Olam ("Lord of the World” or
“Master of the Universe”)! In addition, Ein Sof refers to God's “light.” Ein Sof has a total of 207 (61+146),
which is also the numerical value of Ohr
(1+6+200=207), which means "light."
In
another example, the coming of the Messiah in Genesis 49:10 is cryptically
phrased as “Shiloh come” (yabo Shiloh ), with a gematria of
358. The Hebrew word for Messiah (Mashiach)
has the same value (358). Shiloh ,
therefore, refers to no one else but the Messiah.
In this connection, the name “Jesus” in Greek, Ihsous (“Iesous”), has a gematria of
“888” (10+8+200+70+400+200). This inevitably brings to mind the number of the
name of the end-time “beast” (the so-called “Antichrist”) in Revelation 13:18,
which is “666.”
Gematria
has seven variations of increasing complexity:
Ragil, the simplest, is what we have
just discussed, the substitution of numbers for each of the letters.
Kolel is basically ragil, plus the number of letters in a word.
Katan means “small” or reduced value --
all tens and hundreds are added until they are reduced to a single digit (1-9).
Hakadmi consists of the ragil values, with the value of each
preceding letter added.
Hameruba haklali means the total value of a word
squared.
Hameruba haperati, a more complex variant of hameruba haklali, is the sum of the
squares of each individual letter.
Miluy means the sum of the values of
the names of each letter that forms part of the word (also called “filling”).
2. Notarikon involves acronyms in two ways. In
the first, each letter in a word is taken as the initial letter of another
word, so a word can be interpreted as a sentence. An example is the word Bereshith (“In the beginning”). From every
letter (tyvarb, b-r-‘-sh-y-t) a new word is created,
thus forming Bereshith Ra Elohim
Sheyequebelo Israel Torah (“In the beginning God saw that Israel
The
second kind is the reverse of the first: the initial, or sometimes final,
letters of words in a sentence are taken to form just one word.
3. Timurah
means the substitution of a letter for another. Following certain special
rules, each letter is replaced with another that follows or precedes it in the Hebrew
alphabet, thus forming an entirely new word.
A
variation of timurah is atbah,
permutation of letters, wherein the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet
is replaced by the last, the second letter is replaced by the second to the
last, and so on.
4. Tziru
is a more complicated process. It entails the transposition or changing the
places of the letters in the Hebrew words of the Torah.
The
power of God.
Mystics
believe that squaring a key number is specially meaningful. The Hebrew word for
God, El (la), has a value of 31 (1+30). The first chapter of the
Bible has 31 verses. The number 31 squared produces 961 – a number considered
representing the power of God.
The
letter h (hey. “H,” 5) is at times used as a single-letter Name for God. God
added hey to the names Abram and
Sarai. Their new names, taken together with that of their son Isaac, who had
been miraculously given to them by God in their old age, point to the power of
God:
AbraHam
|
(1+2+200+5+40)
|
=
|
248
|
|
SaraH
|
(300+200+5)
|
=
|
505
|
|
Isaac
|
(10+90+8+100)
|
=
|
208
|
|
961
|
(Power of God)
|
_______________
54
|
“The Tangled Tether,” Personal Update, April 2005, pp. 14-15
|
55
|
Jeffrey
Satinover, Cracking the Bible Code,
1997, p. 250
|
56
|
Wilbur
Smith, The Incomparable Book, 1961,
pp. 9-10
|
57
|
J. Barton Payne, Encyclopedia
of Biblical Prophecy; cited by Missler, op. cit., p. 219
|
58
|
Norman Geisler and William Nix, A General Introduction to the Bible, 1986, p. 13
|
59
|
Ibid.
|
60
|
Gordon Lindsay, Signs
of the Soon Coming of Christ, p. 15
|
61
|
David Allen Lewis, “The Miraculous Preservation of the
Jews, People of the Bible,” Mysteries
of the Bible Now Revealed, 1999, p. 67
|
62
|
Innocents
Abroad, Vol. II, p. 234; quoted by David Allen Lewis, Prophecy 2000, 1990, pp. 121-123
|
63
|
Howard
Fast, The Jews – Story of a People,
1968, p. 366
|
64
|
|
65
|
out-of-zion.com, Internet
|
66
|
Ibid.
|
67
|
Lindsay, op. cit.,
p. 14
|
68
|
Jeffrey, op. cit.,
p. 188
|
69
|
Lewis, op. cit., p.
68
|
70
|
“
|
71
|
Martin Hunter, “The Bible Is the Word of God,” Letters to
the Editor,
|
72
|
Missler, op. cit., pp.
47, 476
|
73
|
Lindsay,
op. cit., pp. 12-13
|
74
|
|
75
|
Quoted by Missler, op.
cit., p. 133
|
76
|
Missler, op. cit.,
pp. 126-128
|
77
|
Michael Drosnin, The
Bible Code, 1997, p. 19
|
78
|
Ibid.
|
79
|
Quoted by Missler, op.
cit., p. 139
|
80
|
Drosnin, op.
cit., pp. 44-45
|
81
|
Missler, op. cit., p. 145
|
82
|
Satinover, op. cit., p. 243
|
83
|
Drosnin, loc. cit.
|
84
|
John
Weldon, Decoding the Bible Code, 1998, p. 100
|
85
|
Op.
cit., p. 133
|
86
|
Drosnin, op. cit., p.
102
|
87
|
Op.
cit., p. 163
|
88
|
Op. cit., p. 165
|
89
|
Bob
Schlenker, The Open Scroll, Vol. 2,
No. 1
|
90
|
Drosnin,
op. cit., pp. 218-219
|
91
|
Ed Vallowe, Biblical
Mathematics, 1998, Foreword
|
92
|
Origen, Against Celsus,
Book I, Chap. XV; cited in The Ante-Nicene
Fathers, 1952, p. 402; cited by Missler, op. cit., p. 295
|
93
|
Vallowe, loc. cit.
|
94
|
Numbers, International
Standard Bible Encyclopaedia, 1996
|
95
|
Weldon,
op. cit., p., 40
|
96
|
Gematria,
Encyclopaedia Britannica 2009 Student
and Home Edition
|
(Excerpted from Chapter 2, Secrets
in Scriptures, THE DEEP THINGS OF GOD: A Primer on the Secrets of
Heaven and Earth by M.M. Tauson, Amazon.com)
