Numbers
24:1 ¶ And when Balaam saw that it
pleased the LORD to bless Israel, he went not, as at other times, to seek for
enchantments, but he set his face toward the wilderness. 2 And Balaam lifted up his eyes, and he saw
Israel abiding in his tents according to their tribes; and the spirit of
God came upon him. 3 And he took up his
parable, and said, Balaam the son of Beor hath said, and the man whose eyes are
open hath said: 4 He hath said, which
heard the words of God, which saw the vision of the Almighty, falling into a
trance, but having his eyes open: 5
How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob, and thy tabernacles, O Israel!
6 As the valleys are they spread forth,
as gardens by the river’s side, as the trees of lign aloes which the LORD hath
planted, and as cedar trees beside the waters. 7 He shall pour the water out of his buckets,
and his seed shall be in many waters, and his king shall be higher than
Agag, and his kingdom shall be exalted. 8
God brought him forth out of Egypt; he hath as it were the strength of
an unicorn: he shall eat up the nations his enemies, and shall break their
bones, and pierce them through with his arrows. 9 He couched, he lay down as a lion, and as a
great lion: who shall stir him up? Blessed is he that blesseth thee, and
cursed is he that curseth thee.
Now, Balaam is getting
his heart right and seeks word from God because he saw it pleased God to bless
Israel. The spirit, lowercase ‘s’, of God, understanding and wisdom, then comes
upon Balaam. Here are examples of lowercase ‘s’ spirit of God.
Exodus
28:3 And thou shalt speak unto all that
are wise hearted, whom I have filled with the spirit of wisdom, that they may
make Aaron’s garments to consecrate him, that he may minister unto me in the
priest’s office.
Isaiah
11:2 And the spirit of the LORD shall
rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel
and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD;
Balaam utters blessing
and prophecy regarding Israel. He can do nothing else but that at this time.
Notice the use of the
word unicorn here in verse 8 that Bible skeptics make so much hay of. A review of over 200
lexicons from the Early Modern English Database reveals that a unicorn was
understood to be an animal with one horn.[1] Sounds
understandable. The technical name for the Indian Rhinoceros is Rhinoceros Unicornis. Marco
Polo, the famed Venetian traveler of the Medieval Period of Western European
history, referred to the Javan Rhinoceros as a unicorn among other one-horned
animals.[2]
The
ancient Greeks referred to unicorns, not in their mythologies, but in their
natural histories, and although Ctesias made the earliest mention of unicorns
in his book, Indika it was obvious he
was just going on legend and had not seen them with his own eyes. He described
a wild ass colored white, red, and black. Such a fanciful description was
carried on by Aristotle and Strabo, and it was not until Pliny the Elder in his
On the Nature of Animals that he
describes something realistic, an Indian ox, a monoceros, which in all
likelihood was the Indian Rhino.
It is
generally understood by the existence of them in the Lascaux cave paintings in
France that the Rhinoceros once had a much larger range of living than it does
today, the mythological horse with a horn being a totally separate concept from
the reality spoken of in Job, evidenced
in later Greek writings, or found in nature and cave paintings.
The
Rhinoceros is a wild animal, a wild beast. He’s not going to pull your plow,
plant your fields, or submit to your will. Go ahead, and try to harness him up,
if you think you can, God tells Job.
This
brings to mind a point that must be made about the Bible and its discussion of
animals. Much is made by the creationist minded and the fundamentalist about
the phrase, “after their kind,” in Genesis 1:21,25; 6:20; & 7:14. The word,
“kind,” contrary to what is said often, does not refer to an individual species,
whichever of the many definitions of species you use, whether it be a
local, isolated group of finches or something like the, “breed,” of Animal
Husbandry’s dog breeding.[3]
(Although there are significant differences between breed and species they are
also not from the same disciplines so the issue is basically one about
definition of terms that refer to similar but not identical things.)
One of the things Charles Darwin was against
was the popularly preached by clerics and many pre-Darwin biologists view that
every species of animal that existed in his day was said to have come down from
an original ancestor just like them in a doctrine called, “the immutability of
species.” If there are a hundred species of a type of bird today then those
species would have existed back to Noah’s Ark, goes the idea. This is, of
course, absurd as mankind created many breeds of dogs in the last two hundred
years alone. If you regarded a breed and a species as having similar meanings
but under different types of scientific disciplines, Zoology versus Animal
Husbandry, then you can imagine speciation, the process where different breeds
or species of dogs, cats, horses, or birds came about taking place rather
quickly in history.
But the word, “kind,” doesn’t mean species at
all. It is more like a general type of creature. Many species of cats came from
the first cat creatures on Noah’s Ark. The problem with evolution is that the
cat never became a dog, the pea never became a chrysanthemum, and an ape-like
creature never became a man. There is no evidence of such a thing occurring
without twisting the evidence into knots and the whole popularly understood
concept of evolution in that regard, called macroevolution, is a fairy tale for
atheists and in complete opposition to the Bible and reality.
Modern
taxonomic classifications of living things are purely man-made and are totally
subjective to what man chooses to include as a characteristic of the creature
being named. God classifies animals differently based on characteristics that
would be understood by men without microscopes. For instance, fowls fly, so the
bat is a fowl in Leviticus 11:19 and Deuteronomy 14:18 and the Hebrew could not
eat fowl with certain characteristics. The words reptile and mammal were
classifications created by man for his own convenience and study. The Bible
speaks of, “beasts of the field,” domestic animals, and, “beasts of the
forest,” wild animals. It speaks about animals in the way of their usefulness
generally to agricultural man or military man, not their peculiarities to the
curious, modern man. Trying to force man’s definitions of everything from
beasts to sin on the Bible’s definitions is futile and arrogant. When you argue
allowing your opponent to control the definitions of words you are surrendering
all leverage to them. Finally, a whale is a large creature that swims in the
sea and therefore can be called a great fish, because fish are creatures that
swim in the sea. Compare Jonah 1:17 and Matthew 12:40. The order, Cetacea, for
whales, is not a concern of the Bible. A whale simply signifies a Leviathan, a
large creature which, like all creatures, came first from the sea and then from
the earth. (Genesis 1:20-24) Human taxonomic classifications are different
language for a different purpose.
Don’t read
your own definitions, preferences, or opinions any more than your own personal
fears, hatreds, or bigotry back into the Bible.
Balaam
said he was in a trance with his eyes wide open. He referred to it as a vision
which gives us a clue as the control that God has over a person in a trance or
a vision which appear to be synonymous.
Numbers 12:6
And he said, Hear now my words: If there be a prophet among you, I the
LORD will make myself known unto him in a vision, and will speak unto him in a
dream.
Among the Bible persons that were communicated with this way include
Abram, Samuel, Isaiah, Nahum, Daniel, Peter, and Paul. Their eyes were open and
except for Paul they could see but their consciousness was controlled by God.
Numbers
24:10 ¶ And Balak’s anger was kindled
against Balaam, and he smote his hands together: and Balak said unto Balaam, I
called thee to curse mine enemies, and, behold, thou hast altogether blessed them
these three times. 11 Therefore now flee
thou to thy place: I thought to promote thee unto great honour; but, lo, the
LORD hath kept thee back from honour. 12
And Balaam said unto Balak, Spake I not also to thy messengers which
thou sentest unto me, saying, 13 If
Balak would give me his house full of silver and gold, I cannot go beyond the
commandment of the LORD, to do either good or bad of mine own mind; but
what the LORD saith, that will I speak? 14
And now, behold, I go unto my people: come therefore, and I will
advertise thee what this people shall do to thy people in the latter days.
Numbers
24:15 ¶ And he took up his parable, and
said, Balaam the son of Beor hath said, and the man whose eyes are open hath
said: 16 He hath said, which heard the
words of God, and knew the knowledge of the most High, which saw the
vision of the Almighty, falling into a trance, but having his eyes open:
17 I shall see him, but not now: I shall
behold him, but not nigh: there shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a Sceptre
shall rise out of Israel, and shall smite the corners of Moab, and destroy all
the children of Sheth. 18 And Edom shall
be a possession, Seir also shall be a possession for his enemies; and Israel
shall do valiantly. 19 Out of Jacob
shall come he that shall have dominion, and shall destroy him that remaineth of
the city. 20 And when he looked on
Amalek, he took up his parable, and said, Amalek was the first of the
nations; but his latter end shall be that he perish for ever. 21 And he looked on the Kenites, and took up his
parable, and said, Strong is thy dwellingplace, and thou puttest thy nest in a
rock. 22 Nevertheless the Kenite shall
be wasted, until Asshur shall carry thee away captive. 23 And he took up his parable, and said, Alas,
who shall live when God doeth this! 24
And ships shall come from the coast of Chittim, and shall afflict
Asshur, and shall afflict Eber, and he also shall perish for ever.
25 And Balaam rose up, and went and returned to
his place: and Balak also went his way.
Balak is not happy with
this. He tells Balaam to go home. Balaam now lays out a prophecy of King David
to come.
2Samuel
8:2 And he smote Moab, and measured them
with a line, casting them down to the ground; even with two lines measured he
to put to death, and with one full line to keep alive. And so the Moabites
became David’s servants, and brought gifts.
What means all the
children of Sheth? Sheth is the exact same word in Hebrew for Seth, Adam
and Eve’s son. Perhaps this was a variant spelling that the King James
translators found in the rabbinical writings where this Sheth was referred to
as everything from a local king of Moab to a city in Moab to be destroyed.
However, I think it more likely shows this to be a prophecy also of Christ,
whatever else it means. Note the Star with the uppercase ‘S’. Notice a common theme of the following
verses.
Genesis
49:10 The sceptre shall not depart from
Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him
shall the gathering of the people be.
Psalm
45:6 ¶ Thy throne, O God, is for ever
and ever: the sceptre of thy kingdom is a right sceptre.
Matthew
2:2 Saying, Where is he that is born
King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to
worship him.
Luke
1:78 Through the tender mercy of our
God; whereby the dayspring from on high hath visited us,
2Peter
1:19 ¶ We have also a more sure word of
prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth
in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts:
Revelation
22:16 I Jesus have sent mine angel to
testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring
of David, and the bright and morning star.
I believe that all
the children of Sheth represents the children of Seth, all the children of
mankind who will oppose Christ at the end. Of course, this requires some
conjecture and supposition although it does seem likely to be a veiled
reference to the Messiah whether Balaam understood it or not.
But, still, if you want
to argue against my conclusion I understand that it is possible that these are
more local prophecies concerning only what Israel will do to the Canaanite
kingdoms.
[1] “Lexicons of Early Modern
English,” (Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press, 2015), http://leme.library.utoronto.ca/search/results.cfm, (accessed 1.13.2015).
[2] Henry Yule, ed. &
transl. The Book of Ser Marco Polo (London:
John Murray Publishers, 1903), 285. https://archive.org/stream/bookofsermarcopo002polo#page/n9/mode/2up (accessed 1.13.2015).
[3] John S. Wilkins, “A List
of 26 Species “Concepts”, Science Blogs:
Evolving Thoughts, http://scienceblogs.com/evolvingthoughts/2006/10/01/a-list-of-26-species-concepts/ (accessed 1.14.2015).
No comments:
Post a Comment