Leviticus 19:30 ¶ Ye shall
keep my sabbaths, and reverence my sanctuary: I am the LORD. 31 Regard not them that have familiar spirits,
neither seek after wizards, to be defiled by them: I am the LORD your
God. 32 Thou shalt rise up before the
hoary head, and honour the face of the old man, and fear thy God: I am
the LORD. 33 And if a stranger sojourn
with thee in your land, ye shall not vex him. 34 But the stranger that dwelleth with
you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as
thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your
God. 35 Ye shall do no unrighteousness
in judgment, in meteyard, in weight, or in measure. 36 Just balances, just weights, a just ephah,
and a just hin, shall ye have: I am the LORD your God, which brought you
out of the land of Egypt. 37 Therefore
shall ye observe all my statutes, and all my judgments, and do them: I am
the LORD.
The
sabbaths, days of rest the Lord ordains, must be kept and the sanctuary must be
sanctified by them, set apart and not defiled.
A
familiar spirit can be thought of as a family spirit, a venerated ancestor, as
explained in the comments on the preceding set of verses. A wizard, one who
entertains a familiar spirit of the dead, also a necromancer or soothsayer, is
not someone a Hebrew was to go to. This is someone who communicates with the
dead. Later we will see an important event of this nature in the story of King
Saul.
1Samuel 28:7 ¶ Then said
Saul unto his servants, Seek me a woman that hath a familiar spirit, that I may
go to her, and enquire of her. And his servants said to him, Behold, there is a woman that hath a familiar
spirit at Endor. 8 And Saul disguised
himself, and put on other raiment, and he went, and two men with him, and they
came to the woman by night: and he said, I pray thee, divine unto me by the
familiar spirit, and bring me him
up, whom I shall name unto thee. 9 And
the woman said unto him, Behold, thou knowest what Saul hath done, how he hath
cut off those that have familiar spirits, and the wizards, out of the land:
wherefore then layest thou a snare for my life, to cause me to die? 10 And Saul sware to her by the LORD, saying, As the LORD liveth, there shall no
punishment happen to thee for this thing. 11
Then said the woman, Whom shall I bring up unto thee? And he said, Bring
me up Samuel. 12 And when the woman saw
Samuel, she cried with a loud voice: and the woman spake to Saul, saying, Why
hast thou deceived me? for thou art
Saul. 13 And the king said unto her, Be
not afraid: for what sawest thou? And the woman said unto Saul, I saw gods ascending
out of the earth. 14 And he said unto
her, What form is he of? And
she said, An old man cometh up; and he is
covered with a mantle. And Saul perceived that it was Samuel, and he stooped with his face to the ground, and bowed himself.
This is not a command that acknowledges the authenticity or
reliability or truth of what a wizard claims to do. It is about the intent of
the Hebrew. They were not to consult these people at all. It was forbidden and
a direct contradiction of the sovereignty of God in their life. The Tarot Card,
the toy 8-ball, the Ouija Board, the modern-day Gypsy Palm-reader are all
modern examples of denying God’s sovereignty and seeking knowledge from beyond
even if they are all total fakes today. Still, the way the text is written here
in Leviticus and in 1Samuel we can assume it was possible before Christ’s
resurrection. Let me explain why I think that.
Eden
is the garden of God.
Genesis 2:8 And the LORD
God planted a garden eastward in
Eden; and there he put the man
whom he had formed.
Ezekiel 28:13a Thou hast
been in Eden the garden of God…
Our word paradise comes
from the Persian word for a garden or a hunting preserve. So I believe that in
the following verses it is apparent that Eden has been removed to the heavenly
city, the New Jerusalem.
2Corinthians 12:4 How that
he was caught up into paradise,
and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter.
Revelation 2:7 He that hath
an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that
overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the
paradise of God.
But, before the resurrection of Christ and after the Fall of Adam
at some point the abode of the dead in God and of the wicked dead was in a
place where one was visible from the other, in the heart or center of the
earth.
Luke 16:19 ¶ There was a
certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared
sumptuously every day: 20 And there was a
certain beggar named Lazarus, which was
laid at his gate, full of sores, 21 And desiring to be fed with the crumbs which
fell from the rich man’s table: moreover the dogs came and licked his sores.
22 And it came to pass, that the beggar
died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom: the rich man also
died, and was buried; 23 And in hell he
lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in
his bosom. 24 And he cried and said,
Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of
his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.
25 But Abraham said, Son, remember that
thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil
things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented. 26 And beside all this, between us and you there
is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot;
neither can they pass to us, that would
come from thence.
The Greeks knew the concept of Hades, a place where both good and
bad went after death, some to pleasure and enjoyment and some to suffer. The
Greeks, several writers both ancient and modern have commented, were heavily
influenced in their religion by their contact in the Near East with Hebrews and
in the Hebrew slaves they brought home.
Joel 3:6 The children also
of Judah and the children of Jerusalem have ye sold unto the Grecians, that ye
might remove them far from their border.
While the level of influence is much disputed some have even
claimed that figures like Hercules were, based on the events of their mythic
lives, were combinations of Biblical characters. For instance, Hercules being a
mixture of Samson and Jonah by his feats of daring.
So, the Greek concept of Hades would have been influenced by what
they were told by their Hebrew contacts while our concept of Hell as now a
place of punishment waiting for the judgment, a sort of jail-time waiting for
the eternal prison and torment of the lake of fire, now only for those wicked
ones who have rejected Christ.
At the resurrection of Christ He promised that a thief on the
cross would be with Him in paradise.
Luke 23:43 And Jesus said
unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise.
He would preach to those spirits in the heart of the earth. Please
notice first that Christ says that He was going to the heart of the earth and
Jonah says he was in Hell.
Apparently, Jonah died in the great fish’s belly and was revived as regarding
the whale’s belly as a euphemism for the grave doesn’t work any better than
Christ’s heart of the earth statement
does for the tomb when the Bible explains where He went exactly.
Jonah 2:2 And said, I cried
by reason of mine affliction unto the LORD, and he heard me; out of the belly of hell cried I, and
thou heardest my voice.
Matthew 12:40 For as Jonas
was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man
be three days and three nights in the heart
of the earth.
1Peter 3:18 ¶ For Christ
also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring
us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: 19 By which also he went and preached unto the
spirits in prison; 20 Which sometime
were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of
Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were
saved by water.
The
center of the earth is a bottomless pit as a sphere has no bottom, only sides.
Revelation 9:1 And the
fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to
him was given the key of the bottomless
pit.
Isaiah 14:15 Yet thou shalt
be brought down to hell, to the sides
of the pit.
What
was the purpose of this great mercy?
1Peter 4:6 For for this
cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be
judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit.
If you are dead you are no longer in the flesh. Your soul has gone
somewhere having departed from your body as we saw in Genesis.
Genesis 35:18 And it came
to pass, as her soul was in departing, (for she died) that she
called his name Benoni: but his father called him Benjamin.
Old Testament era persons were not cut off from hearing Christ or
receiving God’s mercy.
We see then from the previous verses I mentioned that this
paradise is now in Heaven. So, I don’t believe that there is any possibility of
anyone communicating with spirits of the saved dead unless God
Himself were to permit a departed loved one to communicate by dream or vision.
That is entirely different than someone claiming the ability to over-ride God’s
sovereignty and drag someone out of Hell for some tea and biscuits. Samuel
would not be in the physical location he was when the witch at Endor called him
forth. He would now be in Heaven, unreachable by a heathen practitioner of
black magic. The woman at Endor may have been real but no fortune-teller today
can claim to have unlocked secrets from beyond that are not found in the pages
of the Bible.
Verse 32 talks about rendering honor to the aged with the hoary head being a reference to grey or
white hair.
Job 38:29 Out of whose womb
came the ice? and the hoary frost
of heaven, who hath gendered it?
Of
course, the aged one is honorable if he or she is faithful to God.
Proverbs 16:31 The hoary head is a crown of
glory, if it be found in the
way of righteousness.
It was
acknowledged in Job, though, that;
Job 32:9 Great men are not always wise: neither do the aged understand judgment. [the
way this is written you should mentally insert always again into the second clause after the colon for meaning
just as you should include tempted with
evil at the end of James 1:13]
A stranger is a
foreigner, someone who is not a Hebrew. Immigrants to the land of the Hebrews
were to be welcomed and treated with kindness and even love because they were
foreigners in the land of Egypt.
There are several verses that make it clear that a stranger was a foreigner but a few where
it is very clear are Leviticus 17:15; 18:26; Numbers 15:30; and, of course,
this one from Ephesians;
Ephesians 2:19 Now
therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners,
but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God;
Paper money was not used. A medium of exchange’s value was
typically determined by weight.
Genesis 24:22 And it came
to pass, as the camels had done drinking, that the man took a golden earring of
half a shekel weight, and two
bracelets for her hands of ten shekels
weight of gold;
Leviticus 27:3 And thy
estimation shall be of the male from twenty years old even unto sixty years
old, even thy estimation shall be fifty shekels of silver, after the shekel of the sanctuary…25 And all thy estimations shall be according to
the shekel of the sanctuary:
twenty gerahs shall be the shekel.
Numbers 3:47 Thou shalt
even take five shekels apiece by the poll, after the shekel of the sanctuary shalt thou take them: (the shekel
is twenty gerahs:)
You can imagine what kind of dishonesty could be displayed with
the loose economy of many nations with no set standard of exchange. God set the
value of the medium of exchange. He commanded the Hebrews not to cheat in weights
and measures. Clearly, not unlike today, cheating and false weights were
common.
Ephahs and hins were units
of measure whose definitions will vary
somewhat with different interpreters. The point here is a standard measurement
and not trying to defraud other people.
I thought a Greek word that Paul used in 1Corinthians was
interesting in this regard when thinking about the Scriptures. Traditionally,
by the way, it is believed that Paul had Titus and Luke write what he said in
2Corinthians from Philippi in Macedonia.
2Corinthians 2:17 For we
are not as many, which corrupt
the word of God: but as of
sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of God speak we in Christ.
The word kapeleuo, pronounced kap-ale-yoo-o according to Strong’s
dictionary, from which we get the word corrupt
in the verse just mentioned, references a merchant who waters down his
product. As an example, consider the wine-seller who adulterates his product
with water.
Are you using a translation that attempts in a process called ‘formal
equivalence’ a word-for-word expression of the original languages with even
syntax and grammar where necessary to reflect faithfully the manuscripts from
which it was translated, literally over a thousand Greek, Hebrew, and
vernacular language manuscripts? Or, are you using one of those translations
from a few dozen manuscripts utilizing what is called ‘dynamic equivalence’
where words can be changed to what the translator believed they should say
rather necessarily what they do say? Corrupt scriptures have deadened the
sensibilities of modern Christians and made a paraphrase of the Bible that has
no spiritual power. Instead of the sword of the Lord many modern Christians are
armed with a plastic butter-knife, as my wife, Beth, has said.
Another thing of note about a just measure, an honest measure, in
regard to Christianity, is that the Christian is also admonished to not cheat
in judgment, only in a spiritual take on this principle. We are not to point
fingers when we are guilty of the same. Note these passages among others;
First,
as Jesus said;
Matthew 7:1 ¶ Judge not,
that ye be not judged. 2 For with what
judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall
be measured to you again. 3 And why
beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the
beam that is in thine own eye?
4 Or how wilt thou say to
thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? 5 Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of
thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy
brother’s eye.
After a long list of wickedness expressed regarding the religious
history of mankind Paul declares;
Romans 1:32 Who knowing the
judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not
only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.
2:1 ¶ Therefore thou art
inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest: for wherein thou judgest
another, thou condemnest thyself; for thou that judgest doest the same things.
2 But we are sure that the
judgment of God is according to truth against them which commit such things.
3 And thinkest thou this, O man, that
judgest them which do such things, and doest the same, that thou shalt escape the
judgment of God?
And as James said;
James 2:13 For he shall
have judgment without mercy, that hath shewed no mercy; and mercy rejoiceth against judgment.
So, we
also have a standard of measurement that God does not want us to misuse.
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