The crisp autumn
wind scatters yellow, orange, and red leaves across the marble steps as the morning sun rises over the nearby hills. Peleg
makes his way up the stairway to the Hall of the Ancients, his heart tumbling with the leaves in excitement. The revolt against
the evil reign of Nimrod, son of Cush,
came to a successful end only a few weeks ago. Shem, called The Righteous King
by many, led Yahweh’s army against the wicked ruler. The victory came without
a battle, yet Nimrod’s defeat was so crushing that none could deny Yahweh’s
supernatural intervention. As a result, no one refused Shem’s “invitation” to attend this meeting of the
Council.
A wave of awe
sweeps over Peleg as he recognizes one of The Three Patriarchs – Japheth
the elder, one of The Eight from before the flood. As he reaches the porch
Peleg scans the area, hoping to see Noah, the Ancient One. Peleg understands his
junior status in the Council. He certainly knows of no one younger than himself who holds a seat.
“Peleg! Wait!”
Peleg turns from
his thoughts to the sound of the familiar voice. His friend Jobab hurries to his side. Peleg and Jobab share more than friendship;
the two young men are close relatives. At the time of Peleg’s birth, his brother Joktan already had thirteen sons. At
this stage in their lives, Peleg has a wife but no children. Jobab, Joktan’s youngest son, has a wife and sons and daughters.
But no one calls him Father Job because he has children. Father was added to his name Job because his wisdom and righteousness
exceed his years. Those traits drew Peleg to his elder nephew and Jobab gladly accepted Peleg’s friendship, regarding
him as a peer.
“Peace
to you, Jobab.” Peleg embraces Jobab as they greet each other.
“And peace
to you, Peleg my friend.”
“What
happens next, now that Nimrod’s gone?” Peleg asks. The two men stand together on the porch as other council members move past them, heading toward the Hall.
“Only God
knows. But we shall soon see.”
Abruptly, the
shrill blast of the ram’s horn interrupts their conversation. Peleg and Jobab hesitate, looking into each other’s
eyes, both aware of the seriousness of the approaching meeting. Together they turn and move toward the Hall of the Ancients.
******
As the
sun settles into the far horizon of the western plain, the two men silently move down the steps, their minds taking in the
events just ended. Once more, Yahweh demonstrated to everyone within the Hall of
the Ancients that Shem spoke the words of the Living God. Once more, by a sign no one could
deny, Yahweh confirmed His word through Shem.
Certainly,
drama filled the Hall of the Ancients. First Shem declared Yahweh’s
command to scatter all tribes in the earth. He specified exactly where each of the seventy tribes must settle, taking time
to provide specific instructions for each tribe on the boundaries of their territory. Then he revealed God’s final judgment,
"Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language,
that they may not understand one another's speech." (Genesis 11:7)
At that Ham stood
and loudly protested Yahweh’s demand. In the next moment he spoke gibberish.
Ham knew he said what he wanted to say but only two of his sons understood him. Frustration clouded his face. He stopped talking.
He tried again. Nonsense again. He stopped. He tried again. Still babbling. Then anger overtook Ham. He tried to attack Shem
but an invisible force held him back. Then Cush and Canaan
jumped up, yelling loudly. They also spoke nonsense. They both just stopped and sat down; their faces flushed so red they
looked like pillars of fire.
Peleg interrupts
his and Jobab's silent replay of the day’s events, “Jobab, I cannot believe what we saw and heard. In spite of
the tension in the Hall of the Ancients, I wanted to laugh.”
“I know.” Jobab replies, “I’ve never seen anything like it. It seemed like most
of the Council members lost the ability to control their tongues. I’m grateful all of us who descended from Eber can
still speak with the same tongue. If not, you and I wouldn’t be able to talk now.”
“So, Yahweh meant it when He said He would confuse our speech.”
Jobab draws the
obvious conclusion; “I guess Yahweh also meant it when He said He would scatter
our tribes over the face of the earth. Now we must go home and prepare our families to follow Shem’s instructions to move to the other side of the river, to the region below the Euphrates.
The Hamites must move even further, to the far side of the Red Sea.”
Suddenly Peleg
understands the mystery of his own name that he could never fathom. He grabs Jobab, turning his friend to face him. “Jobab!
That’s it! Now I understand the prophecy my Papa spoke over me at my birth. He said, ‘In his days the earth shall
be divided.’ That’s why my name is Peleg. It doesn’t just mean divided. It means divided by water. Don’t
you see, when the Most High divided their inheritance to the nations, when He separated
the sons of Adam, He set the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the council, the number of seventy.
The waters – the rivers, lakes, streams, and seas – they form the boundaries. All the kingdoms of the earth will
be separated from one another by water.”
A thought comes
to Jobab also, “Yes my friend, and I do not understand this but, in days beyond our ability to see, a river of living water will come and separate the kingdom of God
from the kingdom of the serpent.” The two men return to silence and begin their long journey home.
God’s True Pattern
Peleg’s
name referred to God separating the nations by water. In the same way,
the thoughts and intents flowing out of men’s hearts separate them from God or join them to God. Proverbs says, ”Keep your heart with all diligence, for out
of it spring the issues of life.” (Proverbs
4:22) Jesus tells us, "He who believes
in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water." (John 7:38)
The streams of dividing waters flow in our hearts. The Rivers of Living Water separate the true ministry of Christ
and the false ministry of Satan’s harlot. They separate God’s kingdom from the kingdom
of Satan.
Each of the four
lead tribes of Israel presents one aspect of God’s kingdom.
Even their placement around the Tabernacle in the wilderness portrays a prophetic message.
Israel’s Four Lead Tribes
|
The second chapter of Numbers describes God arrangement of the
tribes of Israel in a very specific order. Three tribes camp
on each side of the tabernacle. All four sides have a lead tribe and two associate tribes, each with a standard bearing its
symbol. Looking at the four lead tribes, we have Judah on
the east, Reuben on the south, Ephraim on the west, and Dan on the north. According to rabbinical sources, Judah's
standard displays the symbol of a lion, Reuben’s standard displays the symbol of a man, and the standard of Ephraim
shows the head of a calf. Again according to the rabbis, Dan's standard presents a serpent. However they say that, Ahiezer,
the prince of the tribe of Dan, refuses to place a serpent on the standard and substitutes an eagle, the serpent’s natural
enemy.
When Balaam prophesies
over Israel, he describes the arrangement of the Israel’s
four lead tribes and reveals their spiritual significance. Yahweh allows Balaam
to speak only that which He wants him to say. As he gives his fourth prophecy, Scripture tells us Balaam "saw Israel encamped according to their tribes; and the Spirit of God came upon him." (Numbers 24:2)
"How lovely are your tents,
O Jacob! Your dwellings, O Israel! Like valleys that stretch out, like gardens
by the riverside, like aloes planted by the Lord, like cedars beside the waters. He
shall pour water from his buckets, and his seed shall be in many waters. His king shall be higher than Agag, and his kingdom
shall be exalted. God brings him out of Egypt;
he has strength like a wild ox; he shall consume the nations, his enemies; he shall break their bones and pierce them with
his arrows. `He bows down, he lies down as a lion; And as a lion, who shall
rouse him?' Blessed is he who blesses you, and cursed is he who curses you." (Numbers 24:5-9)
Watch the prophetic
picture unfold as we work in reverse order of Balaam's oracle.
Lion
The lion represents
the tribe of Judah in verse 9. This verse echoes Jacob's prophecy
over his son Judah: "Judah is a lion's whelp;
from the prey, my son, you have gone up. He bows down, he lies down as a lion; and as a lion, who shall rouse him?" (Genesis 49:8)
David, Israel's greatest king, and Jesus,
the King of kings and "the Lion of the tribe of Judah"
(Revelation
5:5), both descended from the tribe of Judah.
Calf / Ox
The wild ox in
verse 8 relates prophetically to Joseph. In the encampment we find Ephraim representing his father Joseph’s inheritance.
Listen to what Moses prophesied over Joseph's descendants. "His glory is like a
firstborn bull, and his horns are like the horns of the wild ox. Together with them he shall push the peoples to the ends
of the earth; they are the ten thousands of Ephraim, and they are the thousands of Manasseh." (Deut 33:17) This prophecy highlights
the dual role of the Kinsman Redeemer and Avenger of Blood, one portrayed by the first-born bull sacrificed on the altar and
the other represented by the wild ox that vengefully destroys his enemies.
Eagle
Verse 7
mentions a king who will be higher than Agag and whose kingdom will be exalted. Although the most difficult to understand
of the four pictures described in Balaam’s prophecy, this image becomes a dramatic portrayal of the battle between good
and evil. Agag ruled one of Israel's chief enemies, the Amalekites.
After the Israelites defeated the Amalekites under Moses and Joshua, Yahweh said
to Moses, ”I will utterly put out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven." (Exodus 17:14 KJV) Then Moses
followed by saying, “Yahweh will have war with Amalek from generation to generation." (Exodus 17:16 KJV)
Shortly after
delivering this prophecy, Balaam tells us, "Amalek was first among the nations,
but shall be last until he perishes." (Numbers 24:20) Without any doubt, inspired Scripture presents Amalek as an archenemy
of Yahweh – an enemy that would one day be defeated. Amalek, of course, symbolizes
Satan, the true archenemy of Yahweh.
Jacob prophesied
over Dan by saying: "Dan shall be a serpent by the way, a viper by the path,
that bites the horse's heels so that its rider shall fall backward." (Genesis 49:17) So we would not be surprised to see the serpent raised to represent Dan. The word-picture
we reviewed involving the conflict between the nation of Israel
and the Amalekites recalls the scene Ahiezer acted out as he displayed the eagle rather than the serpent.
There can be
little doubt the source of the familiar symbol of an eagle with a ribbon or snake held in its beak comes from this prophetic
duel. The battle between the eagle and the serpent portrays the conflict between Yahweh,
the creator of the universe, and His archenemy Satan. The battle between the Bride of Christ and the harlot of Satan also
mirrors this battle, the war between good and evil, between light and darkness.
Man
Finally, verse
7 presents someone who "shall pour waters from his buckets, and his seed shall be
in many waters." This phrase reveals Jesus as the Baptizer in the Holy Spirit.
Rueben, like Dan, prophetically represents the negative side of this symbolism When Jacob prophesies over his sons, he begins
with Reuben, "Reuben, you are my firstborn,
my might and the beginning of my strength, the excellency of dignity and the excellency of power. Unstable as water, you shall
not excel, because you went up to your father’s bed; Then you defiled it
— He went up to my couch." (Genesis 49:3-4)
As the firstborn
in the lineage of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Reuben could expect a great inheritance. However, he loses his inheritance by
making a bad decision. His life story and the history of his descendants expose a mixture of bad choices and good choices.
In the final judgment, neither he nor his tribe achieves greatness. The tribe asked for land on the near side of the Jordan.
Thus, “the border of the children of Reuben was the bank of the Jordan.”
(Joshua
13:23a) They chose to not claim their inheritance across the Jordan,
in the land flowing with milk and honey.
The Reubenites
also chose to not fight alongside Deborah and Barak against Jabin, King of Canaan, and his general, Sisera. Deborah laments
that Reuben did not join in the battle. "Among
the divisions of Reuben there were great resolves of heart. Why did you sit among
the sheepfolds, to hear the pipings for the flocks? The divisions of Reuben have great searchings of heart." (Judges 5:15-16) The word divisions could be rendered rivers or streams. The American Standard Version gives it as, "By the watercourses
of Reuben there were great resolves of heart. Why sattest thou among the sheepfolds, to hear the pipings for the flocks? At
the watercourses of Reuben there were great searchings of heart."
The Hebrew word
translated divisions or watercourses,
has the same root as Peleg’s name, which we discovered means dividing by water.
Judges 5 gives us a very strong word picture, for both translations express an element of the principle represented by Reuben.
Together the words divisions and watercourses complete the picture of the streams of water dividing his heart.
Reuben, “unstable as water,” corresponds to “a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.”
(James 1:8)
We will discover the positive side of this picture demonstrated by Joshua and those like him who cross over the dividing stream
and overcome God’s enemies in the power of the Spirit.
The Four Ministries of Christ
We find that
each of the four cherubim administer a task related to one of the aspects of God’s kingdom. The four cherubim in the
Holy of Holies will line up, one for one, with the banners of Israel’s
four lead tribes. Ezekiel describes their faces appearing as four different created beings. ”As for the likeness of their faces, each had the face of a man; each of the four had the face of a lion on
the right side, each of the four had the face of an ox on the left side, and each of the four had the face of an eagle.”
(Ezekiel
1:10) This diagram illustrates the arrangement of the four
cherubim’s faces as they might be seen on the four sides of the tabernacle.
Four Ministries of Christ
|
Son of David
King of Kings |
Son of Man
Holy Spirit Baptizer |
The four cherubim faces represent four areas of Christ’s redemptive
ministry. The label with each face shows the role Jesus fulfilled as He ministered on this earth. These four symbolic images correspond to the four cardinal doctrines of the Assemblies of God, the foundation
of the Foursquare Gospel, as well as the basic doctrines other evangelical churches. Indeed, Aimee Simple McPherson gave credit
to an open vision of the Ezekiel’s living creatures for her understanding of the Foursquare Gospel. The four elements
of Christ’s ministry are:
1. Lion: The Son of David – Jesus the Soon Coming King
2. Ox: The Son of Joseph – Jesus the Healer
3. Man: The Son of Man – Jesus the Baptizer in the Holy Spirit
4. Eagle: The Son of God – Jesus the Saviour
Satan’s Counterfeit Pattern
God filled
Balaam’s oracle with word pictures taken from an astrological worldview using Balaam’s apparent background in
astronomy-astrology. Balaam’s culture would not likely separate the science of astronomy and the practice of astrology.
Through Moses, God warns of the dangers of astrology. "And lest thou lift up thine
eyes unto heaven, and when thou seest the sun, and the moon, and the stars, even all the host of heaven, shouldest be driven
to worship them, and serve them, which Yahweh thy God hath divided unto all nations under the whole heaven." (Deuteronomy 4:19 KJV) For many people
today, astrology serves as the gateway into New Age and the occult. Astrology promotes the idea that our sign, or the primary constellation at our birth will determine, not only our personality, but also our
entire destiny. Psychics tell us we can call their hotline and plan our activity based upon the message of the stars.
This fact
stands out – God named the stars. “He counts the number of the stars;
He calls them all by name.” (Psalms 147:4 – see also Isaiah 40:26) In naming the stars, God declared the story of redemption. He wrote the gospel in the stars long
before He inspired Moses to compile the Torah. From the garden of Eden and the promised seed of woman, represented by the
constellation Virgo, to the book of Revelation and the coming of the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, represented by the constellation
Leo, the twelve constellations of the Zodiac represent God’s plan to redeem fallen man. By the time of Israel’s
exodus from Egypt, the pagan nations worshiped the stars as
gods.
At this point,
let’s compare God’s pattern of redemption with Satan’s counterfeit. Reviewing the four lead tribes of Israel,
we learned the Tribe of Judah used a lion as their symbol; the Tribe of Ephraim had an ox for a symbol. Ahiezer exchanged
the Tribe of Dan’s serpent symbol for an eagle. Finally, the Tribe of Reuben used the figure of a man for their symbol.
But, how does that relate to one who pours water from his buckets as Balaam’s oracle describes? The answer lies in the
pagan corruption of redemption’s story, which God gave His chosen people perhaps from the time of Adam.
1. Lion: The Son of David – Jesus the
Soon Coming King
2. Ox: The Son of
Joseph
– Jesus the Healer
3. Man: The Son of Man – Jesus the
Baptizer in the Holy Spirit
4. Eagle: The Son of
God – Jesus the Saviour
Satan’s Counterfeit Pattern
This next diagram shows four of the twelve constellations of the zodiac
aligned with the four faces of the cherubim. For the purpose of illustration we find the Ox placed with Taurus, the Lion with
Leo, Scorpio with the Eagle, and Aquarius with the Man. This brings agreement
with Balaam’s oracle where the Man, as Aquarius, pours water from His buckets, portraying none other than Jesus in His
role as the Baptizer in the Holy Spirit.
On the opposite
side, astrology disagrees with the biblical picture as Scorpio stands in the position we expect to see the Son of God. Not
generally known is the fact that not twelve but thirteen constellations lie along the path of the sun. The thirteenth constellation
didn’t make it into Satan’s version of astrology for good reason. The Greeks called it Orphiuchus, which came from the Hebrew name for the constellation, Afeicus,
meaning the serpent held. Some say a hawk-headed man originally represented this
collection of stars and others say an eagle held that place. A constellation called Serpens
intermingles with Orphiucus. Together, these two constellations clearly portray
that which Ahiezer acted out by raising the banner of the eagle rather than that of the serpent. They also depict the drama
described by Balaam’s prophecy of the fall of Agag’s Amalekite kingdom.
The Hebrew name
for the constellation Scorpio is Aqrab, which relates to the Hebrew word for conflict
or war – qarab. Scorpio stands as a herald proclaiming the battle between
the serpent, representing Satan, and the Eagle, representing the Son of God. These three constellations play out the drama
that finds its completion in these last days as the Church of Jesus
Christ confronts Mystery Babylon.
The conflict
portrayed between the Son of God and the serpent raises a new possibility. In later chapters we will discover four specific
satanic spirits operating in opposition to the four ministries of Christ represented by the cherubim. We will find the roles
of the four Cherubim and the opposing missions of the four dark princes of Satan’s kingdom clearly defined. But first,
in the following chapters we will take a closer look at Mystery Babylon and see how she uses religion controlled by the darkness
of the occult to contend against the light of God’s good news, against Yahweh, and against His Messiah.
Genesis 11:1 Now the whole earth
had one language and one speech. 2 And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land
of Shinar, and they dwelt there. 3 Then they said to one another, "Come, let us
make bricks and bake them thoroughly.'' They had brick for stone, and they had asphalt for mortar. 4 And they said, "Come,
let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens; let us make
a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.''
Genesis 11:5 ¶ But Yahweh came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. 6
And Yahweh said, "Indeed the people are one and they all have one language,
and this is what they begin to do; now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them. 7 "Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language,
that they may not understand one another's speech." 8 So Yahweh scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth,
and they ceased building the city.
“When
the Most High divided their inheritance to the nations, when He separated the sons of Adam, He set the boundaries of the peoples
according to the number of the children of Israel.” (Deuteronomy 32:8)
“And [God] has made from
one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries
of their dwellings." (Acts 17:26)
