Learning Pictures from Letters
This week's portion is the judgment of the Heavenly chariot wheels under the Throne of YHVH on the earthly chariot wheels of Pharaoh. In fact, the Hebrew text refers to the chariot wheel of Pharaoh's army in the singular. Although Pharaoh claimed not to know Moses' God, YHVH, he was now forced to admit that the Elohim of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses was truly the Big Wheel, and it took only a slight adjustment of the Heavenly Throne's wheel to rain judgment on Pharaoh's throne.
There were 600 picked Egyptian chariots. The number 600 is the Hebrew letter mem sofeet. In Hebrew, the word mayim, for water, is a palindrome, spelled the same way frontward and backward, like the Hebrew spelling of David is spelled the same frontward and backward. The Hebrew word for sea is yam, which has only one mem instead of the two mems in mayim.
The mem sofeet is on the left hand of palindrome mayim (water), so we might say that judgment overtook the Egyptians from the left side since Hebrew is read from right to left.
A sofeet letter is only used at the end of a word; it is the
final
form of the letter. The hint in the
mayim
of the Reed Sea (
Yam Suf
) is a first mem and a final mem...
mem sofeet
. Daniel 7:9-10 signifies judgment on the wicked and the reward of the righteous when the wheels have a burning appearance of fire:
I kept looking
Until thrones were set up,
And the Ancient of Days took His seat;
His vesture was like white snow
And the hair of His head like pure wool.
His throne was ablaze with flames,
Its wheels were a burning fire.
In Revelation when the righteous are vindicated, it is water, not fire, that comes from under the throne.
[The River and the Tree of Life] Then he showed me a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb.
[1]
The appearance of both water and fire are consistent with the shamayim of heaven, both fire and water. The "s" in shamayim is shin, and its root is found in shon, tongue, which James describes as a "fire." Join the shin of fire to the mayim of water, and Heaven, shamayim, is pictured as "fire-water," two of the primary symbols of the Spirit.
Even the heavenly cloud that led and protected Israel was comprised of water (cloud) by day and fire by night. Figuratively speaking, the Israelites were walking in the clouds and fire of heaven, which traditionally they called "Sukkot of Glory." Not coincidentally, their first stop out of Egypt after Passover was Sukkot so that the end could be declared from the beginning and they could see the Heavenly sukkot would be their temporary wilderness abode.
[2]
He lays the beams of His upper chambers in the waters; He makes the clouds
[3] His chariot; He walks upon the wings of the wind;
[4]
If the River represents the Spirit of Adonai, then a Tree of Life could represent a man living within the boundaries of the River (as well as the four Rivers of Eden, for all four come from the same Source). While the wicked have been carried away by the River to their reward of judgment in a stagnant "lake" of fire (Revelation 21), the righteous have found the fire to be cool, living, moving water among the precious stones of New Jerusalem.
Yeshua is the Living Word; therefore, he is the healing Tree of Life to those who take hold of him in the same way that he was Adonai's chariot of cloud and fire in the wilderness, for the hint is in the equivalent expression:
Then the angel of God who was going before the host of Israel moved and went behind them, and the pillar of cloud moved from before them and stood behind them...
[5]
The application of the contranym is easy to see in the miracle of the Reed Sea, for the single cloud of water and fire was matched with a miracle that was deliverance to Israel, yet death to Pharaoh's army.
Although often translated "Red Sea," the actual name of the body of water is the Yam Suf (Yam-Sea; Suf-Reed or last, final). Reeds were fashioned into writing utensils in ancient times, and the body of water hints that the events taking place are a prophetic book or document to the nations. Since Egypt represents the nations, Pharaoh's chase represents the nations that will pursue Israel to destroy her in the last, final days. The dispute will be over written words derived from the Living, spiritual Torah.
As the nations are drawn into the water and into the fire, what will be a miraculous deliverance for the saints will be destruction to the rebellious nations taking orders from the beast, the false prophet, and the dragon. To the righteous, water is life and deliverance. To the wicked, it is a watery grave. To the unrepentant, the fiery river flowing from between the chariot wheels washes them to a lake of fire, but to the righteous, it is a cool fire of redemption, for they have already been reduced to ashes on the altar, and those ashes do not produce boils, but a clean heart and tahor[6] hands.
Another multiple of 6, which is the Creation Day on which both man and beast were created, is the number 60, which is represented by the Hebrew letter samekh. It resembles a wheel, and the verb root means "support." What happens in the Day of Judgment? The man, the beast, the means of support, and the waters of the sea, which represents nations, are judged.
Nations among the many waters, come out of Egypt and Babylon with Israel. Lean on the Elohim of Abraham and Sarah, Moses and Miriam, and ride in His chariot on the clouds; don't get stuck in the mire of the seabed. May your names be written and sealed in the Book of Life above, not buried in a Book of the Dead in the very final, watery grave of the Yam Suf.
Therefore, with JOY you shall draw water out of the wells of Yeshua!
[2] A common belief among Christians is that they will be "raptured" up in the clouds to meet Jesus and enjoy good times in Heaven while the rest of the world suffers judgments. The Flood and Wilderness journeys alluded to in the text of Revelation afford no such human plan. The Jewish concept of walking in sukkot for forty years is an understanding of joining a holy community in the pillar of sukkot cloud that protected them as long as they were obedient.
Paul alludes to this Jewish understanding of the Sukkot "clouds of glory" (Succa 11b): "For I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea." (1 Corinthians 10:1-2) Israel lived in a semi-supernatural state in the Sukkot "cloud" while they matured into a Body ready to enter the Land. While there was manna and wearever clothes and sandals, there was also death should they rebel. The woman who is taken to the wilderness to be nourished in Revelation is more consistent with the Scriptural precedents than a fiction series in which Christians suffer no testing but Jews do.
[3] Clouds are made of water
