Footsteps of Messiah
The Power of the Sword
Song of Songs 2:15 prophesies of the vineyard Israel: "Catch the foxes for us, the little foxes that are ruining the vineyards, while our vineyards are in blossom."
In the Footsteps of Messiah, the prophecies of the Song of Songs will become more evident in everyday life. This requires re-examining the patterns of the Exodus from Egypt and the Egyptian foxes as we have in the past few newsletters. The Psalm reminds readers that the fate of the fox is designed according to the destruction he committed. If the fox designated Hebrew boys to the Nile, then the fox was designated to be trapped on the dry land of the Sea of Reeds:
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My soul clings to You; Your right hand takes hold of me. But those who seek my life to destroy it, will go into the depths of the earth. They will be turned over to the power of the sword; they will be a prey [“portion”] for foxes. (Ps 63:8-10)
The power of the sword becomes an equivalency to falling prey to foxes. The Egyptians were the foxes who preyed upon the Hebrew children. Although we associate the foxes' judgment with drowning in water, it was actually dry land "charvo" that drew them into the water. The root of cherev, or sword, means to be dry, parched, and thirsty, the description of death in Yeshua's parable of the rich man and Lazareth. Now the "sword" has deeper context as a death judgment.
The judgment of sword is not just war, but the introduction of dry conditions. By this standard, the "sword judgment" of the red horse in Revelation can work either by literal sword of war or by initiating the dry conditions of famine leading to death below, just as the red horse's sword leads to the famine of the black horse. This is the dry portion of the foxes.
There is another word with the same root for cherev, or sword:
- Horeb = "desert” H2717 “another name for Mount Sinai from which God gave the Torah to Moses and the Israelites”
By taking the Israelites from Egypt to the wilderness, the way was blocked by an encounter at Mount Horeb to test whether Israel would receive the Torah. Without an agreement to live according to the Garden rules, there could be no crossing back to the Land of inheritance. Likewise, it is the midbar, the wilderness, that blocks the way to the Land of Israel from Egypt.
The root of midbar is dvar, which is “word.” It is the sword of the Word that blocks our way from exile in Egypt and the wilderness to the Garden of Eden. The same sword and cheruvim that block the path of the Egyptians will one day open to Israel to enter in, walking between the waters which surround the Garden of Eden. One sign was the pillar of cloud and fire that protected the journey of the Israelites in the wilderness. Cloud is made of water, therefore, it functioned like a watery-fiery sword to both guard the way home for those who would obey the Word and guard it from those who were disobedient.
Man was “divorced” from the garden in the east, but Moses extended a new covenant in the “west” midbar. "So He drove the man out; and at the east of the garden of Eden He stationed the cherubim and the flaming sword (lehat cherev)** which turned every direction* to guard the way to the tree of life."
*The heavenly chariot could also go any of four directions without turning.
**also from H2717
So were the cheruvim holding the sword, or did the cheruvim guard AND also a flaming sword turned every direction, the Spirit of Elohim, His chariot, to guard the way? The Hebrew verb describing the driving out of Adam and Eve is garash, meaning divorced or sent away. At Shavuot on Sinai, Mount Horeb, the Israelites were betrothed and shown the way back into the Presence of Elohim. There Moses was shown the pattern of the flaming dwelling-place. The sign of the relationship was Shabbat (Ex 31:13; Ezek 20:12, 20).
Although we think of the two cheruvim as holding the flaming sword, the text says the cheruvim AND the flaming sword (cherev) guarded the way to the Garden. Yes, the cheruvim are associated with the sword, but the text wants the reader to see the sword with its own separate identity. Its spinning evokes a vision of the fiery Rivers of Eden, a Heavenly Chariot associated with Elijah and resurrection life, a Chariot that goes wherever the Spirit of Adonai goes, just like the Israelite camps' four banners followed wherever the pillar of fire or cloud moved, and they settled when the pillar settled. A cloud is water, so again, there is the merging of water and fire as symbols of the Spirit.
So as the Footsteps approach, Israel must prepare itself for the wilderness and a new encounter with the Word of testing. This wilderness (midbar) is a type of the “flaming sword” of temptation one must pass to reach the Garden/Israel. Just as Mount Chorev in Sinai formed a “flaming sword” of return to the Tree of Life, so Israel was and will be led to the wilderness to “test” her, just as John predicts in Revelation.
The power of the sword guarding the Garden is the Word. The power of the sword is in the flaming Word seen by Moses in the bush at Mount Chorev and later seen by Israel. May we embrace this opportunity to return and cross the Rivers of Eden into our inheritance, a place of water that will not drown us and a place of fire that will not burn. We will do and we will hear as we walk through the dry places to eternal life in the Garden.
We do plan to live stream more Footsteps on YouTube on Shabbat at 4:00 pm Eastern.
SHABBAT SHALOM!
