TL:DR: The Genesis Question part thirty-eight

Hi, Everybody!

Let's do this:

19 October 14

Dear Troy & Mia; David & Marie:

Ezekiel 39

Therefore thou son of man, prophecy against Gog and say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; behold, I against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech & Tubal

Again -- as I said last week -- the YHWH could be forgiven for thinking him/her/its self secure and at ease as Lord GOD reiterates His judgement upon Gog.  At the Elevated Levels of the discussion, God is as much a part of Gog as is the YHWH.  So God's opposition to Gog constitutes a self-negating denunciation.  God, as the YHWH would infer it, is opposing Himself.

And I will turn thee back and [strike thee with six plagues; leave but the sixth part of thee; draw thee back with a hook of six teeth] and will cause thee to come up from the sides of the North parts, and will bring thee upon the mountains of Israel:

I found this interesting on multiple levels.  I can't recall, offhand, any other passages in the Torah that have three different translations in the KJV.  It also appears to prefigure the Beast 666 (with the triple six reference) "the number of a man" in Revelations 13:18 (18 also being three sixes).  "The sixth part" I would infer as God referring to Himself and His portion "in Gog".  Six being composed of two threes.  So you have YHWH, he, she, it -- three parts -- and God Who doesn't have a "she aspect" or an "it aspect" -- one aspect of the other three parts or "the sixth part". 

It's another inversion, as well, of the Job judgement upon Leviathan (the Garden of Eden entirely mythic serpent "scaled up" to unimaginable aquatic size).  It would usually be inferred that God would be turning back YHWH/Leviathan from wreaking destruction upon Israel.  But, in this passage, God is turning YHWH/Leviathan back from Meschech & Tubal (Assyria) TOWARDS the mountains of Israel.

Definitely, what is promised, is a thoroughgoing destruction (as I read it, of the YHWH):

And I will smite thy bow out of thy left hand, and will cause thine arrows to fall out of thy right hand

Thou shalt fall upon the mountains of Israel, thou & all thy bands, and the people that with thee: I will give thee unto the ravenous birds of every wing and to the beasts of the field [to devour/to be devoured]

Thou shalt fall upon the face of the field, for I have spoken, saith the Lord GOD.

The YHWH, as I read it, infers differently, while offering concurrence: 

And I will send a fire on Magog and among them that dwell [carelessly/confidently]

in the isles, and they shall know that I, the YHWH

So will I make my holy name known in the midst of my people Israel, and I will not let pollute my holy name any more, and the heathen shall know that I, the YHWH, the holy one in Israel.

That is, the YHWH's inference is that the destruction of Gog will constitute a mutual destruction of God and YHWH.  So the YHWH pronounces a doom -- by fire, the YHWH's medium -- upon Magog AND among them that "dwell…in the isles".  What the YHWH is establishing, as I read it, is that the YHWH is aware of the Larger Context that is not being discussed -- "the isles" usually refer to distant Mediterranean nation-states, like Greece -- in addition to the context that is being discussed:  Meshech and Tubal (the immediately-northward-of-Israel then-geopolitical context of Assyria).

The YHWH, I would guess, was surprised to find no resistance or qualification of this judgement on the part of Lord GOD (God):

Behold, it is come, and it is done, saith the Lord GOD, this the day whereof I have spoken.

And they that dwell in the cities of Israel, shall go forth, and shall set on fire, and burn the weapons, both the shields and the bucklers, the bows and the arrows and the [javelins/hand staves and the spears] and they shall burn them with fire, seven years.

This is reiterative of the recurring "seven seven" motif (the opposite of one sixth: the YHWH's inference that both the YHWH and God are "he she it"s -- totalling six -- but with one having preeminence:  the hidden seventh. And, to the YHWH, that that total construct exists on both sides:  "seven seven" (the number of clean beasts that the YHWH instructed Noah to take into the ark, being the earliest literal expression of the concept in the Torah:  the year of Jubilee, 49 years "seven seven", etc.). 

What God is promising is that not only will there be fire in the destruction of Magog, but it will be powered by the burning of wooden weapons.  So many wooden weapons that, for God's promised term of seven years, Israel won't have to cut down any trees to fuel their fires.  THAT's how many weapons they will have to burn:  

So that they shall take no wood out of the field, neither cut down out of the forests: for they shall burn the weapons with fire, and they shall spoil those that spoiled them, and rob those that robbed them, saith the Lord GOD.

And while the YHWH is still mulling THAT one over, God adds:

And it shall come to pass at that day, I will give unto Gog a place there of graves in Israel, the valley of the passengers on the East of the sea and it shall stop the [interpolated: noses/mouths of the] passengers and there shall they bury Gog, and all his multitude, and they shall call the valley of Hamon-gog [translation: the multitude of Gog]

As I read it, it's a pretty esoteric reference intended only for the YHWH's Larger Context awareness.  The KJV interpolates "noses" and, in the marginal note, "mouths" because the passage doesn't seem to make sense otherwise.  To me, it makes sense because I read it as a reference to the Garden of Eden and the YHWH's "Cherubims and a flaming sword" (Genesis 3:24).  The "passengers" are those who inhabited the land "on the East of Eden" (4:16) and who attempted, accidentally or intentionally, to enter the Garden of Eden after they were expelled by the YHWH -- that is, men -- and were cut to pieces by the sword. 

That is, as I read it, God is saying that He's aware of the Larger Context to a greater extent than the YHWH could even imagine and that what He is including in the Context of His own judgement is ALL aspects of the YHWH, all corruptions, all inversions, all misnaming, all artful fancies -- which are encompassed by the Larger Context of "the multitude of Gog".  

And seven months shall the house of Israel be burying of them, that they may cleanse the land.

Yea, all the people of the land shall bury, and it shall be to them a renown the day that I shall be glorified saith the Lord GOD.

It's an open question as to whether this has already taken place.  I would infer that it has, with the founding of the nation of Israel in 1948, but that it has taken place in the same sense that the invasion "from the sides of the north" -- Assyria -- was only a small-scale iteration of the invasion by Babylon, in turn a small-scale iteration of the invasion by Rome.  The "multitude of Gog" are still with us but, as I read it, there does come an end point when and where ALL the multitude of Gog -- all of the pagan and heathen and monotheistic corruptions exemplified by the YHWH -- will have an end.

And they shall sever out [men of continuance/men of continual employment] passing through the land, to bury with the passengers those that remain upon the face of the earth to cleanse it: after the end of seven months shall they search.

And the passengers pass through the land, when seeth a man's bone, then shall he build a sign by it, till the buriers have buried it in the valley of Hamon-gog.

It's pretty subtle stuff -- maybe something I'm just "reading into" the text -- but I see, again, this reference to "the passengers" as being to anyone crossing into the former location of the Garden of Eden, now called the Promised Land, Israel.  The "men of continuance/men of continual employment" I see as the Cherubims, presumably the only masculine entities allowed to remain in the Garden of Eden ("men of continuance") and always engaged in the task of executing any man who attempted to be a "passenger" into the Garden of Eden ("men of continual employ").

Basically, men who capitulated to the YHWH, as Hebel did.

"A man's bone" I read as A Dam's rib, from which God "builded" a woman. I read also that men will be aware of the actual history "in those days" so any man's bone found at the entering in of Israel, will be honoured as at least possibly an executed would-be "passenger" -- "then shall he build a sign by it" has the double meaning of this commemoration that will be performed but also in the sense that God built this epoch's first woman from a man's bone as a sign/enactment of the relationship between God and YHWH.

From there, as I read it, God arrives at the YHWH's judgement upon Magog, incorporating that into this own narrative with a female form of Hamon -- that is, the multitude that will be buried in the valley of Hamon-gog won't just be men, they'll be women as well:

And also the name of the city Hamonah: thus shall they cleanse the land.

And thou, son of man, Thus saith the Lord GOD, speak unto [every feathered fowl/to the fowl of every wing] and to every beast of the field, Assemble yourselves on every side to my sacrifice that I do sacrifice for you, a great sacrifice upon the mountains of Israel, that ye may eat flesh and drink blood.

The YHWH's head must have been spinning at this point.  EAT FLESH AND DRINK BLOOD?  That's completely pagan: the YHWHistic corruption writ large!  Why would God be promising pagan observance as a capstone to His prophecy?  Presumably, since -- in promising that the multitude of Gog and Magog, Meschech and Tubal, Hamon and Hamonah will be destroyed -- the whole point is to eliminate blood sacrifice. 

Ye shall eat the flesh of the mighty and drink the blood of the princes of the earth, of the rams, of lambs and of great goats, of bullocks, all of them fatlings of Bashan.

Not only that, God appears to promise outright cannibalism -- and not of cast-off or marginalized human beings, but "of the mighty" "the princes of the earth".  WHAT?  How is that even possible?  What society would permit its "mighty" and its "princes" to be cannibalized?  And, putting as fine a point on it as possible, God adds:

And ye shall eat fat till ye be full and drink blood till ye be drunken, of my sacrifice which I have sacrificed for you.

Thus shall ye be filled at my table with horses and chariots, with mighty men, and with all men of war, saith the Lord GOD.

As I read it, to what God is actually referring is the fulfillment he intends through His Christ, the Johannine Jesus as documented in John 6:48-58:

I am the bread of the life; the fathers of you ate in the desolate the manna and they died; this is the bread the ___ out of the heaven coming down in order that anyone out of it should eat and not he should die; I am the bread the living, the ____ out of the heaven coming down in order that anyone out of it should eat and not he should die; I am the bread the living, the ____ out of the heaven having come down; if ever anyone should eat out of this the bread he will live into the age, and the bread (however ____) which I shall give, the flesh of me is over the of the world life.

As I read it, it's a seminal point in the history of our planet.  It's a physically incarnated being, a flesh and blood man, but he's conveying an unprecedented spiritual truth:  that he, himself, is spiritual food.  Basically: go ahead, take a bite.

The physically-incarnated reaction -- the reaction of men -- is predictable:

Were fighting therefore toward one another the Jews saying, How is able this ___ to us to give the flesh of him to eat?

The key is in the missing noun:  "this ____".  The physically incarnated Jews can only see a man and that's what they're referring to by "this ____".  But to their spirits, "this ____" is the noun missing from his own assertions.  "the ____ out of the heaven having come down".  A "___" descended from heaven is consumable!  That's where the fighting comes from.  The physically-incarnated, the ones completely detached from their spirits, hear only an abhorrent concept: cannibalism -- their reaction is the same as the YHWH's to Lord GOD's assertion in Ezekiel:  "WHAT?"  But the spirit-centred clamour towards him.  Can you really eat his spiritual flesh?  And, presumably, yes, you could.  And, presumably, yes they did. And this was just the origin point of the enactment/ritual/incarnation.  In contemplating its pursuance over the ensuing two millennia, the prophecy in Ezekiel becomes an understatement:

And ye shall eat fat till ye be full and drink blood till ye be drunken, of my sacrifice which I have sacrificed for you.

Still, at the time, you want to talk about a "tough sell":

Said therefore to them the Jesus Amen amen I am saying to you, if ever not you should eat the flesh of the son of the man and you should drink of him the blood, not you are having life in selves.

For the YHWH, this really would have been Too Much.  Watching on the spirit level as the spirits of the "ears to hear" Jews begin tearing off pieces of the Johannine Jesus spirit and devouring them.  And in the midst of that, the Johannine Jesus is told to give a plug to the "son of man" -- the YHWH's Christ.  God saying, "Yes it will work for you, too.  The Jews are consuming My Christ.  They can consume yours, YHWH, as well." 

The ___ munching of me the flesh and drinking of me the blood is having life everlasting, and I shall resurrect him to the last day; the for flesh of me true is food and the blood of me true is drink.  The ___ munching of me the flesh and drinking of me the blood in me is remaining and I in him.  According as sent for me the living Father and I am living through the Father, and the ___ munching me also that ___ will live through me.  This is the bread, the ____ out of heaven having come down, not according as ate the fathers and they died; the ___ munching this the bread will live into the age. 

This followed by the deadpan assertion:

These ____s he said in synagogue teaching in Capernaum. 

Not only does he counsel cannibalism, with himself as object, he does so in the middle of a synagogue when he's supposed to be teaching a lesson.  It must have been absolute Bedlam:  the "no ears to hear" Jews livid and raging against this unimaginable blasphemy and heresy -- and the "ears to hear" Jews, suddenly ecstatic and incandescent with joy as their spirits took their first bites of the "___ out of heaven having come down". 

Flash forward to the decimated ranks of his followers in the immediate aftermath of his synagogue teaching:

Many therefore having heard out of the disciples of him said, Hard is the word this; who is able of it to be hearing? 

Their anguish must have been palpable.  Up to that point, they just took what the Johannine Jesus said and dutifully passed it on.  Their ranks, presumably, swelling with new followers and proselytizers. Now they were faced with, "How can I tell people to do this when it makes me gag just to think of it?  Eating the flesh of the teacher and drinking his blood."

Having known ____ (however the____, Jesus) in himself that are murmuring about this the disciples of him, he said to them, This you is stumbling?

Now, there's an understatement of a question. But, of course, for the Johannine Jesus it was an elevating moment.  His serenity, like their anguish, must have been palpable.  "So this is what the end of the discussion in Ezekiel was about."  Wondering, as all the prophets must have, at what God had wrought.  How amazing it all was!  How it all fit together!  His own crystal clarity issuing from his proximity to the Father in that moment -- not to God, but to the Father, still quantum levels above himself, spiritually -- would have allowed him to look at his anguished disciples and see, in their faces, either the face of God or the face of the YHWH.

And he is able to address the YHWH directly, recognizing the ambivalence.  Dare the YHWH instruct the Synoptic Jesus to give a similar teaching?  The ranks of the Johannine Jesus' followers were DECIMATED.  People were RAGING against him.

The Johannine Jesus alludes to the ultimate future, again, directly to the YHWH:

If ever therefore you may behold the son of the man ascending where he was the former?

It would have been inescapably irritating, the more so because it's so quietly and simply observed.  The Johannine Jesus had clearly jumped up multiple levels with a single teaching.  The Synoptic Jesus who had been MORE than matching him miracle for miracle and follower for follower was suddenly WAY down in the pecking order.  Way down in terms of followers and popularity, but way up in terms of spiritual elevation.

Don't you WANT to see your Christ ascend as Mine just did? 

The Johannine Jesus, with perfect serenity, is able to continue his gentle chiding of the YHWH while also imparting Great Truth to his disciples:

The spirit is the ___ making alive, the flesh not is benefiting nothing

It's certainly a novel idea for the physically-incarnated and also a novel idea for the YHWH.  There is physical flesh AND spiritual flesh.  Who knew?  And yet it made sense. The YHWH could see that the Johannine Jesus was intact physically but elevated spiritually even as his spiritual flesh had started to be consumed.  Like the Johannine Jesus, the YHWH would have been Wondering at it.  So THIS is what God had meant in Ezekiel's day when he said:

And ye shall eat fat till ye be full and drink blood till ye be drunken, of my sacrifice which I have sacrificed for you.

Which permits God, through the Johannine Jesus, to drive home the point:

The sayings which I have spoken to you spirit is and life is; but are out of you some who not are believing.

It casts the YHWH in an unfamiliar and uncomfortable role as Hamon -- the multitude.  Way back in the middle of the pack, well behind the True Believers like the Apostle John. Like the followers of the Johannine Jesus who are listening to him, the average blokes, the YHWH is tilting one way and the other.  There is the reality of what has happened -- that's irrefutable -- but there's also the awareness of cannibalism.  How can you COUNSEL the commission of cannibalism?  There are indeed "some" out of the YHWH's multitude of incarnations that just can't accept what the YHWH his/her/its self has seen. 

The Apostle John inserts a narrative observation into the profound disquietude:

Had known for, out of beginning, the ____ (Jesus) which ones are the ___s not believing and who is the ___ being about to give beside him. 

He personalizes it, in other words. He was one of the Jews with "ears to hear", he has consumed the spiritual flesh and is sharing in the Johannine Jesus' sudden spiritual escalation.  But he can look at Judas Iscariot and see that he doesn't have "ears to hear".  Judas is, obviously, barely able to suppress his rage and his repugnance at the teaching. 

The Johannine Jesus adds:

Through this I have said to you that no one is able to come toward me if ever not it may be having been given to him out of the Father. 

The YHWH would have been aware that the Father was a lesser construct/entity -- certainly far above the Johannine Jesus, but also far below God.  But, to the YHWH, a construct/entity over which the YHWH was also preeminent. Basically God is putting the YHWH in his/her/its place.  "It wasn't given to you out of the Father to accept this teaching…but, look around, there are simple men here listening to me -- men you don't even think of as the dirt beneath your feet, YHWH, who HAVE had that awareness and that access 'given to him out of the Father.'"

It's not reassuring enough to hold anyone.  On the contrary, if you didn't "get it", hearing the Johannine Jesus address the YHWH, all it would have done was to confirm that if you didn't "get it" -- if you hadn't experienced the spiritual cannibalism and you were looking for reassurance or, at least, an explanation -- you weren't getting it.  Either get out there and tell people to eat the flesh of the Johannine Jesus and drink his blood…or…do something else.

The crowd melts away. 

Out of this many out of the disciples of him went off into the behind and not yet with him they were walking about. 

The "not yet" is significant.  God is aware and I would assume the Johannine Jesus was aware that it was a temporary setback.  Even if his listeners were "physical- dominant" they still had spirits.  The spirits saw what had happened in the realm of spirit when the "spirit dominant" had started munching the spiritual flesh of the Johannine Jesus.  It would certainly compel a certain "physical-dominant assertiveness" to stay completely away after that.  "The spirit is the ___ making alive, the flesh not is benefitting nothing".  So, why let your flesh dominate the decision-making? But you would probably need a lot of time alone to let your spirit and physical selves sort it out between them.

Said therefore the ___ (Jesus) to the twelve, Not also you are willing to be going under? 

And, again, as the Apostle John asserted, it's a rhetorical question.  He could look at the twelve and just by the expressions on their faces know whether they had ears to hear or not.  The "going under" would have multiple meanings.  "To go away", to "go to the YHWH", "to go to hell", but also "to accept submission to God, to be Under God and Under the Father" -- which, clearly, is unacceptable to the YHWH. 

Answered to him Simon Peter, Lord, toward whom shall we go off?  Sayings of life everlasting you are having, and we have believed and we have known that you are the Holy ____ of the God.

Simon Peter, of course, is (if you'll pardon the expression) the "rolling stone" who oscillates between the Johannine Jesus and the Synoptic Jesus.  The fact that he's the one who POSES the question BEGS the question:  the Johannine Jesus has "sayings of life" -- but the Synoptic Jesus is the great miracle worker and the one who has told Peter that he will be the rock upon which he, the Synoptic Jesus, will found his church.  He's obliquely presenting to the other disciples -- some of whom the Synoptic Jesus and Johannine Jesus share and some of whom are the Johannine Jesus' alone -- "maybe we should ditch the cannibalism advocate and go with the miracle healer."

[The YHWH, with a far greater overview than the average human being, still needed, in an unaccustomed human way, to mull the whole thing over for some time.  And, even then, as I read it, hedged his/her/its bets by having the Synoptic Jesus wait until the Last Supper to invoke the "eating of my flesh/drinking of my blood" teaching -- that is, waiting until the last minute and limited the teaching only to the twelve disciples -- I would infer, as a means of avoiding the decimating of the ranks of the followers that the Johannine Jesus' open and public -- in a synagogue, no less! -- teaching had created]  

Nothing the Johannine Jesus isn't aware of:

Answered to them the Jesus, Not I you the twelve I chose?  And out of you one devil is.

The Apostle John interjects:

He was saying, however, the Judas of Simon Iscariot; this for was about to be giving beside him, one out of the twelve. 

I'm pretty sure that isn't what he was saying.  What he was saying was that -- as he looked at the faces around him, including, I think, Simon Peter -- he was seeing the YHWH -- the devil -- in varying degrees.  Probably in the least in the face of the Apostle of John, probably in the most in the face of Judas of Simon Iscariot.  But I don't think the "of Simon" is in there by accident.  Taken together, there was still one devil in back of the disciples.

This -- ALL this -- I would guess was what God was looking at as an omniscient being, in Ezekiel's day, as the YHWH confirmed that he/she/it was "along for the ride" -- and eager to see where this sacrificial flesh and fat eating and blood drinking to complete satiation was going to lead and be incarnated (and how could it not be to the benefit of the YHWH?):

And I will set my glory among the heathen, and all the heathen shall see my judgement that I have executed, and my hands that I have laid upon them.

So the house of Israel shall know that I, the YHWH, their God, from that day and forward.

And the heathen shall know that the house of Israel went into captivity for their iniquity: because they trespassed against me, therefore hid I my face from them, and gave them into the hand of their enemies; so fell they all by the sword.

According to their uncleanness and according to their transgressions have I done unto them and hid my face from them.

That's really all the YHWH has to say about Lord GOD's assertions.  So, the Lord GOD -- God -- reiterates the YHWH's concluding thoughts, while aware that the YHWH has NO idea how all of this will actually hatch out:

Therefore, thus saith the Lord GOD, Now will I bring again the captivity of Jacob, and have mercy upon the whole house of Israel and will be jealous for my holy name

After that they have borne their shame and all their trespasses, whereby they have trespassed against me, when they dwelt safely in their land, and none made afraid.

When I have brought them again from the people, and gathered them out of their enemies' lands, and am sanctified in them in the sight of many nations:

God leaves the "prompt" hanging and the YHWH obliges:

Then shall know that I the YHWH their God [by my causing of them/which caused them] to be led into captivity among the heathen: but I have gathered them unto their own land and have left none of them any more there.

And God seals the agreement with:

Neither will I hide my face any more from them: for I have poured out my spirit upon the house of Israel, saith the Lord GOD.

Next week, God willing, Ezekiel 40.

Best,

Dave

Next Time: Whatever it is we do on Mondays in the future. Is "BladeRunning" a thing yet? -"Past" Matt