PREFACE
If I say H2O, I expect you might reply, Water?
In doing so you will have translated from scientific language into English.
From early days, (presuming you speak English), when you saw water, you were taught to conceptualize the substance with the word. We might say, the physical world carries into the mental and spiritual realm, by a word. Even if you cannot see water in the immediate physical location, it lives on in the spiritual and mental imagination via a word.1 Water has a reality in both the physical and the spiritual realm.
Representing words by written signs or symbols, began around three-thousand-three-hundredBC. Writing started simultaneously, but independently, in three places at one time. There is plenty of evidence of gods, authorities, domains, and kingdoms, occupying the minds of people before then, but without documentation, we can only guess at the character and nature of these gods. We can better understand what Hebrew people thought from the expression of words they used. These, ‘captured pictures’, help us understand today, what the society gossip and cultural teaching of that time was. This is important if we want to contrast the consensus of world opinion, with the revelation given to the writer of Genesis when he documented the foundational Hebrew revelation. It helps to separate Hebrew from existing Babylonian, Egyptian and Sumerian religions. But, the onus is on us to go back, as closely as we can, to the understandings and mental concepts of their day. It is foolish to think they could write with our culture and time in mind.
Hebrew Words and their DNA
We can notice here that scientific language has a big advantage over English. Whereas English only associates a word with a subject or object, Scientific language contains all the constituent parts of the component. The ‘DNA’ of water has two hydrogen molecules united with one oxygen molecule to make the substance (H2O). I could write a scientific sentence as CO2 H2O, which translated into English would equal ‘Fizzy Water’, (or carbon dioxide and water in the right quantities). Ancient Hebrew language, which precedes scientific language by a long chalk, is the only other language in the world to work like scientific language. It also contained DNA within its words.
For example Using the diagram page :
Water in Hebrew is, מים (Ma’im). The first letter, in its earliest Semantic pictograph, is waves (water). This pictograph conceptualized: liquid, sea, ‘mighty and massive’ (from the size of the sea), and chaos from the stormy nature of the sea.2
The second letter3 developed from the early Semitic pictograph, (a strong arm and hand), adds to the meaning of the word. This carried the concept ‘power’, ‘command’, and ‘to toil against adversity’, a concept gained from the experience of combating or exploiting the waves.
The third letter4 started life as a fish. This picture has the concepts: seed, life, fish and ‘reward’ or ‘Harvest’.
One word, Ma’im, carries within it the story of Genesis-one. The DNA of this one word (Ma’im), carries within its concept: ‘Chaos tamed, by a command of power, brought order and seeded life to produce a harvest’.5 But it does not stop there because the same concept remains true into the New-Testament, when Jesus says:
"I assure you, everyone must be born again. Anyone who is not born again cannot be in God's kingdom." Nicodemus said, "How can a man who is already old be born again? Can he go back into his mother's womb and be born a second time?" Jesus answered, "Believe me when I say that everyone must be born from water and the Spirit. Anyone who is not born from water and the Spirit cannot enter God's kingdom. The only life people get from their human parents is physical. But the new life that the Spirit gives a person is spiritual.
No wonder Jesus was surprised! How could a recognized master-teacher of Israel not understand the foundational teaching that the physical baby was born of water and the spiritual life is born of the spirit of God6, who hovered over those waters.7 We will explore later the concept of a physical realm remaining chaotic unless the spiritual brings it to order. But in preface, the Scriptures were written to the audience of their day, not to our day. By that I mean it is unreasonable to assume the writer could appeal to twenty-first century concepts in the minds of modern humans, because they had not been formed then. No, the onus is on us to understand the norms and conversations of their day in order to extract the principles they set down. Equally, the writers compiled scripture over one-thousand-five-hundred years, so we have a moving target of concepts to keep up with.
Genesis, for example, was written down, at the time Babylonians and Egyptian views held sway, and when Hebrews were forming the History of their own nation.8 The Hebrew nation traced its ancestry back through the patriarchs to Adam. Based on the stories handed down within its nation and the education it had drawn from surrounding nations, it compiled its history in the light of its heritage. Moses, educated in the Egyptian University and familiar with Babylonian academics, also drew from the writings and teachings from Hebrew Archives9.
While it is a primary concept that: ‘All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness’,10 this concept does not assume it was done like a glass on an Ouija board. Holy men of God penned scriptures, motivated by the Holy Spirit. The insight of the Holy Spirit, in words, ‘came alive’ to the people, because words can carry power and understanding from one person to another. ‘God-breathed’ is the Hebrew way of saying, ‘came alive’.11
That words have power, was brought home to me, when, as a family, we took a young lady to Wales with us on holiday. Climbing a rather steep road, she went down on her hands and knees to climb. Her mother had told her, she would not be able to climb the mountains of Wales and the power of those words had so held her bound, this was her reaction. Inanimate words can carry living power to accomplish their objective. Later we will examine the power of blessing and cursing within the kingdom of God.
Writers wrote within a common vocabulary, a common education, a common writing skill, and a common interpretation of creation. It was a common understanding of the civilizations of that day. It would be grossly unfair to interpret scripture as if it was written for our modern scientific dominated understanding of the world. It was written to an audience of that time. It was a common basic education of those days, to see insights, life, power, and truths as eternal. Human language, knowledge, and understanding, moved on. Our understanding of the Kingdom-of-God has come to us through a distancing of two understandings. Principles are established in Genesis and are for all time, but our understanding of them requires we travel back in time and nature to understand the eternal principles, before we are a liberty to carry concepts into modern times.
In my younger days, when I started a job in a well known dairy factory, I was handed a large box, containing around two-hundred keys to the factory. As you have guessed, it was before the days of magnetic cards and locks, so you will have to travel back in time to relate to this story. In being handed these keys, I had been handed the freedom of the factory. But I could not travel anywhere in the factory until, I discovered and labelled, which key fitted which lock. So, the keys hung, largely unlabelled, on the large rack behind the door.
One day, Jesus said to His disciples, Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom.12
From then on, they followed Jesus around in the kingdom, watching which key he took out of his pocket to unlock a situation. They even tried a few keys themselves.
On one occasion they tried, unsuccessfully, to cast out a demon, a little confused, they had to ask, ‘why’? This lock need two keys together, Jesus said, ‘prayer and fasting’,13
On another occasion, after Jesus asked the disciples who they thought He was, Peter, felt the Holy-Spirit say, ‘You are Messiah, The Christ, The son of the Living God’, Jesus replied, ‘On that acknowledgement, I can now give you the keys of the Kingdom-of-Heaven’.14
Don’t confuse Kingdom-of-Heaven with Church. Church, translated from Greek, ‘Ecclesia’, is a governmental term not a religious one. It literally means ‘called-out ones’ and referred to the Greek senate. Ecclesia is: ‘the executive counsel of a king or a ruling body’, they were not the governing body, and have no powers of their own. They are the body that carries out the wishes of the governing body.
Jesus, Did not give his disciples the keys to the Kingdom-of-God, as some would like us to suppose; He gave them the keys of the Kingdom-of-God. They were given the freedom of the Kingdom-of-God. They were not given the keys to World-Kingdoms. The keys were to unlock Kingdom-of-God property within World-Kingdoms. They themselves, were commissioned as ambassadors. Ambassadors in World-Kingdoms, would be expected to respect World-Kingdom authorities, except where they could claim ambassadorial privileges. In such cases, Kingdom-of-God authority had prior claim. It did so one day, when the Sanhedrin told them to stop talking about the Kingdom-of-God. Here was a kingdom conflict of interest, they claimed ambassadorial rights, they answered, ‘We are ambassadors of the Kingdom-of-God, and we answer to our king not yours’; (Only, they put it a bit more diplomatically than that.)15
So then, before we hang our keys up with a label, we might need to rediscover what the doors looked like before they were painted with the process of time. Before we work our way through Genesis to Revelation with concepts of modern day, we begin by introducing some concepts in the minds of the earliest scripture readers.
1 Hebrew word ‘davar’ meaning : ‘to bring to order or fruition by power of words’. The Greek word ‘Logos’ meaning: ‘to embody a full idea, character, or desire’
2 The first letter of an ancient Hebrew word usually gives the source of that word.
3 Yod
4 Nun
5 Gen. 1: 1-12
6 Hebrew roo'-akh,
7 Gen. 1: 2 The ‘DNA’ of roo'-akh (רוּחַ) is :Resh (ר) (‘to raise or bring to life ’) [ picture = head] / vav (ו) = ‘add to or pin to’ [a peg], / Ḥet (ח) (to light up) [picture = surprise or behold]
8 It was written down before Moses compiled Genesis along with the Torah.
9 Hebrews were strict on ancestral records and the head of each tribe was obliged to ensure his family knew its ancestry and exploits.
10 2Ti_3:16 : See also 2 Peter 2:21
11 Gen 2: 7 : The word is used in many places but carries the picture of a seed husk producing a plant or dust forming a living being.
12 Luke 12:32
13 Mark 9: 29
14 Matthew 16:13-19: Quote from : Tales to tell my Grandchildren: Brian E R Limmer.
15 Acts 5: 29