Pharaoh's Sea Arama and Heaven's Chariots of Fire
Beshalach 
Exodus 13:17-17:16
from Creation Gospel Workbook Five Volume Two




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!


[1] Revelation 22:1
[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
[4] Psalm 104:3
[5] Exodus 14:19
[6] ritually pure


Passover in Israel
PACK YOUR BAGS!  WE'RE GOING, B'azrat HaShem!
You Can Still Register into March
 
If you plan to go with us on the study trip to Israel for Passover, please go ahead and register for the trip at the link below to hold your place.  I don't think you'll find a better price at that season.  
 
If you want more information on the tour, please contact the Blossoming Rose soon (not The Creation Gospel).  Our page on their site is here, and you can locate the phone number to call here:
 
https://blossomingrose.org/israel-tours/standing-with-israel-the-revelation-2018/ 
 
 
Next year in Jerusalem...no, this year in Jerusalem.




Wintertime is Study Time!

Wintertime is a great time to start a new group study.  We have several options available in workbook form, each with lesson objectives, study material, and questions for additional learning and review.  Browse through the options on our website, www.thecreationgospel.com or on Amazon. Workbook Five Volume Two: Shemot (Exodus) is available on Amazon.


LaMalah Children's Centre
Orphanage Update

We are sent out donation statements this week.  Please check your statement for accuracy and let us know if there are any problems. 

Thank you to all who contributed to the purchase of a car for the orphanage. We plan to disburse more funds next week along with some extra so that the children can celebrate Passover.  

We also sent assistance toward the building of the new facility at the Hadassah Orphanage in India, a Torah-based orphanage managed by Beit HaTorah.  

Special thanks to our regular donors and our new donors.  You keep the food in the pantry, the staff paid, the clothes on their backs, and school fees paid.  

Click on 
http://www.thecreationgospel.com/orphanage/ if you are new to our orphanage effort and want more info.

If you have children's clothes or children's books (in English) to send, you can mail them to:   
 
Peter W Ndungu
P.O.Box 724
Limuru 00217
Kenya
East Africa

If you can help toward this goal, as always, we welcome your assistance.  For those of you who send monthly support to the orphanage, we can't thank you enough for fulfilling Messiah's commission.


Another way to help...

Want to help The Creation Gospel every time you purchase something on Amazon? Our ministry is part of our local congregation, The Olive Branch, in East Bernstadt, Kentucky. If you reset your amazon home page to  https://smile.amazon.com  and select The Olive Branch Messianic Congregation Inc. as your charity, Amazon donates a small percentage of each sale. Every penny helps, and our congregation is a great help in meeting special needs at the orphanage and other outreaches.