When claiming an interpretation from the scriptures based on a premise, one idea needs to be confirmed throughout the scriptures.
We are not just to read something and run with the idea and build doctrine from it.
Everything will pile into the subject matter we are studying, and if the word of God does not repeatedly confirm it in other areas then we are not on the right track in the interpretations. God always confirms his word repeatedly.
The portrait the Bible painstakingly paints is one that comes into fuller view like a piece of a jigsaw puzzle that we struggle to find, and once we have found an important missing piece and it is put into its rightful place, then the rest of the puzzle just neatly falls together to give us a colorful vibrancy not realized before.
We cannot force any interpretation or pound a piece of the puzzle into an area it will not go. That would be making the Bible say what we desire and want it to say, and anything that contradicts any of the points made is simply ignored.
There are plenty willing to make those leaps, I am not one of them.
With more information, I would certainly abandon and cast away imaginations that are not confirming ideas, but I have resigned myself due to the fact that one point in scripture after another literally piles in the information until it becomes mind-boggling obvious that this journey is not one made up from my mind. It just sits there glaring at me whether I comprehend the fullness of it or not and trust me on this, I do not comprehend the fullness of it.
Sometimes following these key pieces I sit back in total amazement because I do not know where the story is going, but when a piece falls into the puzzle it astounds me because it repeatedly confirms where I have been led.
This adventure has caused me to take a break at times from the Bible because things that are given take a while to digest.
I ponder for a while and chew on it and mull it over and sift through it.
Frankly, it overwhelms me, the brilliance of it all.
I indisputably see the Gospel exploding from the Old Testament in ways never dreamed of. It’s a literal feast, and I always want more insight but cannot always absorb or digest it as quickly as I would like, and sharing it is almost an insurmountable feat.
So to reiterate what has already been written concerning The Cup In The Bag key points in this line of puzzlement will show that some brilliant mind has dropped some crumbs for us to pick up.
Key points are that we know Jesus was rejected by his own people and so he has not gotten his beloved bride (Rachel- Israel) but ended up with a bride he was not working for, (Leah- Church)
That isn’t a made-up story from an overactive imagination, it’s a fact in the New Testament clearly spelled out. The blindness of Israel is written,
“God hath given them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear; unto this day” Romans 11:8
Just as Rachel traded the fruit of mandrakes which is used as an anesthetic just before the birth of Benjamin in the article Apples For Jacob
We know that Israel will awaken to recognize her Messiah because that has been recorded when Joseph reveals to his brothers who he is, along with a Zech 12:10 “they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him”
On the point of the analogy and Rachel and Leah as a type of Israel and the Church, if that were all there was to this then it could be easily dropped and an interesting coincidence occurs but how many of these coincidences have to happen before we take notice and see them for what they are?
A few minor coincidences is not where it ends, not even close. This is where it really begins to get unbelievably staggering.
It just so happens- that Rachel in this analogy of Israel happens to trade fruit that causes sleep- Israel was asleep when her Messiah was born.
It just so happens-Rachel dies in Bethlemen- So did Israel spiritually
It just so happens-Rachel dies giving birth to Benjamin who in the previous article Cup In The Bag receives the cup. If Benjamin is a type of the Church, born from Rachel-Israel then this makes perfect sense.
Joseph who becomes a type of Christ when he is betrayed by his brothers later is already present and a witness to the birth of his brother.
The Church in some regards has its foundations in Bethlehem because that is where our Messiah was born, without his birth there would be no church.
During his birth in Bethlehem, it is the Gentiles that recognize the importance of his birth as the Magi traveled to Bethlehem to worship him.
It is Gentiles that are worshiping Israel’s promised Messiah.
The Levite and Gomer
The Old Testament story of Hosea has God telling Hosea that he is to take a prostitute as his wife. So Hosea went and married Gomer.
God tells Hosea to love her as the LORD loves the Israelites, though they turned to other gods and offer raisin cakes to idols. Hosea 3
God uses this in the life of Hosea as an analogy of his love for Israel who prostituted herself whoring after other gods.
This also resembles another story of the Levite and his concubine in
Judges 19
A Levite who lived in a remote area in the hill country of Ephraim took a concubine from Bethlehem in Judah. But she was unfaithful to him.
She left him and went back to her parents’ home in Bethlehem, Judah.
After she had been there for four months, her husband went to her to persuade her to return home. As they were returning home it was late in the day and they found a place to stay the night with an old man.
While they were enjoying themselves, suddenly the wicked men of the city surrounded the house. Pounding on the door, they said to the old man who owned the house, “Bring out the man who came to your house, so we can have relations with him!”
The Levite ended up sending his concubine outside to them, and they raped her and abused her throughout the night, and at dawn they let her go.
She died from this abuse, and the Levite took her on a donkey and went home.
When the Levite reached his house, he picked up a knife, cut her limb by limb into twelve pieces, and sent her throughout the 12 tribes of Israel.
Each of the tribes got a piece of her body, sending her throughout the land of Israel.
The tribes when they received these parts of the concubine were horrified. The tribes of Israel demanded that those men responsible for the wickedness be brought out and destroyed so the nation of Israel would be cleansed of the wickedness, but the tribe of Benjamin refused to comply.
So Israel went to war against the tribe of Benjamin and nearly destroyed the whole tribe from off the face of the earth.
After the war was over the tribes were grieved for Benjamin because the LORD had made a void in the tribes of Israel due to the near annihilation of their brother. They were distraught about losing a tribe so of the few of those who remained the Israelites had sworn, “Cursed is he who gives a wife to a Benjamite.” So they were in a real dilemma because none of the tribes would give their own daughters to keep the tribe from extinction.
The tribes told the Benjamites to take wives from the daughters of Shiloh, which helped keep the tribe alive.
This is an extraordinarily accurate history which is what actually occurred at the time, but was fulfilled for the early church.
Israel was carved up and dispersed in AD 70 she was unaware of her visitation rejecting her Messiah. Israel was dispersed and sent throughout the whole world just as the concubine.
New members were added to Benjamin to save the tribe from literal extinction. Which is an analogy of the Church when new members were added (Gentiles) due to Israel’s rejection.
The tribe of Benjamin was given the cup, which was placed in the bag of Benjamin by Joseph making him the tribe to forever be those chosen to serve, adding the church to the fold.
Those added were from the daughters of Shiloh, which is extraordinary.
The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be. Genesis 49:10
Shiloh is the Messiah, and choosing from the daughters of Shiloh to keep the tribe from extinction is incredible.
The Apostle Paul was from the tribe of Benjamin, who was called by Christ and it was Paul that journeyed building up the 7 churches in Asia.
The cup in the bag of Benjamin would later become the cup of the new covenant in the Messiah’s blood and atoning death. The Old Testament details become New Testament fulfillments.
Jacob blesses Ephraim and Manasseh
In a previous article Gospel according to Genesis is the list of details one after another of how Joseph became a type of the Messiah and these are intricately woven throughout his life.
Normally when one Patriarch blesses the other in succession it is the son that receives the blessing. Abraham blessed Isaac and Isaac’s blesses Jacob. Jacob blesses Joseph’s two sons.
Keeping in mind the types following these people it would make sense for Jacob (as a type of the Holy Spirit) to skip over Joseph (a type of Christ) to bless the offspring of Joseph. Joseph in a sense receives a double portion of blessing through his sons as they are adopted as Jacob’s own sons.
During the blessing, Jacob crosses his hands as he places his hands on each of the sons effectively creating the cross or an X which some Hebrew scholars claim the X refers to the “sign of the covenant”
Jacob blesses Ephraim and Manasseh
Genesis 48
And when Joseph saw that his father laid his right hand upon the head of Ephraim, it displeased him: and he held up his father’s hand, to remove it from Ephraim’s head unto Manasseh’s head. 18And Joseph said unto his father, Not so, my father: for this is the firstborn; put thy right hand upon his head. 19And his father refused, and said, I know it, my son, I know it: he also shall become a people, and he also shall be great: but truly his younger brother shall be greater than he, and his seed shall become a multitude of nations.
If we put the types into perspective Joseph as the type of Christ he has two sons being blessed by Jacob a type of the Holy Spirit.
Ephraim being the younger would become greater and with these types the word of God stating that Ephraim is his firstborn.
Which in the Old Testament Ephraim being his firstborn is a bit confusing due to the fact that he literally wasn’t the first-born BUT, due to these types we can clearly see that Ephraim would be the firstborn in being “born-again”
The Levite that carved up the concubine lived in the hill country of Ephraim, which is also an interesting point.
Walking On Water
Windy, thunder, clapping storm
Whipping torrents of rain
Darkness like a heavy vapor
Crashing my soul in pain
Who is this, standing on the water?
Who can see my soul with his eye’s
Who is this, walking on water?
Something inside me cries
Many have their point of view
But nothing is hidden from those eye’s
You know every detail
You uncover deceit and lies
With your right arm, storms are calmed
Restoring sight to the blind
My soul cries out for you
Your ways are higher than mine
Who is this, who can walk on water
Wrapped in humble array?
Who is this, appearing beside me
Searching my soul today?
Only you see this broken heart
All hopes and dreams are falling
As a storm washes them away
You hear a broken soul calling
No mystery to you, for you see each part
Like a puzzle, you see each piece
Some you remove and others replace
But my soul you’ll never release
One who can walk on the water
Calming storms, swirling winds obey
I will learn to stand upon waters
Trusting you night and day
I love the one who can walk on the water
For, He is the light that guides my way.
I’ll dance someday with him on the water
Wrapped in His glorious array.
Copyright 2005