From the Narrow Desert: Ezekiel

Showing posts with label Ezekiel. Show all posts

Thursday, June 20, 2024

Lassie Come Home

Lassie Come Home is, symbolically, the title of the book that proceeded forth from the mouth of a Jew. This book is also called "the book of the Lamb of God" (1 Ne. 13:38). A nod to this second designation is just visible on the edge of the page in Animalia:

I think that's a very semantically dense title, conveying multiple meanings simultaneously. First there’s the literal meaning of lassie: a girl or young woman. Second, there’s the character Lassie in the book: a sheepdog, specifically a Rough Collie, who travels a great distance to be reunited with someone she loves. Finally there’s the Elvish lassi, which even the casual Tolkien reader may recognize from the poem Namárië: It means -- quelle coïncidence! -- "leaves."

If we take Lassie as a literal lassie, any number of female figures could be intended. My immediate hunch, and I tend to trust such things, was that it has something to do with the Woman of Revelation 12, "clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars" (Rev. 12:1). Threatened by the Dragon, the Woman is given wings and flies away to "her place" (perhaps off-planet?), prepared for her by God, where she stays for three and a half years (Rev. 12:6, 14) -- and that's the last we hear of her. After the three and a half years, during which the Beast rules in her absence (Rev. 13:5), does Lassie come home? John never tells us.

Considered as a sheepdog, Lassie would be expected to come home with the sheep, bringing them back to the fold. "Other sheep I have, which are not of this fold. Them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice, and there shall be one fold and one shepherd" (John 10:16). If the Shepherd is Christ, the Sheepdog would be a servant of Christ who helps him tend the sheep. The most obvious biblical candidate for this role would be Simon Peter, who in John 21 is given a special charge to "feed my sheep" and "feed my lambs." Interestingly, this same language of feeding is found in John's account of the Woman: While she is hiding in the wilderness, "they should feed her there" (Rev. 12:6) and "she is nourished" (Rev. 12:14).

Those who have been following William Wright's blog will know of his theory that Peter was the reincarnation of Ar-Pharazôn, the last king of Númenor -- which brings us to Lassie as a collie. The etymology of that word is uncertain, but Etymonline suggests "Possibly from dialectal coaly 'coal-black,' the color of some breeds." As portrayed on the cover of the book from the Lion's mouth, Lassie appears to be golden in color, not black, so perhaps whatever about her is "coal-black" is not visible on the surface. Pharazôn was called "the Golden," and as his story has been expanded by Daymon "Doug" Smith and William Wright, he went to great lengths so to appear, dressing all in gold and even covering his face with some kind of gold makeup. However, in "It's as dark a tale as was ever told," I have read the song "Shiver My Timbers" as referring to Pharazôn:

Shiver my timbers, shiver my soul -- Yo ho, heave ho!

There are men whose hearts are as black as coal --Yo ho, heave ho!

And they sailed their ship 'cross the ocean blue

A bloodthirsty captain and a cutthroat crew

It's as dark a tale as was ever told

Of the lust for treasure and the love of gold

Also in that post, I mention the line about "secrets that sleep with old Davy Jones" and tie that in with the Monkees song about Davy Jones waking and rising -- a song which also prominently references a "homecoming queen," i.e. a lassie come home. Pharazôn and his men ended up in a watery grave -- "Davy Jones' locker" -- and it may be their secrets that sleep there. The surname Jones means "son of John," though the h has been lost and the vowel sound has changed from a short 'o' to a long one. Everything I have just said about Jones is also true of Barjona, the original surname of Simon Peter.

Finally, we have lassi as the Elvish word for "leaves." Golden leaves as a reference to Golden Plates (and Lassie is gold on the book cover) have been a major theme in these parts recently, beginning with "Leaves of gold unnumbered" -- a post in which I quote the first two lines of the poem Namárië. Here they are in the original Quenya:

Ai! laurië lantar lassi súrinen,
yéni únótimë ve rámar aldaron!

Ah, like gold fall the leaves in the wind! Lassi, come home!

Every tribe of Israel, we are told in 2 Nephi 29, has its own sacred records -- its own "leaves of gold" -- and when Lassie brings the scattered sheep home, the leaves will be gathered home as well:

And when the two nations shall run together the testimony of the two nations shall run together also. . . .

And it shall come to pass that the Jews shall have the words of the Nephites, and the Nephites shall have the words of the Jews; and the Nephites and the Jews shall have the words of the lost tribes of Israel; and the lost tribes of Israel shall have the words of the Nephites and the Jews.

And it shall come to pass that my people, which are of the house of Israel, shall be gathered home unto the lands of their possessions; and my word also shall be gathered in one (2 Ne. 29:8, 13-14).

And this brings us back to the vision or waking dream -- for I, like Davy Jones, am a daydream believer -- recounted in "Étude brute?" In the vision, I was told that a particular book was the Cherubim -- "not the book of the Cherubim, but the Cherubim themselves." What can that possibly mean?

Ezekiel portrays the Cherubim as chimerical creatures -- part man, part lion, part bull, and part eagle -- and as far back as my 2018 post "The Throne and the World," I had made the case that this imagery "very like symbolizes, by means of four representative members, both the twelve tribes of Israel and the twelve signs of the zodiac." See that post for all the details underlying that assertion; here I will simply take it as proven. Ezekiel's Cherubim represent (among many other things) the Twelve Tribes of Israel united in a single body. Combine that with the quote from 2 Nephi 29 above -- when "the house of Israel shall be gathered home . . . my word also shall be gathered in one" -- and I think I understand what this book, the Cherubim, represents.

I have more to say on this topic, but I think this is a good place to end the current post.

Monday, May 20, 2024

Griffins (Cherubim) and apples (forbidden fruit) come from the same place

In my May 1 post "Armored vultures and Cherubim," I note the etymological theory that the word griffin may be related to Cherubim. In Genesis, the Cherubim are stationed as guardians to keep the exiled Adam and Eve from returning to Eden. This was after they had eaten the forbidden fruit, which tradition overwhelmingly identifies as the apple.

Today I was reading the 2011 edition of Adreinne Mayor's seminal book The First Fossil Hunters: Dinosaurs, Mammoths, and Myth in Greek and Roman Times. In building her case that griffin legends originated with Protoceratops-type fossils (quadrupeds with eagle-like beaks), Mayor traces Greek griffin lore back to Scythia:

The territory of the Issedonian Scythians where Aristeas learned about the griffin in about 675 B.C. is a wedge bounded by the Tien Shan and Altai ranges, in an area that straddles present-day northwestern Mongolia, northwestern China, southern Siberia, and southeastern Kazakhstan.

Compare this to what Wikipedia says about the origin of the apple:

The original wild ancestor of Malus domestica was Malus sieversii, found growing wild in the mountains of Central Asia in southern Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and northwestern China. Cultivation of the species, most likely beginning on the forested flanks of the Tian Shan mountains . . . .

I thought it was an interesting coincidence. Tian Shan is Chinese and literally means "Mountain(s) of God," which fits with what Ezekiel wrote about Eden and the Cherub:

Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God . . . . Thou art the anointed cherub . . . thou wast upon the holy mountain of God (Ezek. 28:13-14).

I was going to say I don't think anyone has ever proposed that Eden was in Central Asia, but actually someone has: Apparently, the Chinese Australian Christian Tse Tsan-tai proposed that it was in Xinjiang -- i.e., northwestern China, griffin and apple territory.

Tuesday, March 12, 2024

Eating the book

I dreamed I was somewhere away from home -- in a hotel room, I think, with some family members -- and I was reading a book. This was a very thick blue or green paperback, and on the cover was nothing but an oval-shaped black-and-white photograph of James Joyce. I don't think the book was actually by Joyce, though, although it was certainly thick enough to be Ulysses. Something about the typeface and punctuation gave a strong 19th-century impression, and when I tried to picture the author, I got an image of a professorial-looking man from that era, with a receding hairline and a heavy beard. I though it might be either William James or Éliphas Lévi. I don't have a clear idea of the content of the book or even of the language, but I'm sure it was a modern European language (perhaps English, French, or Italian), and that many of the paragraphs began with em-dashes. Reading it gave me the exhilarating feeling of seeing puzzle pieces fit together.

I decided to eat the last page of the book. It came apart in my mouth like pastry and had a light honey-like flavor. For a moment I reproached myself for this stupid mistake -- How could I finish reading the book now that I'd eaten the last page? -- but then I remembered that I had another copy of the same book at home, so it was no big deal.

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The idea of eating a book and having it taste like honey is biblical, and this dream may have been influenced by my fairly recent (February 22) reading of Ezekiel 2 and 3:

"But thou, son of man, hear what I say unto thee; Be not thou rebellious like that rebellious house: open thy mouth, and eat that I give thee."

And when I looked, behold, an hand was sent unto me; and, lo, a roll of a book was therein; and he spread it before me; and it was written within and without: and there was written therein lamentations, and mourning, and woe.

Moreover he said unto me, "Son of man, eat that thou findest; eat this roll, and go speak unto the house of Israel."

So I opened my mouth, and he caused me to eat that roll.

And he said unto me, "Son of man, cause thy belly to eat, and fill thy bowels with this roll that I give thee. Then did I eat it; and it was in my mouth as honey for sweetness."

And he said unto me, "Son of man, go, get thee unto the house of Israel, and speak with my words unto them. For thou art not sent to a people of a strange speech and of an hard language, but to the house of Israel; not to many people of a strange speech and of an hard language, whose words thou canst not understand" (Ezek. 2:8-3:6).

The language of the hand being "sent" also parallels what Daniel told Belshazzar about the writing on the wall:

And thou . . . hast lifted up thyself against the Lord of heaven; . . . and the God in whose hand thy breath is, and whose are all thy ways, hast thou not glorified. Then was the part of the hand sent from him; and this writing was written (Dan. 5:22-24).

John of Patmos -- whose Revelation is, among other things, a synthesis of the various Old Testament prophets -- reports an experience similar to Ezekiel's:

And I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven, clothed with a cloud: and a rainbow was upon his head, and his face was as it were the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire: and he had in his hand a little book open . . . .

And the voice which I heard from heaven spake unto me again, and said, "Go and take the little book which is open in the hand of the angel which standeth upon the sea and upon the earth."

And I went unto the angel, and said unto him, "Give me the little book."

And he said unto me, "Take it, and eat it up; and it shall make thy belly bitter, but it shall be in thy mouth sweet as honey."

And I took the little book out of the angel's hand, and ate it up; and it was in my mouth sweet as honey: and as soon as I had eaten it, my belly was bitter.

And he said unto me, "Thou must prophesy again before many peoples, and nations, and tongues, and kings" (Rev. 10:1-2, 8-11).

Unlike Ezekiel, who is specifically told that he does not have to speak "to many people of a strange speech," John is instructed to "prophesy again before many peoples, and nations, and tongues."

I think the honey-like flavor of all these books is probably an allusion to manna -- "the taste of it was like wafers made with honey" (Ex. 16:31) -- which symbolized the word of God:

And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live (Deut. 8:3).

Recent syncs have implicitly brought up the idea of eating a book, as the golden plates of the Book of Mormon have been connected with the breakfast cereals Kellogg's Corn Flakes and Hidden Treasures. (see "A chameleon (or salamander) shifting trees -- this is cereal, guys!") Just as Ezekiel and John must eat a book before prophesying, Patrick tells William Alizio that he must finish eating all the Hidden Treasures before he can deliver his message (the message being "We have come to take you away").

Just yesterday I was at the supermarket to buy cocoa powder, and I saw that they had two kinds of Kellogg's Corn Flakes for sale: "Classic" and "Honey Flavor."

Monday, November 7, 2022

The sons of Horus and the Four Living Creatures, and more syncs

The four sons of Horus (and their reinterpretation by Joseph Smith as the pagan gods Elkenah, Libnah, Mahmachrah, and Korash) have been in the sync stream recently. Each of the sons of Horus has the head of a different species: a man, a jackal, a baboon, and a falcon. This foursome -- a man, a bird of prey, and two other animals -- invites comparison with the Four Living Creatures found in the Book of Ezekiel and the Apocalypse of John: a man, a lion, an ox, and an eagle. I've thought about this from time to time but never really got anywhere because I could find no compelling reason to map either the lion or the ox to either the jackal or the baboon. Now, though, I think I've found a solution.

I have discussed the Four Living Creatures in great detail in my 2018 post "The Throne and the World." I argue that for Ezekiel, an Israelite living in Babylon and thus familiar with astrology, the set of four creatures "very like symbolizes, by means of four representative members, both the twelve tribes of Israel and the twelve signs of the zodiac."

Both the tribes of Israel and the sons of Horus are associated with the points of the compass, but not in ways that can easily be reconciled. This diagram shows the orientation of the creatures in Ezekiel and of the corresponding tribes in Numbers.

And here, from Wikipedia. are the attributes of the sons of Horus:

The two systems agree in putting the man in the south, but the eagle is in the north while the falcon is in the west. Fortunately, there is another arrangement of the Four Living Creatures -- the astrological one, seen in the Apocalypse and in the Tarot.

Note that in the astrological system, the eagle corresponds to Scorpio. Note also that the tutelary deity associated with Qebehsenuef, the falcon-headed son of Horus, is Serket -- the scorpion goddess!

If we map Scorpio (eagle) to the west, then Aquarius (man) would be in the south, which is just where the human-headed son of Horus is. Plugging the remaining sons of Horus into this system gives us the maps Taurus to the east and thus to the jackal-headed Duamutef; and Leo to the north and to the baboon-headed Hapi.

But beyond this astrological schema, what does a jackal have to do with a bull, or a baboon with a lion? Well, one of the things I discovered while writing "The Throne and the World" is that the Four Living Creatures are associated with the rainbow in both Ezekiel and Revelation, and that this (I hypothesize) is because they represent the four categories of creatures to whom God gave the rainbow promise.

And God spake unto Noah, and to his sons with him, saying, And I, behold, I establish my covenant with you, and with your seed after you [humans]; And with every living creature that is with you, of the fowl [birds], of the cattle [domestic animals], and of every beast of the earth [wild animals] with you; from all that go out of the ark, to every beast of the earth. And I will establish my covenant with you; neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth. And God said, This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations: I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth (Genesis 9:8-13).

Of the biblical Living Creatures, the ox represents domestic animals, and the lion represents wild animals. But the domestic animal par excellence, the very first species to be tamed, is the dog. Duamutef is sometimes described as "dog-headed" rather than "jackal-headed." The baboon on the other hand is as thoroughly wild as the lion.

This was immediately confirmed by the synchronicity fairies. Less than an hour after I had made the connection, I happened to see this on a vocabulary test.

The missing word for Question 18 is of course wild, confirming that monkeys (including baboons) are quintessentially wild animals.

Notice that when I snapped a photo of the test question and cropped it, I included (for no particular reason) Question 17 as well, about Meghan Markle marrying into the royal family. This later became synchronistically relevant.

In a comment on "Further syncs related to my Kanye dream and Facsimile 1," Debbie linked to a YouTube clip of a commercial that had aired just after JFK's assassination was announced. This was from an account called mkultrasound723, a name which caught my attention because my post had made repeated reference to an article about MK Ultra. This led me to another video posted by the same account, a very long (3-hour) conspiracy/synchromysticism video by Alan Abbadessa called "Hindsight 2020." I ended up watching the whole thing.

The video refers several times to The Lion King, and particularly the famous scene where the mandrill (basically a baboon) holds up the lion cub, and to the weddings of Princes William and Harry. What really got my attention, though, was a reference (here) to an alchemical document called The New Pearl of Great Price. My interest in the sons of Horus of course comes via Joseph Smith's "Facsimiles from the Book of Abraham," which he published as part of a book called The Pearl of Great Price. The video shows several images from The New Pearl of Great Price, most of which feature coffins, as in my Kanye dream.

Friday, November 26, 2021

Just a random coincidence

I happened to teach these two pages (from two different books, for two different classes) on the same day.

One book uses the sentence "They eat meat every day" in a subject-verb agreement exercise. The other uses "We like to eat meat every meal" because it contains many instances of the "long e" sound.

Just after taking a photo to document this coincidence, I turned on my app that reads the Bible to me aloud. It read me a passage about eating meat.

And, thou son of man, thus saith the Lord God; Speak unto every feathered fowl, and to every beast of the field, Assemble yourselves, and come; gather yourselves on every side to my sacrifice that I do sacrifice for you, even a great sacrifice upon the mountains of Israel, that ye may eat flesh, and drink blood.

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

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 ye shall be filled at my table with horses and chariots, with mighty men, and with all men of war, saith the Lord God (Ezekiel 39:17-20).

Sunday, August 15, 2021

One beast becomes four, and four become one

In Ezekiel 1, the prophet sees strange hybrid "living creatures" that are part man, part lion, part ox, and part eagle.

And this was their appearance; they had the likeness of a man. And every one had four faces, and every one had four wings. And their feet were straight feet; and the sole of their feet was like the sole of a calf's foot . . . And they had the hands of a man under their wings on their four sides; . . . As for the likeness of their faces, they four had the face of a man, and the face of a lion, on the right side: and they four had the face of an ox on the left side; they four also had the face of an eagle (Ezek. 1:5-10).

John of Patmos separates these chimaeras into four separate creatures.

And round about the throne, were four beasts full of eyes before and behind. And the first beast was like a lion, and the second beast like a calf, and the third beast had a face as a man, and the fourth beast was like a flying eagle (Rev. 4:6-7).

In Daniel 7, the prophet has a dream of four separate beasts.

I saw in my vision by night, and, behold, the four winds of the heaven strove upon the great sea. And four great beasts came up from the sea, diverse one from another.

The first was like a lion . . . . And behold another beast, a second, like to a bear . . . . After this I beheld, and lo another, like a leopard, which . . . had also four heads . . . . After this I saw in the night visions, and behold a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly; . . . and it had ten horns (Dan 7:2-7).

Daniel's four beasts have among them a total of seven heads and ten horns. John of Patmos combines them into one.

And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy. And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion (Rev. 13:1-2).

In the Old Testament, the cherubim are monstrous hybrids, while the pagan kingdoms are individual creatures, "diverse one from another." In the Apocalypse, this is reversed: Each cherub has its own distinct character, while the pagan kingdoms have been amalgamated into a single grotesque Beast.

Monday, January 20, 2020

Ezekiel's Messiah

Niels Larsen Stevns, The Good Shepherd

Here are the two Messianic passages in the Book of Ezekiel.

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Ezekiel 34:22-31

[22] Therefore will I save my flock, and they shall no more be a prey; and I will judge between cattle and cattle. [23] And I will set up one shepherd over them, and he shall feed them, even my servant David; he shall feed them, and he shall be their shepherd. [24] And I the Lord will be their God, and my servant David a prince among them; I the Lord have spoken it.

This future David can only be the Messiah. Notice the shepherd imagery, later appropriated by Jesus. Calling himself the "good shepherd" was perhaps an indirect way of claiming to be the Davidic Messiah written of by Ezekiel.

[25] And I will make with them a covenant of peace, and will cause the evil beasts to cease out of the land: and they shall dwell safely in the wilderness, and sleep in the woods.

This recalls Isaiah's prophecy that even beasts of prey will become peaceful.

[26] And I will make them and the places round about my hill a blessing; and I will cause the shower to come down in his season; there shall be showers of blessing. [27] And the tree of the field shall yield her fruit, and the earth shall yield her increase, and they shall be safe in their land, and shall know that I am the Lord, when I have broken the bands of their yoke, and delivered them out of the hand of those that served themselves of them.

The Messiah brings material (or perhaps metaphorical?) safety and prosperity.

[28] And they shall no more be a prey to the heathen, neither shall the beast of the land devour them; but they shall dwell safely, and none shall make them afraid. [29] And I will raise up for them a plant of renown, and they shall be no more consumed with hunger in the land, neither bear the shame of the heathen any more.

This suggests that the "evil beasts" spoken of before are not literal animals but refer to "the heathen." (Cf. Daniel's prophecies, in which various heathen kingdoms are represented as lions, leopards, bears, etc.)

[30] Thus shall they know that I the Lord their God am with them, and that they, even the house of Israel, are my people, saith the Lord God. [31] And ye my flock, the flock of my pasture, are men, and I am your God, saith the Lord God.

The meaning of the Messiah is that Israel is God's people and is under his protection. There is no hint of the Messiah's being a savior of the world, only of Israel.

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Ezekiel 37:21-28

[21] And say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I will take the children of Israel from among the heathen, whither they be gone, and will gather them on every side, and bring them into their own land: [22] And I will make them one nation in the land upon the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be king to them all: and they shall be no more two nations, neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more at all:

The northern kingdom of Israel (destroyed and scattered long before Ezekiel's time) and the southern kingdom of Judah (in exile in Babylon when this prophecy was written) will be restored to their ancestral homeland, and they will once more be a single united kingdom, as they were under Saul, David, and Solomon.

[23] Neither shall they defile themselves any more with their idols, nor with their detestable things, nor with any of their transgressions: but I will save them out of all their dwellingplaces, wherein they have sinned, and will cleanse them: so shall they be my people, and I will be their God.

As in other prophecies, the return to Canaan is associated with a return to true religion. "Let me people go that they may serve me." This is so far the first Messianic prophecy that explicitly associates the Messiah's work with being cleansed of sin.

[24] And David my servant shall be king over them; and they all shall have one shepherd: they shall also walk in my judgments, and observe my statutes, and do them. [25] And they shall dwell in the land that I have given unto Jacob my servant, wherein your fathers have dwelt; and they shall dwell therein, even they, and their children, and their children’s children for ever: and my servant David shall be their prince for ever.

People would have understood Jesus to be alluding to this prophecy when he said, "And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd" (John 10:16). To anyone familiar with Ezekiel, this would be taken as an allusion to the Messiah gathering the Lost Tribes back to Israel, there to rule over them on David's throne.

"My servant David shall be their prince for ever" could be interpreted as a literal return of David, presumably as an immortal resurrected being, but it seems more likely that is a metaphorical reference either to the Messiah (the second David) or to the Davidic dynasty which the Messiah was to restore.

[26] Moreover I will make a covenant of peace with them; it shall be an everlasting covenant with them: and I will place them, and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in the midst of them for evermore. [27] My tabernacle also shall be with them: yea, I will be their God, and they shall be my people. [28] And the heathen shall know that I the Lord do sanctify Israel, when my sanctuary shall be in the midst of them for evermore.

As both a second Moses and a second David, the Messiah will restore both the tabernacle of Moses and the temple of Solomon (built under Solomon but first conceived by his father David, as recorded in 2 Samuel 7). Again, the Messiah saves Israel specifically, not the world. The end result of the Messiah's mission will be that the heathen will recognize that Israel is a special nation under the special patronage of God.

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Applicability to Jesus

These prophecies pose special problems in connection with Jesus. On the one hand, Jesus seems to have alluded directly to these specific prophecies and to have cast himself in the role of the Davidic shepherd. On the other hand, the content is typically Messianic — all about reuniting and restoring the kingdom of Israel, with few discernible references to anything Jesus actually did. I feel quite confident in stating that Ezekiel’s prophecies are not based on any specific foreknowledge of Jesus or his work. I say this not because I dismiss the idea of prophecy a priori but because — well, just look at the content! It just isn’t about Jesus.

Nevertheless, Jesus strongly implied that it was about him. Why did he do that, and what did he mean by it? But I shall defer tackling that big question until after I have completed my survey of Messianic prophecies.