This week we got waaaaay too aggressive in studying Revelation, and for that I apologize. But I wanted to try to develop a systematic approach for your private reading of this incredible book. I hope there was some good in what we did, though I recognize several were overwhelmed at how fast and how much we were covering. Point taken...
But I'd like to hit one point we glossed over, and that's numbers. As such, this week's afterWORD is dam. Not like beaver's build. It is the Hebrew word for "blood." In numerology it is represented by the number 44.
We were talking about blood moons (full lunar eclipse that is aligned exactly such that red light from the sun bends around the earth and makes the moon look blood red). Specifically a tetrad, which is four consecutive blood moons. In this case, we're specifically talking about a tetrad that exactly falls on Jewish feast days. In just about a month, we'll have the fourth blood moon of the current tetrad falling on feast days, and it's only the fourth to have occurred in the last 500 years (only 10 since 1AD). Even more specifically, in the middle of the four blood moons was a full solar eclipse.
So the word "dam" means "blood" and numerically equals 44 through a millenial old system equating letters with numbers. The third of the fourth blood moons occured on 4/4 (Passover) and was the shortest full eclipse expected in the entire 21st century. Guess how long it lasted...yep, 4 minutes 44 seconds.
That's 4/4 4:44 of the "44" moon. Let's not go down the path of "moon," but suffice to say it's got more to it, too. Crazy stuff.
The next blood moon occurs September 28th, 2015, also falling on a high day, Sukkot, or Feast of Tabernacles. It's always interesting to consider blood with the Passover, spreading the blood of the lamb on the doorposts (also having to do with 4). And of course, the crucifixion that occurred on Passover when Christ the Lamb of God was sacrificed to take away the sin of the world.
For those who missed, the three previous tetrads of this nature occurred:
1492--Spanish Inquisition, persecution of the Jews (some escape to the Americas with Christopher Columbus on his second voyage)
1948--establishment of the Jewish state
1967--reunification of Jerusalem under Israeli rule for the first time since 70AD. (6 day war)
Next word. "A-dam". Isaiah talks of the Messiah as the second Adam or Son of Man, and rabbinical tradition says the only thing that can save man is "44 plus one" or through blood of a "man" plus one, the Messiah. "dam" plus "a" or aleph, numerically the first letter of the alphabet, is A-dam. This is in Isaiah, but we'll recognize it more clearly where Romans 5 describes Jesus as the second Adam, as one man sin entered the world, so through the One Man death might be defeated.
What is the tie? Some say that 44 is relevant in that if you put Israel's number of kings (including Absalom unseating David and David returning), you get 44. Similarly there have been 44 presidents...Some say the 44th president will spell disaster (or "blood") to Israel and 44 plus one will bring Israel's greatest triumph.
Whatever the case, numbers mean a lot in the scripture. Here are a couple just to toy with:
Genesis 1
1 There are 7 words
2 There are 28 letters = 7 x 4
3 The sentence divides into 2 equal halves.
The first 3 words contain 14 letters = 7 x 2
The second 3 contain 14 letters = 7 x 2
4 The second half divides into 2 equal halves
“The heavens” contains 7 letters
“And the earth” contains 7 letters
5 The 3 nouns God, heavens, earth have 14 letters = 7 x 2
6 The numeric value of the 3 nouns is 777 = 7 x 111
7 The numeric value of the verb created = 203 = 7 x 29
8 The middle word and the word after it contain 7 letters
9 The middle word and the word before it contain 7 letters
10 The value of the first and last letters of the first half = 42 = 7 x 6
11 The value of the first and last letters of the last half = 91 = 7 x 13
12 The value of the first and last letters of all the words taken together = 1393 = 7 x 199
13 The value of the first and last letters of the first and last words only = 497 = 7 x 71
14 The numeric value of the 1st letter of the first and last words is 7 = 7 x 1
15 The numeric value of the last letters of the 1st and last words = 490 = 7 x 70 = 7 x 7 x 10
So there are 15 features of 7 in a single sentence.
(I'll spare you the primes and triangular numbers).
