Читать книгу Secret References to Christ In the Old testament Scriptures - Kenneth B. Alexander - Страница 10

Moses was the deliverer, leader, lawgiver, and prophet of Israel. He was the greatest man of God in the earth until Christ. The name in Heb. is mōsheh (“drawn out”), but the original is Egyptian ms˒, a “child,” a “son,” reflecting that Pharaoh’s daughter simply named him “child” (cf. Thutmose, Ahmose, etc., in which the same element appears frequently in Egyptian names). Thutmose=“Son of Thot,” etc. Moses belonged to the tribe of Levi, and was the son of Amram by his wife Jochebed. The other members of the family were Aaron and Miriam, his elder brother and sister. The life of Moses is divided into three equal portions of forty years each (Acts 7:23, 30, 36): his life in Egypt, exile in Arabia, and government of Israel. The books of Moses are full of references to Christ. The book contains no direct prophecies, but it is full of previews or pictures called types. Typology is the study of these fore glimpses of Christ and the Christian age. Persons, places, objects and even events can be typical of New Testament realities. A type is more than just an analogy between something in the Old Testament and something in the New. A type was created by God with the intention of foreshadowing the coming age. Without revelation the certain identification of types is impossible. In other words, only those persons, places, objects or events of the Old Testament, which are identified as types in the New Testament, can strictly speaking be classified as such. Some of the more outstanding types referred to are the following:

1. Aaron, or at least the office of high priest which he occupied. The writer of Hebrews repeatedly refers to the ministry of Aaron and the more glorious ministry of the Christian high priest Jesus Christ.

2. Paul saw the crossing of the Red Sea as a type of baptism in 1 Corinthians 10:2.

3. The Passover lamb clearly depicted the Lamb of God. Paul declared that Christ is the Christian’s Passover (1 Cor 5:7).

4. The wilderness manna was typical of the bread from heaven which Jesus declared himself to be (John 6:48–51).

5. The rock from which water sprang forth pointed forward to the water of life supplied by Christ (1 Cor 10:4).

6. The grand type in Exodus is the Tabernacle which Israel constructed at Sinai. While some have carried the typology of the Tabernacle to extremes, the New Testament does make clear that certain aspects of this structure were typical. These are:

1. The bronze altar. Hebrews declares that Christ is the Christian’s altar (Heb 13:10).

2. The bronze laver is used in Titus 3:5 to portray baptism.

3. The incense altar points to the prayers of the saints of God (Rev 8:3–4).

4. The golden lampstand points to Christ the light of the world, and to the Christians who reflect that light.

5. The table of showbread seems to be a type of Christ, the bread of life, and of the Lord’s table which commemorates the body and blood of the Lord (1 Cor 10:21).

6. The holy of holies was a picture of heaven into which the Christian’s high priest, Jesus, has entered upon his ministry (Heb 9:24; 10:34) (typology from Smith, J. E. (1993). The Pentateuch (2nd ed.).

As we have previously noted through the efforts of Joseph the small band of Israelites. Then consisting only of Jacob, his sons and their families and servants and maids were given use of a fertile piece of land in Goshen, Egypt, through the generosity of the Pharaoh at that time. They were to remain there for 430 years. However in the later part of that period Egypt began to fear Israel, who had grown in numbers into a nation. They feared Israel might turn on them. So they made them slaves building various types of structures for the Egyptians. It was at that time they began to cry out to God who heard them and sent a deliverer--Moses.

The sons of Israel had been fruitful in Egypt and increased greatly, and multiplied, and became exceedingly mighty, so that the land was filled with them. But a new generations of Kings arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. The Pharaoh said to his people, “Behold, the people of the sons of Israel are more and mightier than we. “Come, let us deal wisely with them, or else they will multiply and in the event of war, they will also join themselves to those who hate us, and fight against us and depart from the land.”So they appointed taskmasters over them to afflict them with hard labor. And they built for Pharaoh  storage cities, Pithom and Raamses. But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and the more they spread out, so that they were in dread of the sons of Israel” (Exodus 1:8-12).

So fearing the Israelites the Pharaoh ordered all the first born boys to be killed. Note the similarity to Christ’s birth wherein King Herod ordered all the first born in Bethlehem to be killed as he feared a King had been born who would take his thrown (known as the “slaughter of the innocents”). However jesus escaped this fate when taken to Egypt until Herod died. Moses Mother, unable to hide her new born Moses, got a  wicker basket and covered it over with tar and pitch. Then she put the child into it and set it among the reeds by the bank of the Nile. By chance (divine intention) the daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the Nile and she saw the basket among the reeds and sent her maid, and she brought it to her. When she opened it, she saw the child, and behold, the boy was crying. And she had pity on him and said, “This is one of the Hebrews’ children.” She gave the baby back to his mother to nurse for a time then took the child for her own. The child grew, and she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter and he became her son. And she named him Moses, [Heb Mosheh, from mashah] and said, “Because I drew him out of the water” (Exodus 2:1-10).

When Moses had grown up, he went out to his Israelite brethren and looked on their hard labors; and he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew. So he struck down and killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. When he discovered that the murder had became known he fled as the Pharaoh sought to kill him. He fled into Midian in the desert. Moses was about 40 at this time so he had been born and raised an Egyptian and knew their ways (Ex 2:11-15). Moses found favor with a Midianite tribe and married the chief’s daughter Zipporah. He had a son Gershon and stayed with his father-in-law and the Midianites for 40 years tending their sheep.

“Now it came about in the course of those many days that the king of Egypt died. And the sons of Israel sighed because of the bondage, and they cried out; and their cry for help because of their bondage rose up to God. So God heard their groaning; and God remembered  His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God saw the sons of Israel, and God took notice of them” (Ex 2:23-25).

“Now Moses was pasturing the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian; and he led the flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God (the same mountain from which he was later to give the Law, also called Mt. Sinai). The angel of the Lord appeared to him in a blazing fire from the midst of a bush; and he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, yet the bush was not consumed” The Angel of the Lord (v. 4) was the Lord (cf. Gen. 16:9). Fire was a symbol of God’s presence, seen later when He descended upon Mount Sinai (Ex. 19:18). “God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am….”He said also, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” Then Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God. The Lord said, “I have surely seen the affliction of My people who are in Egypt, and have given heed to their cry because of their taskmasters, for I am aware of their sufferings. “So I have come down to deliver them from the power of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land to a good and spacious land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanite and the Hittite and the Amorite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite”.

The Canaanite tribes listed above are all listed in Genesis 10:15-18 except the Perizzites, who along with several other peoples descended from Canaan, son of Ham and grandson of Noah. God said to Moses: “Now, behold, the cry of the sons of Israel has come to Me; furthermore, I have seen the oppression with which the Egyptians are oppressing them” “Therefore, come now, and I will send you to Pharaoh, so that you may bring My people, the sons of Israel, out of Egypt” (Ex 3:1-10). This later became a common theme in Israel and Judah. Trouble would arise and God would send a deliverer. Jesus Christ was the ultimate deliverer.

Hereafter Moses begins his excuses as to why he could not go. But God confirmed he would be with him and sent an unusual sign as conformation. “But Moses said to God, “Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the sons of Israel out of Egypt?” The Lord answered: “Certainly I will be with you, and this shall be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God at this mountain [Horeb, Sinai].” The unusual sign was that after Moses had delivered the Israelites his sign would be that they would worship at the very mountain upon which he was standing. The sign is unusual in that Moses was concerned whether he could even deliver the Israelites at all but God ignored that and placed a sign that would occur after the Israelites were delivered

Then Moses said to God, “Behold, I am going to the sons of Israel, and I will say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you.’ Now they may say to me, ‘What is His name?’ What shall I say to them?” God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM”; [the name of God, YHWH, rendered Lord, which is derived from the verb HAYAH, to be] and He said, “Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, ‘I AM [YHWH] has sent me to you.’ ” God, furthermore, said to Moses, “Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is My name forever, and this is My memorial-name to all generations. “Go and  gather the elders of Israel together and say to them, ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, has appeared to me, saying, “I am indeed concerned about you and what has been done to you in Egypt. “So I said, I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt to the land of the Canaanite and the Hittite and the Amorite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite, to a land flowing with milk and honey” (Ex 3:11-21).

YHWH was the most important name for God in the OT, which occurs about 6,800 times, usually pronounced Yahweh. The Hebrews had no vowels in their alphabet so the modern translation used is ‘Yahweh,’ though the known pronunciation was lost in the postexilic period. Due to the increasing sanctity attached to the name and the consequential desire to avoid misuse by the Jews YHWH, the pronunciation, was prohibited in Jewish culture. The title Adonai (Heb., ‘My Great Lord’) was pronounced in place of the tetragrammaton YHWH to avoid use of the true Most Holy name. God’s name YHWH (I AM that I AM ) was the true Hebrew name of God. In written texts the vowels of Adonai were combined with the consonants YHWH to remind readers to pronounce Adonai instead of Yahweh. The incorrect hybrid, ‘Jehovah,’ arose from Christian misunderstanding in the late Middle Ages. The respect for the sanctity of the personal name of God is reflected in modern Judaism. If God has a true name it is this one. It indicates that God is a God of today, right now and is always ready to move to accomplish His will; THE RIGHT NOW GOD.

Moses’ excuses continued. He asked God Then Moses said, “What if they will not believe me or listen to what I say? For they may say, ‘The Lord has not appeared to you“ what if they don’t believe me?“.’ The Lord sent him three signs to perform so that the Israelites wuld believe. The Lord said to him, “What is that in your hand?” And he said, “A staff.” Then He said, “Throw it on the ground.” So he threw it on the ground, and it became a serpent; and Moses fled from it. But the Lord said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand and grasp it by its tail”—so he stretched out his hand and caught it, and it became a staff in his hand——“that they may believe that the Lord, the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has appeared to you.” The Lord furthermore said to him, “Now put your hand into your bosom.” So he put his hand into his bosom, and when he took it out, behold, his hand was leprous like snow. Then He said, “Put your hand into your bosom again.” So he put his hand into his bosom again, and when he took it out of his bosom, behold, it was restored like the rest of his flesh. “If they will not believe you or heed the witness of the first sign, they may believe the witness of the last sign. “But if they will not believe even these two signs or heed what you say, then you shall take some water from the Nile and pour it on the dry ground; and the water which you take from the Nile will become blood on the dry ground.” “that they may believe that  the Lord, the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has appeared to you” (Ex 4:1-9).

Moses’ third excuse: “Then Moses said to the Lord, “Please, Lord, I have never been eloquent, [in speech] neither recently nor in time past, nor since You have spoken to Your servant; for I am slow of speech and slow of tongue.”… Then the anger of the Lord burned against Moses, and He said, “Is there not your brother Aaron the Levite? I know that he speaks fluently…. “You are to speak to him and put the words in his mouth; and I, even I, will be with your mouth and his mouth, and I will teach you what you are to do. “Moreover, he shall speak for you to the people; and he will be as a mouth for you and you will be as God to him (Ex 4:10-17).

There is a bit of irony in all of this. God the Father sent the burning bush to Moses but it was Christ [called the angel of the Lord] who did all of the speaking to Moses. Remember Christ is the logos the Word of God. Now we find Moses was unable to speak correctly so God sends his brother-in-law Aaron to do the speaking for Moses. God through Moses was going to do all the miracles but Aaron was to do the speaking. Here we have a physical manifestation of Christ, centuries before He appeared in human form, but was Christ nevertheless. Now Christ, the Word, was going to speak through Aaron while the Father did His works through Moses. There was never any doubt that Moses was the one who carried the authority but he would speak through an intermediary Aaron.

Aaron said goodbye to Jethro in Midian and the Lord spoke to him: “Now the Lord said to Moses in Midian, “Go back to Egypt, for all the men who were seeking your life are dead.” So Moses took his wife and his sons and mounted them on a donkey, and returned to the land of Egypt. Moses also took the staff of God in his hand. (4:19-22).

So Moses and Aaron confronted the Pharaoh for the first time. “And afterward Moses and Aaron came and said to Pharaoh, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘Let My people go that they may celebrate a feast to Me in the wilderness.’ ” But Pharaoh said, “Who is the Lord that I should obey His voice to let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, and besides, I will not let Israel go.”… Then they said, “The God of the Hebrews has met with us. Please, let us go a three days’ journey into the wilderness that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God, otherwise He will fall upon us with pestilence or with the sword.” But the king of Egypt said to them, “Moses and Aaron, why do you draw the people away from their work? Get back to your labors!” Again Pharaoh said, “Look, the people of the land are now many, and you would have them cease from their labors!” So the same day Pharaoh commanded the taskmasters over the people and their foremen, saying, “You are no longer to give the people straw to make brick as previously; let them go and gather straw for themselves” (Ex 5:1-7). So it seems that Pharaoh made it worse for the Sons of Israel by not giving them straw for their bricks.

Who was the Pharaoh in charge at this time who hardened his heart and would not, at first, let the Israelites go. There is significant scholastic confusion over who the Pharaoh of Egypt was the time of the Exodus. Although the Bible does not specifically name the pharaoh of the Exodus, enough data is supplied for us to be relatively sure who he was. Admittedly, there are two schools of thought concerning the date of the Exodus (i.e., the early date and late date theories). Proponents of the late date theory (1290 B.C.), which would put the Pharaoh as Ramses II. The late date theorists claim that since the Israelites were building a city called Raamses that he must have been Pharaoh at the time. Scriptures say: “And they [the Israelites] built for Pharaoh  storage cities, Pithom and  Raamses” (Exodus 1:11). Late date theorists mistake the storage city of Ramses as the great city of Pi-Ramses (Pi-Ramesses Aa-nakhtu, meaning "House of Ramesses, Great in Victory") was the new capital built by the Nineteenth Dynasty of Egypt Pharaoh Ramesses II (Ramesses the Great). The Bible describes the city being built by the Israeli’s called Raamses as a "store-city". The exact meaning of the Hebrew phrase is not certain, but it does suggest supply depots on or near the frontier. This would be an appropriate description for Pithom (Tel al-Maskhuta) in the 6th century BC, but not for the royal capital in the time of Ramesses, when the nearest frontier was far off in the north of Syria. Hebrews had to labor on Pharaoh’s store-cities Pithom and Ra‘amses on the eve of the Exodus (Ex. 1:11). But these “store cities” were certainly not the glorious city of Pi-Ramesses, which was magnificently built as Egypt’s new Capitol City on or around 1290 B.C.

However modern scholars place the date of the exodus at about 1446 B.C. hundreds of years before Ramses. In I Kings 6:1 the Scriptures say: "And it came to pass in the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of Israel were come out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon's reign over Israel, in the month of Zif, which is the second month that he began to build the house of the Lord.". Scholars have identified the fourth year of Solomon's reign as 966 B.C. (Gleason, A Survey of Old Testamsnt Introduction, 1974, p. 223). Counting backwards from 996 B.C. we find that the Exodus took place in 1445 B.C. Now, if this information is correct, the Exodus occurred in the third year of the reign of the Pharaoh Amenhotep II.

History tells us that for several years after 1445 B.C. Amenhotep II was unable to carry out any invasions or extensive military operations. This would seem like very strange behavior for a Pharaoh who hoped to equal his father's record of no less than seventeen military campaigns in nineteen years. But this is exactly what one would expect from a Pharaoh who had lost almost all his cavalry, chariotry, and army at the Red (Reed) Sea (Exodus 14:23, 27-30).

Furthermore, we learn from the Dream Stela of Thutmose IV, son of Amenhotep II, that he was not the legitimate successor to the throne (J.B. Pritchard (ed.), Ancient Near-Eastern Texts, p. 449). This means that Thutmose IV was not the firstborn son, who would have been the legitimate heir. The firstborn son of Amenhotep II had evidently died prior to taking the throne of Egypt. This would agree with Exodus 12:29 which says the Pharaoh's first-born son was killed during the Passover. Although in a Hollywood sense the Exodus would be more exciting if it occurred during the reign of the Great Ramses, but that is not the case. If the Exodus did take place in 1445 B.C., forty years of wilderness wandering would bring us about to 1400 B.C. for the destruction of Jericho. Interestingly enough, John Garstang, who excavated the site of ancient Jericho, came to the conclusion that the destruction of the city took place around 1400 B.C. (Garstang, The Story of Jericho, 1948, p. 122). He also concluded that the walls of the city toppled outward, which would compare favorably with Joshua 6:20. Amenhotep II was also known as Amenophis II and he was the son of Thutmose III. If Moses led the children of Israel out of Egypt during the reign of Amenophis II, then the main oppressor of Israel would have been his father Thutmose III who was also the greatest conqueror in Egyptian history. His sister Queen Hatshepsut would have rescued Moses and brought him up.

Scholars have been fascinated by a revolutionary religious doctrine which developed shortly after 1445 B.C. that threatened to sweep away Egypt’s polytheistic theological dogmas of centuries. These scholars have credited Amenhotep IV, great grandson of Amenhotep II, with founding the religious concept of Monotheism (the idea that there is only one God). This Pharoh started the cult of Aton [a Sun god] removing all the other polytheistic gods and setting up a monotheistic system where Aton was the only god. But it does not seem unusual that a people who had been so influenced by the one God of Moses would try to worship the one god that had so convincingly defeated their gods. A continually increasing body of evidence indicates that this cult of Aton had its beginning in the reign of Thutmose IV, grandson of Amenhotep II, Pharaoh of the Exodus and that he learned the idea from Moses and the miraculous display put on by God during the Exodus. This monotheism lasted only during the reign of Amenhotep IV because the people of Israel did not like this system of one God. It was his grandson Tutankhamen, the boy King, who returned the people to Egypt’s former polytheistic system. After the Exodus, Egypt would not achieve the place of power she once held (The Bible Knowledge Commentary : An Exposition of the Scriptures).

The Israelite elders were upset at Moses, to say the least. They told him in no uncertain terms, that he had done nothing but make matters worse. “Then Moses returned to the Lord and said, “O Lord, why have You brought harm to this people? Why did You ever send me? “Ever since I came to Pharaoh to speak in Your name, he has done harm to this people, and You have not delivered Your people at all” (5:22-23). The Lord responded to Moses reiterating the Promises that he had already spoke to him that he fully intended to release the Israelites and deliver them to their new home in the Promised Land in Canaan (Exodus 6:1-13).