Hidden Treasures in the Bible

 

The most knowledgeable speaker I’ve heard, the late Dr. Chuck Missler, has found hidden treasures in the Bible. Let’s see how many of his treasures we can summarize in this short paper:

1.     He begins by quoting Proverbs 25:2:

It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, But the glory of kings is to search out a matter. Then he tells a riddle: Most of us know that the oldest man in the Bible is Methuselah, who lived 969 years. But did you know that he died before his father? What…how is that possible, you say? His father was Enoch, a mysterious man about whom little was written in Scripture. Genesis 5 says at age 65, he fathered Methuselah, and began walking with God. He lived like this for three hundred more years, then “God took him.” Enoch was whipped up to heaven, so he did not die. But the point of Dr. Missler’s tale really is, the name Enoch originally gave to his son. God evidently told him before his son’s birth that in the day his son died, all of mankind would be wiped out. (He must have been nervous later if his son even caught a cold.) So the name he gave to his son was prophetic; Methuselah means, per Dr. Henry Morris, “when he dies, judgment.” But other experts say it means, “when he is dead, it shall be sent,” with a foreboding about the “it.” So the meanings are essentially saying the same thing: The year Methuselah dies would be the end of mankind—except, as it turned out, 8 righteous people including Noah, the Ark-maker, who was, as it turned out, Methuselah’s son.  God commissioned him to build the Ark, and he evangelized, telling everyone about a coming Flood that told people “Get right with God” lest you die. Along with preaching about the meaning about the Ark, everyone knew what Methuselah meant, so both men were an effective warning to everyone about coming judgment.  But people didn’t. Considering the wickedness of man expressed in Genesis 6, it was an act of mercy that God withheld judgment, waiting for the longest-living man on the face of the earth to finally die. The act of judgment, while necessary, was not a favorite of His.

 

2.     The rest of Genesis 5 seems to be a boring genealogy of 10 guys who fathered one another in succession, but Dr. Missler believes that every Word in the Bible, despite how boring it appears, has meaning—and a potential Treasure. It helps to arrive at this Treasure if we know that in the Hebrew language, all names have specific meanings, based on the letters’ meanings in the name. So here we go with a secret meaning behind each of their 10 names:

 

Adam means “man.” Seth means “appointed.” (From him would come the lineage that produced Jesus on earth. Eve was constantly looking forward to a Redeemer for her sin, so each child she had, she hoped would be the Redeemer. Genesis 4:25 says: And Adam knew his wife again, and she bore a son and named him Seth, “For God has appointed another seed for me instead of Abel, whom Cain killed.”) Then comes Enosh, which means “mortal” or “frail.” (Maybe he was underweight, or having colic.) Then comes Kenan, which means “sorrow” or “dirge.” Then comes Mahalalel, which means “the blessed God.” Then comes Yared or Jared, a verb meaning “shall come down.” Then Enoch, which means “commencement” or “teaching.”  Then Methuselah, which means “his death shall bring (or send forth).” Then Lamech, which means “despairing.” Then finally Noah, which means “to bring relief, or comfort.” (See Genesis 5:29).

Now comes the Treasure. Tying the names, in succession, you get

      Man (is) appointed mortal sorrow; (but) the Blessed God shall come down teaching (H)is death shall bring the despairing comfort. Whose death? Jesus.

Do you see a Gospel presentation in there? Jesus’ death for our sins paves the way to reconciling with God; and gives those who despaired the loss of heaven, comfort, or relief that the way to heaven is restored. These names were put together by prediluvian parents, who knew nothing about how a Redeemer’s death could get them access to heaven. Miraculously, this is the way that God arranged this Gospel message early in Genesis. Any Jew who knows Hebrew could easily see it. God is a Master of foreknowledge! Praise Him. God planned on giving the life of His only Son, Jesus, before the foundation of the earth.

As St. Augustine said, “The New Testament is in the Old Testament concealed; the Old Testament is in the New Testament revealed.”

 

3.     When did the Flood end? This raises another treasure. Genesis 8:4 says:

Then the ark rested in the seventh month, the seventeenth day of the month, on the mountains of Ararat.

Knowing that the Holy Spirit inspired the writer to put every word of that phase deliberately, we ask: How is that date important? Who cares what date the Ark stopped swaying? Well, the Jews had two calendars: the civil calendar (such as the Genesis 8 quote above), in which the year begins in Rosh Hoshana, in the Fall.  But the Religious calendar was introduced at the first Passover in Exodus. There, God directed that the year begins in the month Nisan—in the Spring (Exodus 12:2). The Religious calendar came about this way: God instructed, when He wanted His people to be rescued from Egyptian slavery, that He would do the final plague, killing the firstborn among the Egyptians. He told the Jews ahead of time to put blood on their side posts and top post of the door. So the angel of death passed over the believing Jews, and they would not die. Passover was always to be celebrated on the 14^th day of Nisan. Doing the blood of an innocent lamb was key to life. So even today, in Orthodox Judaism, that day is when they celebrate Passover. It happens that Nisan is the 7^th month on the civil calendar—now note the Scripture above; the Ark landed in the 7^th month. Since Genesis 8 is quoting from the civil calendar (since Passover hadn’t occurred yet), it so happens that it is referring to the 17^th day of Nisan—i.e., 3 days past what would become Passover. Here’s where the good stuff comes in. Jesus was crucified on Passover, the 14^th of Nisan, centuries later. God arranged that date, as an exact anniversary of the early Passover, when He gave His people freedom. How long was Jesus in the grave? Three days past Passover--on the 17^th day of Nisan (I don’t believe it was a “Friday crucifixion-Sunday resurrection” deal—that’s two days). Here’s the Treasure: The Ark finally resting on Ararat suggests that Noah’s “new beginning” on Planet Earth was a prophecy of Our New Beginning in Christ, at His resurrection—which both happened on the same day. At His resurrection, He conquered death, the same idea as God passed over the believing Jews in Exodus. And we, too, if we are true believers, will conquer death as well, with our own resurrection.

 

4.     Numbers 21:5-6:

…the people spoke against God and against Moses: “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and our soul loathes this worthless bread.” ⁶ So the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and many of the people of Israel died. An aside: The serpents were called “fiery” because their bites’ poison felt like fire because it burned. What was God’s solution? Numbers 21:8-9a:

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole; and it shall be that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it shall live.” ⁹ So Moses made a bronze serpent…

What’s strange here is that serpents are normally symbols of evil. So why would God recommend it as a benefit—a healing? If they look up to the top of the hill, and behold the serpent, they live. This is another prophetic “type.”  Yet it is not explained in the Old Testament. You have to catch it in Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus in John 3:14-16:

…as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, ¹⁵ that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. ¹⁶ For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

Jesus would be “lifted up” refers to His crucifixion. His healing true believers would be a better healing than Moses—it would be eternal life. If we “look up,” and believe in His substitutionary sacrifice, we are healed from our sin.

 

5.     Paul, in I Corinthians 15:3-4:

For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins…⁴ and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures…

It’s easy, when you’re speaking of Christ, to think New Testament. But when Paul wrote this, there was no New Testament written. “According to the Scriptures” meant the Old Testament prophecies. Let’s look at the Old Testament prophecies that Jesus would be in the grave three days. Paul spoke about them.  What proof of His three days in the grave is in the Old Testament? Well, of course, the easy one is the Big fish that swallowed Jonah. Jesus alludes to it in Matthew 12:40:

For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

 

It’s less likely that you know the other two references. You have to know Hebrew for our second proof. It’s called “Rahab’s Cord.” Rahab was a Canaanite prostitute who lived on the wall of Jericho (she is also in the lineage of Jesus (Matthew 1:5), having married a Jewish man, and she was a believer, and the mother of Boaz—see the romantic story of Ruth). She believed that the Jewish God was the only God. She is anxious to keep the Jewish spies from harm when they need to get back to their camp at night.  (They were sent to scope out the enemy city they planned on attacking.) Here is Joshua 2:15-17:

Then she let them down by a cord through the window: for her house was upon the town wall, and she dwelt upon the wall. ¹⁶ And she said to them, “Get to the mountain, lest the pursuers meet you. Hide there three days, until the pursuers have returned. Afterward you may go your way.” ¹⁷ So the (Jewish spies) said to her: “…you bind this line of scarlet cord in the window through which you let us down…

Their purpose at the end of the quote, in suggesting she display the scarlet cord, was so her family would not be killed like all the other Canaanites. Upon some digging in Hebrew, you find that each word translated “cord” is different, and each has an alternative meaning. When the “cord” is used to help the spies to escape, the Hebrew word used, chebel, means “cord”—but it has a second meaning: pain, sorrow, or travail. When a scarlet cord is to keep her from being killed as an enemy, the Hebrew word translated “cord” is tiqvah. That has a second meaning too: hope, or expectation. So the Treasure is, when Jesus is crucified, it was pain, sorrow, and travail. The Kingdom was surely lost, it seemed. But when He was resurrected, it was for our hope, and expectation of heaven. How long was He in the grave in between, for things to turn around so much? In verse 16 is the answer, “three days.”

6.      The next “three days” in the Old Testament I loved so much, that I gave it a number by itself. It begins with Psalm 22, which many know as a prophecy of what Jesus experienced in the crucifixion. It was amazing that David entered these lines, since the crucifixion was not “invented” until many hundreds of years later. But the Holy Spirit was again God-breathing. In verse 1, it begins:

My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?--which was a direct quote from Jesus’ lips a thousand years later. Verses 7 and 8 and 18 were an exact prophecy of what the onlookers at the crucifixion were doing at the time, sneering Him. In verses 14-17, on the other hand:

I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint: my heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels. ¹⁵ My strength is dried up like a potsherd; and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws; and thou hast brought me into the dust of death. ¹⁶ ...the assembly of the wicked have enclosed me: they pierced my hands and my feet. ¹⁷ I may tell all my bones: they look and stare upon me.

There you see exactly what happens to the body during crucifixion; any doctor can verify that. Note particularly “they pierced my hands and my feet.” His nudity is reflected in 17.

          But, among all that, is an odd verse, 6a. It goes like this:

But I am a worm, and no man…Since all this psalm prophesies the crucifixion, one could say that Jesus is merely reflecting on the views of His audience (I hate to use that word, but some people “get off” on torture such as that, so it is a “performance” to many deviant, or demonic-minded.) But Dr. Missler has found a Treasure that is uplifting. The word translated “worm” is not just any worm. This particular worm is called tolah, which has a second meaning, “scarlet.” This meaning comes from the life and death of the worm that was later harvested for scarlet dye. The worm begins its life cycle by piercing the thin bark of twigs to suck the sap—by which it can then prepare a waxy scale to protect its soft body. (The red dye is from this scale). More important for us, though, are the following: When reproducing, the female climbs a tree where it bears its eggs. The larvae hatch and feed on the body of the mother worm. Thus the worm gives its life. Here we come for the Treasure. A crimson spot is what’s left on the branch, of the mother giving her life. When the scarlet spot dries out, it changes to white as it flakes off. Guess how long that last process takes—three days! We sink to our knees and praise God as we remember the Scripture in Isaiah 1:18:

Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool

I saved this one for last. When God freed the Jews from their Egyptian slave masters through the plagues, He also wanted to give them Laws to live by. He does that in Exodus and Leviticus--including the Ten Commandments and lots of other laws. So They don’t actually begin moving across the wilderness, toward the Promised Land, until the book of Numbers.  There, God gave them strict “marching orders” on how they were to travel, so they weren’t a mob--with the fast guys in front, prodding the women and children and disabled dragging in the rear.  He grouped them in a particular way. So in Numbers 1, the first thing they were to do, was take a census of each tribe’s numbers of men over 20 years old.  In verse 21, for example, the tribe of Reuben had 46,500 men. In verse 23, Simeon had 59,300. And so on, through all 12 tribes; all were listed with their number. The tribe of Levites were in the center. (All of this would seem boring and insubstantial—but leave it to the digger, Dr. Missler, to come up with a precious Treasure.) Then God grouped three tribes together, under a standard. One standard, with its 3 tribes, was always to stay exactly East of the Levites while they traveled. Another 3 tribes were in a standard West of the Levites, and so on through the four points of the compass, taking in all 12 tribes, with the Levites in the center. They were not allowed to expand their boundaries of walking—all of them had to keep inside the width of the Levites. So you end up with three tribes in each group, walking exactly North, East, south, and west of the Levites. As Numbers 2:3-9 explains, the three tribes in the Judah standard were east of the Levites. That standard included the tribe of Judah, 74,600 men; Issachar, 54,400 men; and the tribe of Zebulon, with 57,400 men. (These were also descendants of Leah, a wife of Jacob). The total under that standard was 186,400 men east of the Levites. And so on, adding the numbers in each standard. No fair for anyone drifting and traveling southwest-of-Levites, or northwest, only clustering in the four spokes. I have below constructed a crude map of the people in travel (Sorry, it is not centralized. Dan and Reuben are supposed to be the same width).

EPHRAIM

108,500

WEST

REUBEN

LEVITES

DAN

151,450

22000

157,600

SOUTH

NORTH

EAST

186,400 JUDAH

 

You can guess at the Treasure; the Jews were traveling in a CROSS formation. This is a perfect illustration (like all of those above) of how the writer, in this case, Moses, had no clue of the secondary purpose of what he is writing. He MUST have been listening to every word—perhaps every letter--given by the Holy Spirit, that’s all there is to it. This writing is supernatural. This is the formation that Balaam, whose fascinating story begins in Numbers 22, was fighting when Balak told him to curse the Jews from the tops of hills as they traveled. Can you be cursed when you are covered by the cross? No way. I imagine how impressive would be the scene at night, with everyone with torches, and how the lit cross looked, moving slowly across enemy territory. But then I remembered, whoops, forget it, they were lit by a pillar of fire if they traveled by night.

I hope you agree, these Treasures are as good as it gets, and I wish Dr. Missler hadn’t died—he might have found new treasures and shared them with us. Well, in heaven he will find how exquisite it can get for finding treasures. Jesus might show him a few that he missed. Thank God for the treasure of heaven that awaits us for those who look forward to His appearing