More Passover meditations—
Leviticus 1:5, Sprinkle. The Heb. word zaraq means “to scatter, sprinkle, toss, throw, scatter abundantly, strew.” The sprinkling of the blood of the sacrificed animal on and around the altar of sacrifice (and elsewhere in the tabernacle as well) is mentioned numerous times in the Torah (e.g. Exod 24:6; 29:16; Lev 1:11; 3:2, 8, 13; 4:6,17; 5:9; 7:2). The blood was even sprinkled on the people (Exod 24:8), and on Aaron and his sons (Exod 29:20–21). This is a prophetic picture of Yeshua bleeding, while dying on the cross and shedding his blood as an atonement for our sins. Yeshua’s sprinkling of his blood on the cross fulfilled the sprinkling of blood under the sacrificial system in the following ways:
On the altar, which is a picture of the cross (Exod 24:6–8).- All around the altar (Exod 29:12–16) including on the earth beneath the altar (Lev 7:2). Yeshua’s blood covered himself and the entire area around
the cross. - On the high priest’s garments (Exod 29:20–21). Yeshua is our Great High Priest who was covered in his own blood during his crucifixion.
- The blood was sprinkled seven times for perfection (Lev 4:6–7). Yeshua bled from seven areas of his body (his head, back, two hands, two feet, and his side).
- At the bottom of the altar (Lev 4:6–7). Yeshua’s blood would have dripped down and pooled at the base of the cross.
- On the side of the altar (Lev 5:9). The cross was entirely covered in blood.
- Sprinkled seven times before the door of the tabernacle (Num 19:4). Yeshua died (probably on the Mount of Olives) on the hill of Golgotha (or Calvary) in view of the temple in Jerusalem just outside the city gates (Heb 13:12).
The Scriptures tell us that the life of the flesh is in the blood, and that YHVH has given it to us upon the altar as an atonement for sins, for it is the blood that makes atonement for our soul (Lev 17:11). Additionally, without the shedding of blood, there is no remission for sins (Heb 9:22).
All the religions of the world (including rabbinic Judaism), except those that have faith in Yeshua, are bloodless and have no provision to save man from his sins.
Let’s ponder Yeshua’s death on the cross and his shedding his blood to make atonement for (or to cover) our sins as we approach Passover.
OK, this may be speculative, but I believe that there is a special resurrection somewhat concealed in Isaiah 49, associated with Passover and shed blood.
The context of this chapter is the second Exodus. The time of the Passover. (And there is an associated ‘twist’: the enemy will eat his own flesh and drink his own blood!) Many of the survivors of the Great Tribulation have returned to the promised Land but their children died in captivity. What a horrible way to start the millennium!
But it appears to me that during the next “day of salvation”, as the redeemed of the twelve tribes of Israel are being resettled into the Kadosh Land, that Elohim will give them back the very children who had died in “the land of the enemy”, during the most agonizing period of human existence! In Isaiah 49, Elohim explains that He is certainly more compassionate toward us than we are toward our own children. “I will not forget you”, Elohim declares.
So, I ask, who are “the children of your bereavement” who want elbow room in the New Israel?
ISAIAH 49 But Zion said, “Yehovah has forsaken me, Yehovah has forgotten me. 15 Can a woman forget her nursing child, so as not to have compassion on the son of her womb? Yes, they may forget, but I wont forget you! 16 I’ve engraved you on the palms of My hands, your walls are continually before Me! 17 Your children hurry, your destroyers and those who made you waste will leave you. 18 ‘LOOK’ AROUND AND SEE ALL OF THESE GATHERING TOGETHER AND COMING TO YOU. “As I live”, declares Yehovah, “You will surely clothe yourself with THEM ALL as with an ornament, and gird yourself with them, LIKE A BRIDE. 19 As for your waste and your desolate places, and your land that has been destroyed, surely now you’ll be too small for the inhabitants, and those who swallowed you will be far away. 20 THE CHILDREN OF YOUR BEREAVEMENT WILL SAY IN YOUR EARS, “THIS PLACE IS TOO SMALL FOR ME, GIVE ME A PLACE TO LIVE 21 THEN YOU’LL SAY TO YOURSELF, “WHO HAS CONCEIVED THESE FOR ME, SEEING THAT I’VE BEEN BEREAVED OF MY CHILDREN, and am solitary, an exile, and wandering back and forth? WHO HAS BROUGHT UP THESE? Look, I was left alone, THESE, WHERE WERE THEY?’ 22 The Sovereign Yehovah says: I’ll ‘wave’ my hand [in a summoning gesture] to the nations. They’ll bring your sons in their ‘arms’, and your daughters will be carried on their shoulders. 23 Kings will be your foster fathers, and their queens your nursing mothers, they’ll bow down to you with their faces to the ground, and lick the dust at your feet, and you’ll know that I am Yehovah.
This indicates to me that Elohim will comfort His children Israel by returning to them their most valuable possessions—their own bereived children, as well as giving them a new homeland!
What better way could there be for the good (surviving) neighbors of Israel to get to know your new Israelite neighbors, than for them to arrive in “welcome wagons” with cargoes of newly “brought up” children, ready to be reunited with their parents? These children will be resurrected where they died—in “the land [formerly] of the enemy” and transported to Israel by benevolent foreign civilians!
The context of this chapter indicates that “the terrible” people who had destroyed so many Israelites will themselves be destroyed:
VERSE 26 I’ll feed those who oppress you with their own FLESH, and they’ll be drunken with their own BLOOD, as with sweet wine, and all flesh will know that I, Yehovah, am your Deliverer, and your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.
We might think a bit about those ‘symbols’ a bit too this time of year.
Here is a something that has been on my Heart to share with our Sunday Brethren so it is written in that dialect. On a Proper Passover Perspective, as much of “Passion week” focus is mainly on the Resurrection, which goes against Scriptural injunction.
I came to realize that 1 Corinthians is written with a focus and partial context of the up-coming Spring Feasts, it helps put 1 Cor 16:2 in a different light as well.
I am trying a link from Scribd so this is my first attempt:
[scribd id=88312716 key=key-2ardsr7xn6o3fbmn9ejd mode=list]
Let’s try this again :
Counting Calvary’s Cost. Remember the Resurrection OrCommemorating Calvary