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Job 1:7 And the LORD said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? Then Satan answered the LORD, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.
Something about that wording is making me go.....
Genesis 2:7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
Dust is...dry earth. Man is the dust of the ground so man is the dry earth before it receives life giving water...living water. Water and earth make clay that He forms into His servants....
Jeremiah 18:6 O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? saith the LORD. Behold, as the clay is in the potter's hand, so are ye in Mine hand, O house of Israel.
So, where it is written that Satan was...."going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it" what is being said?
Before I end up going on a side trail, as so often happens to me, my quest in this thread was finding what is meant by Satans' going to and fro IN the earth. Does that mean....his spirit is in some men, for man is earth? We know he can and does do this for it is written....
Luke 22:3 Then entered Satan into Judas surnamed Iscariot, being of the number of the twelve.
Both phrases, to and fro and up and down, take place "in the earth," and are often associated with....the locusts. Locusts have four stages of life, a long part of which is spent "in the earth," or "under the earth," where they do much undercover damage without others knowing...until the damage is evident. Sort of like a secret government, one that controls, dictates policy without obvious recognition to the world. They are the king makers (although it is our Father that places all authorities...good and bad).
Joel 1:4 That which the palmerworm hath left hath the locust eaten; and that which the locust hath left hath the cankerworm eaten; and that which the cankerworm hath left hath the caterpiller eaten.
If these locusts, undercover men in power, weren't secretive as they did their dirty work then the world would reinstate DDT and kill the nasty bugs. Truth be known, they may well be the ones that banned it in the first place. These locusts eat away at the roots of our government, our freedom, our way of life. Soon...they'll be out in the open. Poking their ugly heads out of obscurity and into the world. Devouring everything in their paths as they take to the air.....
Ephesians 2:2 Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:
There we see again that his spirit does enter and "worketh in," some.
Isaiah 33:4 And your spoil shall be gathered like the gathering of the caterpiller: as the running to and fro of locusts shall he run upon them.
Daniel 12:4 But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.
Bullinger writes that "to and fro," as used there, means to apostatize and "knowledge" is calamities or wickedness. So, the verse could be understood as....many shall run in apostasy while wickedness is increased.
Joel 2:9 They shall run to and fro in the city; they shall run upon the wall, they shall climb up upon the houses; they shall enter in at the windows like a thief.
I see these that appear to be as men to be fallen angels...they join the locusts in rampaging through the city, through us...with great deception (causing the apostasy), pretending to be of the city...of us, Christian. This is the time of the great tribulation.
Ezekiel 28:14 Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire.
The saints are His "stones of fire." Satan, the "anointed cherub," at one time, walked "up and down" among the saints but....no more. Now he walks up and down among children of disobedience....
Back to the begining....Satan (was/is now) going to and fro in the earth and walking up and down in it. To me this means his spirit is (in the earth/in certain men) and as he is going "to and fro" in them then he, in them, is causing apostasy. They are children of disobedience. As Christ walks IN us....he walks "up and down in them."
11 Corinthians 6:16 And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.
I believe I now understand...In the earth and on the earth but....who are those "under the earth?"
Revelation 5:3 And no man in heaven, nor in earth, neitherunder the earth, was able to open the book, neither to look thereon.
You do realize that you're just presenting a variety of English translations for the original Aramaic, right? Don't get too bent out of shape about translations; they're not necessarily 100% accurate.
You do realize that you're just presenting a variety of English translations for the original Aramaic, right? Don't get too bent out of shape about translations; they're not necessarily 100% accurate.
Not only that, isn't this a christian topic? What's with all the christians lately that can't manage to find their own forum and are doing all their cut-n-paste bible versing out here?
You do realize that you're just presenting a variety of English translations for the original Aramaic, right? Don't get too bent out of shape about translations; they're not necessarily 100% accurate.
Other than Daniel, which of those texts is Aramaic? They all seem to be either from the Greek NT, or from the Hebrew bible. Which is, you know, written in Hebrew.
Let me take a “stab†at it and try to keep it KISS (Keep It Short and Simple)
1. Job is a short story about a non-Jew (interesting in the least) who has religious allegiance to God.
Satan is simply the Hebrew word for Adversary—not a demon, not an anti-God figure (that concept came a whole lot later, courtesy of infamous fellows like Alexander’s son Antiochus Periphanes)—but more like a District Attorney. The setting is a court trial, where God is the Judge, and Satan is the District Attorney, prosecuting Job.
Going “to and fro†is arcane English, or more likely, poetic English. Ask any Prosecutor, and he/she will claim that he/she uncovered every rock, examined every nook and cranny, and put all his/her ducks in line for an airtight case against the accused. Thus, when the Hebrew (or Aramaic dialect) was translated into good ol’ early 17th Century English, people were accustomed to the phrase “to and fro.†Understand that not very many people traveled—they were not allowed to—outside of their villages. So, it was with great wonder that people meeting such a “well-traveled†person would be awed and amazed and treat this person with higher respect.
I would translate the dialogue between God the Judge and Satan the Prosecutor like this:
God: “How did you come by this evidence, Counselor?â€
Satan: “I have accumulated evidence from all parts of the globe, your honor, to include affidavits from citizens of every nation and city-state, creed, language, and the like. The evidence is overwhelming: not one person alive on this Earth today stands apart from any other person. They are all equally guilty of having broken Your law.â€
2. The dust of the Earth.
Taken literally, like so many Fundamentalist (and not-so-Fundamentalist) preachers is a literal translation and understanding of the word “dust.â€
Unfortunately, the redactors of Genesis did not write (actually re-write) these words with any kind of literal understanding. They, again, were using words of the day and times, which tended to be much more descriptive in terms of emotion and a psychological connection with the Earth and the universe as a whole. Hence, “dust†simply means that mankind is not alien to the Earth (a la from outer space) but part and parcel to the Earth. Whether or not that could be stretched to mean that mankind ascended from lower forms of primates is another subject altogether.
But we do not have to take the translated word “dust†so literally as to picture some old guy gathering up dust, dirt, and or mud with these huge hands and molding a human being. Rather, it is a statement that affirms that even though mankind is not a whole lot different from the rest of the animals on this planet, there is a special relationship to God and with God that we humans should enjoy and engender.
What you did not underline or put in bold was the “breath of life,†which actually is more important (in Jewish thinking) than the “dust†idea. This word is used a couple more times in the Bible, and it is just a little more than just “life.†It engenders the whole meaning of soul, which (to the early Jew) encompassed all thoughts, words, deeds, and effects/affects a person had in life on others (including the Earth). It was a later definition (known generally as Hellenic thought) that changed this original thought into two separate natures of man: that of “dust†or flesh and that of “life†or the soul.
Thusly, we have the ancient Jews talking about the death of the soul: the extinguishing of a human being completely; then, we have Paul with his Hellenic background preaching the death merely of the body and the continued existence of the soul.
However, both ideas encompassed the “scary†idea that God alone has the capacity to destroy a soul utterly, the true meaning of hell and eternal annihilation.
3. Potter’s clay
Again, just a poetic way of emphasizing the virtue of turning one’s life completely over to God.
Understand that Judah, the inheritors of the Promised Land, now that Israel had been absorbed by Assyria, was at war with another idea. The intelligentsia that had escaped the destruction (actually absorption of and not really the dismemberment of) Israel to the backwater nation of Judah, and it was their intent to raise up a messiah (a la David) to take back Palestine and the Promised Land. But to do that, they believed that all Jews must accept the one MALE god as the only God, and that all Jews must strive to be perfect in the sight of this one God so that the re-conquest of the Promised Land could come to fruition.
The idea that stood in the way of these intelligentsia reformers was the worship of the goddess. By whatever name you wish to give this goddess, the worship of this goddess was pervasive. This FEMALE god allowed women to have equal (sometimes more) status with males. Family lines (and names) were passed through maternal lines, not paternal. Women were equal with man, not chattel and property.
Thus, Jeremiah is used as a rebuke to all of Judah. (Israel is not the name of the nation but of the patriarch who sired the twelve sons (consequently tribes) that gave birth to the original nations that conquered and occupied Palestine. Using God as an authority to eradicate a “pagan†religion and institute a male-dominated society whereby women would be reduced in status and power (even to the point where they were denied to have a soul), the reformers were telling people that God was re-fashioning them into a perfect likeness and dutiful servants.
In other words, if the Jews did not follow the new order, they would be damned in both this life and the next.
Jeremiah 18:6 O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? saith the LORD. Behold, as the clay is in the potter's hand, so are ye in Mine hand, O house of Israel.
So, where it is written that Satan was...."going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it" what is being said?
4. Satan and Judas
As long as we subscribe to a cosmos where the Earth is suspended between a heavenly host and a demonic host, we are going to remain totally confused as to what is really happening in our reality. It appears that after at least these 6,000 years, we have not really been able to advance psychologically beyond primitive superstition.
To even accept that a demon enters into a person is to accept that demons exist, that this Platonic world of physical and supernatural worlds/dimensions exists.
A couple of things have to be considered:
a. Satan means Adversary, not some “king†of demons, ruler of hell.
b. Judas opposed the Christ from the point of “how†to usher in the Kingdom of God.
c. Luke was written decades after the event and (history is written by the victors) fashioned in such a way as to underscore the evolving Christian thought and interpretation of the Christ’s message.
The problem that we have is that we do not have a complete story of Jesus’ trial, execution, and resurrection. We have a very biased “historical†viewpoint whose purpose is to eradicate the very name of Judas and him being one of the original disciples. Later, theologians “exhumed†Judas as to be a really, really bad guy, using this Satan of Hell as a puppeteer, to scare the bejesus out of Christians so that the latter would bend their necks to this horrible god and the Church, which literally made its bones out of the unfortunate parishioners they regularly raped and fleeced.
5. Locusts
Locusts have an intertwining history with Palestine and Africa. Ask any modern day inhabitant of Africa, and he/she will tell you of life’s struggles against the pest.
There is no direct correlation (or even prophecy) associated with the locust. The locust is simply a metaphor for “life sucks and then you die.â€
When you start equating locusts (the palmerworm and the cankerworm) with secret governments, aliens, religious sects bent on introducing the End of the World, and the like, you are using allegories. Certainly, there are a lot of bad people running around the world today, bent on not only their own destruction but the destruction of a lot of people. You can describe these mentally-challenged (or psychologically-challenged) miscreants as being like locusts.
But we have to remind ourselves that mankind has not changed in 6,000 years (known history). The same kind of destructive people infected mankind 6,000 years ago. There is no correlation that because we “hear†of many of these kind of people running amok in the world today should have any religious or spiritual or supernatural significance.
What we should be doing is exterminating these kinds of miscreants in the same way that we attempt to exterminate pests that have multiplied into a holocaust and bring chaos, misery, and death to mankind.
Wringing hands and worrying about God moving the clock closer to the End (along with the endless prayers of supplication and the Chicken Littles desiring to save as many people as possible right up to the last second, including putting those who refuse to be “saved†to the sword to save them) is the wrong psychological response.
Since God is with us, in us—in a very real sense, we all make up God—the real response is to take action, rid ourselves of “undesirables†and start making a better world using the synergy available as a family of humans.
6. Revelation
Quoting anything from Revelation is really risky. No one exists today who really understands the “mad-man like†ramblings. That is because it is so full of mystical, cabalist symbols and images that have virtually been lost to mankind’s understanding.
I fall into a small group of thinking that Revelation is a really weird retelling of the birth, life, and triumph of the Christ with his resurrection. Has nothing to do with End Times or the future.
If anything, the Bible is a very nice collection of illustrations that explicitly describe the nature of mankind. Once man has disappeared from the Earth, a visitor from another planet could take the Bible and pretty much sketch out the psychological and animalistic nature of human beings.
The Bible reveals knowledge that has been known ever since the first human started to use his/her brain: we are horrible manifestations of life. We are base, evil, conniving, cannibalistic, and every other descriptive word in the dictionary. We have managed to delude ourselves that we are innocent, that we are scapegoats of two powerful and opposing forces in the universe, that there is an absolute “good†and an absolute “evil†who play with us as pawns or coins in some kind of twisted cosmological game.
The “book†that Revelation 5:3 refers to is this special kind of knowledge that only a handful of humans have ever tried to seek. It took a Christ to finally hammer in the simple fact that the Kingdom of God is NOT coming—it is already here.
The “spirit†is really our own manifestation of what we feel is “good†or what we feel is “evil.â€
But it really all comes down to the individual: do we allow ourselves to be manipulated by our own minds, natures, and undeveloped capabilities? Or, can we rise up above the “dust†of the commonness, the baseness that we have wallowed in for the last 6,000 years? Are we going to be Satans against the entire human race, or are we going to be Satans against anything (physical, spiritual, and psychological) that prevents us from being real humans, real brothers and sisters of the same stock, of the same world, of the same family?
[SIZE=3] [/SIZE]
Not only that, isn't this a christian topic? What's with all the christians lately that can't manage to find their own forum and are doing all their cut-n-paste bible versing out here?
How charitable of you, Mercury Cougar!
Is this forum "Religion and Spirituality" or not?
I'd just like to know, as a longtime Christian missionary, what is permitted/expected here before I waste my God-given time.
I'd just like to know, as a longtime Christian missionary, what is permitted/expected here before I waste my God-given time.
Mahrie.
Expicitly Christian doctrinal discussions / theological disputes belong on the Christianity forum, one level down from here. Religion and Spirituality is for more generic exploration of theism of any flavor. If the topic turns philosophical and has no appreciable religious content, it should probably go in the Philosophy forum.
Expicitly Christian doctrinal discussions / theological disputes belong on the Christianity forum, one level down from here. Religion and Spirituality is for more generic exploration of theism of any flavor. If the topic turns philosophical and has no appreciable religious content, it should probably go in the Philosophy forum.
Good morning, and thank you, Mordant. I was unaware that a separate forum for Christianity existed. I don't tend to involve myself in theological debates on the Net, but I'm happy to answer questions from time to time.
Job 1:7 And the LORD said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? Then Satan answered the LORD, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.
Something about that wording is making me go.....
Genesis 2:7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
Dust is...dry earth. Man is the dust of the ground so man is the dry earth before it receives life giving water...living water. Water and earth make clay that He forms into His servants....
Jeremiah 18:6 O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? saith the LORD. Behold, as the clay is in the potter's hand, so are ye in Mine hand, O house of Israel.
So, where it is written that Satan was...."going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it" what is being said?
Before I end up going on a side trail, as so often happens to me, my quest in this thread was finding what is meant by Satans' going to and fro IN the earth. Does that mean....his spirit is in some men, for man is earth? We know he can and does do this for it is written....
Luke 22:3 Then entered Satan into Judas surnamed Iscariot, being of the number of the twelve.
Both phrases, to and fro and up and down, take place "in the earth," and are often associated with....the locusts. Locusts have four stages of life, a long part of which is spent "in the earth," or "under the earth," where they do much undercover damage without others knowing...until the damage is evident. Sort of like a secret government, one that controls, dictates policy without obvious recognition to the world. They are the king makers (although it is our Father that places all authorities...good and bad).
Joel 1:4 That which the palmerworm hath left hath the locust eaten; and that which the locust hath left hath the cankerworm eaten; and that which the cankerworm hath left hath the caterpiller eaten.
If these locusts, undercover men in power, weren't secretive as they did their dirty work then the world would reinstate DDT and kill the nasty bugs. Truth be known, they may well be the ones that banned it in the first place. These locusts eat away at the roots of our government, our freedom, our way of life. Soon...they'll be out in the open. Poking their ugly heads out of obscurity and into the world. Devouring everything in their paths as they take to the air.....
Ephesians 2:2 Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:
There we see again that his spirit does enter and "worketh in," some.
Isaiah 33:4 And your spoil shall be gathered like the gathering of the caterpiller: as the running to and fro of locusts shall he run upon them.
Daniel 12:4 But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.
Bullinger writes that "to and fro," as used there, means to apostatize and "knowledge" is calamities or wickedness. So, the verse could be understood as....many shall run in apostasy while wickedness is increased.
Joel 2:9 They shall run to and fro in the city; they shall run upon the wall, they shall climb up upon the houses; they shall enter in at the windows like a thief.
I see these that appear to be as men to be fallen angels...they join the locusts in rampaging through the city, through us...with great deception (causing the apostasy), pretending to be of the city...of us, Christian. This is the time of the great tribulation.
Ezekiel 28:14 Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire.
The saints are His "stones of fire." Satan, the "anointed cherub," at one time, walked "up and down" among the saints but....no more. Now he walks up and down among children of disobedience....
Back to the begining....Satan (was/is now) going to and fro in the earth and walking up and down in it. To me this means his spirit is (in the earth/in certain men) and as he is going "to and fro" in them then he, in them, is causing apostasy. They are children of disobedience. As Christ walks IN us....he walks "up and down in them."
11 Corinthians 6:16 And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.
I believe I now understand...In the earth and on the earth but....who are those "under the earth?"
Revelation 5:3 And no man in heaven, nor in earth, neitherunder the earth, was able to open the book, neither to look thereon.
.
Methinks you're reading way to much into it. Satan was wandering around earth. There really is nothing there about his spirit, or him IN the earth, or all that stuff. Instead of trying to play detective and find hidden meanings, why not just read it as the author wrote it?
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