Keys to the Old-Testament

In name of The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit

The One God Amen.

Keys to the Old-Testament

From the book of Exodos: “Then the children of Israel journeyed from Ramsis to Succoth,…” (12:37) “So they took their journey from Succoth and camped in Etham at the edge of wilderness” (13:20) “Now the Lord speaks to Mosses, saying: Speak to the children of Israel, that they turn and camp before Pi Hahiroth between Migdol and the sea, opposite Baal Zephon: you shall camp before it by the sea” (14:1,2)

When we read this passage, what do we get? We skim it, taking home the message that the children of Israel were wandering in the wilderness of Egypt for a while before they crossed the red sea. However, we wonder if this is the message the Holy Inspiration want to deliver to us, why all these details? We don’t even know where exactly these places are! We know that nothing is haphazardly mentioned in the Holy Book, nothing without a goal. Why then, did the Holy Spirit decide to mention all these details?

We pray psalm 50 (or 51) every day (supposedly more than once), and in it we pray: “Do good in Your good pleasure to ZION; build the walls of Jerusalem” Do we really care about Zion & Jerusalem?! Clearly there is something missed here. Well, why do we care about the Old-Testament in first place? Don’t we live in the age of grace, under the New-Testament? Why we bother printing and reading the OT then?

Let us see what our Lord Jesus Christ teaches us about the OT; He said: “You search the scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me” (John 5:39)

So, He commend us to search the scriptures, for we have eternal life, i.e. kingdom of heaven in them, and they testify of our Lord. He also said: “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and hid; and for joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field” (Mathew 13:44)

If once found a treasure hidden in a field, what would you do? Most people would dig around to take it and go. The wise however, hid it back, went, sold all that he had, and bought the whole field. Why? Because the sample he found gives a great joy that made him determinate to enjoy the whole treasure which is in all the field, and to find it all, one needs time, to dig and search for it. That is why our Lord said search, rather than read the scriptures. Then we need to search/study the scriptures. Why? Because they have the treasure (eternal life/kingdom of heaven) for us as they testify of God Jesus Christ.

The question then; how to search/study the OT while it is so hard to understand? To answer this, we need to realize first that the holy book (NT and OT) could be understood in 3 levels:

+ Literal level,

+ Moral level, and

+ Spiritual level.

For example, let us apply this to the passage from the book of Exodus presented at the beginning of this article. The literal-level reading would be concerned about the places the Israelites wandered in. A careful reader would look up maps and might also check the history of these cities, and so on. The moral level contemplation would be the submission the Israelites had to God; how they followed God into the ignorance. The spiritual-level interpretation is what the Holy Book itself commend us to seek when it says: “for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life” (2Cor 3:6) So, how can we spiritually interpret the OT? There is no specific procedure to follow; however, there is a set of guidelines (rules) that can help us find our way. Better, we have the treasure of the inspired holy early fathers of the Church. Thus, the real recommendation is to study the bible (OT & NT) under the guidance of the early fathers interpretations. Nothing can replace that. What we will narrate of rules now, is basically some general keys that summarize SOME of the general attitude our early fathers used to interpret the Holy Book. We will mention four keys:

Key one: Seek Holy Trinity, Salvation, Spiritual life, and Eternal life:

The fathers of the church searched the scriptures to seek:

1.a) The Holy Trinity (The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit). Reading any passage or story, they ask: what is the will of The Father? Where is The Son? What is the deed of The Holy Spirit?

1.b) Salvation: salvation is the goal of the whole Holy Book, and almost every story drops shadows of the salvation.

1.c) Spiritual life: as sacraments and spiritual wars (the Godly way). Sacraments of NT are resembled through sacrifices of OT, and spiritual wars are resembled through wars against gentiles.

1.d) Eternal life.

Key two: Always ask questions: Why? What? Who? When? Where?

When you read any piece of information, ask your self: why did the Holy Spirit decide to mention it? What exactly is mentioned, does it resemble salvation or spiritual life?

Key three: Beware of Context

Know the context of the book; who wrote it, when, to whom, why and in which language? Also, beware of the divisions of the OT because each section is to be read differently. The four sections are:

- Tourah books (the five books of Mosses): these resemble the four bibles in the NT, they are the starting point.

- Historical books (Joshua, Judges, .. Chronicles 1& 2, …, Ezra, etc): these resemble the book of Acts in NT, they describe how the relationship with God developed.

- Wisdom books (Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, etc): these resemble the Episles in the NT, they describe the life with God.

- Prophecies (Isaiah, Ezekiel, etc): these resemble the book of Revelation in the NT, these are read under the light of the NT, since they prepared the humanity for the first coming of The Christ, the book of Revelation prepares humanity to the second coming of The Christ.

Key four: Symbolism

The fathers of the Church of Alexandria were pioneering in the school of the symbolic interpretation of the OT, such as Clement of Alexandira, Oregon, etc. In general, they used the following rules:

4.a) Persons: every spiritual person sent from God for a certain mission, points by his life from a certain aspect to Christ. For example: Joseph goes to a strange land to keep the life of his brothers, then he resembles Christ who descended from heaven to grant life to humanity, and so on.

4.b) Names: every name of a person or a place has a meaning and the meaning helps to understand the mission or the attitude of that person and hence the story. For example, changing the name of Abraham from Abram to Abraham, Abram means a noble father, while Abraham means a father of multitudes, and this goes with the vow God gave to him to increase his spring.

4.c) Events: almost all events points to Salvation (escaping from Egypt), Spiritual life (spiritual wars, baptism: crossing red-see), or eternal life (Entering Jerusalem, rebuilding the temple).

4.d) Places: Canaa is Kingdom of Heaven, away of it is being exiled from eternal life (Egypt, Babel, Ashore, etc.)

4.e) Numbers: has meanings. Such as:

3 ~ Trinity

2 ~ the 2 wills: Love God & Love your neighbor, or Love in general.

10 ~ the will: 10 commandments

100 ~ eternal or unlimited

1000 ~ heavenly

7 ~ earthly/worldly life (7 days of week)

8 ~ eternal life (after 7 days of week), resurrection (8^th day)

4 ~ around the world

12 ~ 3 x 4: the spread of the word of God (Trinity) in around the world

and so on…

4.d) Specifics:

Water à always resembles The Holy Spirit

Wood/Tree/Flag à The Cross

Animals à worldly/earthly cares

Birds à Heavenly cares

Marriage story à Christ & Church , thus any betray à sin

Enemy à Devil/Sin/Lusts

Israel à The Believers

Jerusalem/Zion/Jacob/Mountain of Zion à Church (congregation/heart/heaven)

As we see, all these need books, because even if someone collect all possible symbols in a “symbols dictionary”, one need to know which one to apply. However, we hope the above helps as a guideline to hint how to understand what s/he reads until one can find a book to help.

Based on that, we now understand that in Psalm 50 when we pray for Zion and Jursalem, we actually pray for the Church. Also, getting back to the passage we presented from the book of Exodus, it turns out that the cities, given there names’ meanings, resembles the stages of the spiritual life before crossing the red-see which resembles baptism. In other words, these are the stages one needs to go through in preparation for dedicating ones life to Christ, and getting baptized. So, 1) Ramsis which means the City of the god Raa (The sun god of ancient Egyptians) is the state of sins, and departing it is departing the old behavior, the old man, who is corrupt. 2) Succoth means tent, thus, once one departs the sinful habits, one should live as a stranger from worldly cares. Then 2) Etham, which means sign, is the third stage at which God gives us the sing of resurrection (3) (the cloud and the fire) so that we experience it to desire to die with Him in order to live for Him. Finally, 4) Pi-Hahiroth means The hard-elevation & it is between Migdol (means tower) and Baal Zephon (means Going up fast) means that the fourth stage is the hardship of Godly life (tribulations) that we need to be ware of ahead (to calculate cost of building a tower ahead) and continuous growth in Christ without any regard to the past.

Abridged from Sermon by Fr. Daoud Lamey