Category Archives: Hebrews

Tree of Knowledge – Fear of Death

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Between studying the Tree of Knowledge and Jesus being a high priest like Melchizedek in the Book of Hebrews I saw a verse on the “fear of death” that tied the two ideas together.  Hebrews 2:15 – To free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death (NIV). The verse is addressing Jesus as our High Priest but the “fear of death” is what caught me by surprise.

Where is this fear of death first mentioned or talked about?  This topic of fear and death (yes, I replaced of with and on purpose) made me look through the verses with the word fear in them.  (NOTE: This is a study blog, not a theology blog you can argue this elsewhere.). Fear is associated with death and punishment in most of the verses in the Bible.  Well, what about “the fear of God” that just means we are to reverence Him, not be afraid of Him.  Back to this later.

The first place where the “fear of something” and death are together is in the Garden.  No, not when Adam and Eve were afraid because they heard God and they were naked – that is the second time.  You may call it another phobia but Eve wanting the fruit, I believe, is associated with the fear of not knowing what God knew about death. It is clear that Adam and Eve were superior, intelligent humans but I am not sure that everything made sense to them. They had never seen death or anything die, not that we know of.  The first recorded death is their son.  So, MAYBE the serpent mixed her not knowing death with a nice-looking piece of fruit and his assurance that nothing would happen and we now have FEAR.  I know most preachers call Eve’s action stemming out of lust, but lust is really fear that someone has something you do not have.  This still makes me wonder how long those three had been talking together and did all of the animals talk.  Talking to the devil about a fear instead of walking with God, could be a problem.

Adam expressed their fear of God because he was waiting for the “you will die” to happen.  With the knowledge of good and evil came what we call fear.  You can fear for good reasons and you can fear for evil reasons. 

So, back to the fear of God.  Do you fear Him for good reasons or for bad?  We know we should fear God.  Is the softening of the word fear by calling it reverence, really a good thing? We need to hold God as important but in my Strong’s Concordance reverence is part of the definition of the word fear and it still means “fear”. 

This line of thinking will quickly lead to the argument of “once saved always saved” or “God never unsaved someone”.  No matter your thoughts on that topic we are still to fear God.  What about 1 Corinthians 13 and 1 John 4:18 where perfect love is casting out fear.  That is true, perfect love will cast out fear, and Jesus, our perfect love, will cast it out.  If I may, as an example of softening the thought of fearing God for good reasons.  1 Corinthians 13: 10 “when perfection comes” has been misused to be talking about the King James Version of the Bible, and not Jesus.  Grace is given to us by Jesus, our perfect love, to help us not live in fear of what God could be doing to us because of our sin.

Hebrews 2:15 and Proverbs 14:27 – The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life, turning a person from the snares of death (NIV), talk about death holding us or being a snare.  That fear was put into humans in the Garden by Satan and we pass it on to our children.   

The Tree

My thoughts of the Tree of Knowledge are changing.  We know what eating the fruit did for mankind.  What about touching it? How about the branches, trunk, and roots?  The whole conversation between Eve and the snake now seems even stranger.  Was the snake talking about the “touching” part when it said, “You will not die” and then slipped in the eating phrase to finish off his lie and deception?

In Eve’s mind even touching “knowledge” would bring death.  When she did not die why not taste it and see what happens.  The immediate “death” that happened was they now knew there was a “good” and an “evil”, that is why they hid and made “religious” or fig leaf clothes.  They could finally see that God was holy (good) and now they were not (evil).  The whole time when He would walk in His garden, and they enjoyed perfect fellowship with a perfect God they had no fear of Him.  For them to see a difference must have been horrible. Sorry for such a simple thought – The rest of the Bible is about bringing man back to walk with God and enjoy perfect fellowship again.

Branches and Roots

The root of Jesse, the root of David, the branch of David is taking on new and different meanings for me now.  Paul says we are grafted into the stem so we can enjoy the life-giving sap.  I will pass on the roots of the Tree of Knowledge but will marvel that Jesus is the root, the fruit, the branches, and the leaves of the tree they should have eaten from.

I can see fear sitting in the branches of the Tree of Knowledge. It is waiting to jump on the knowledge you have chosen to focus on.  Good fear will bring you to obey God and want to follow Him because He has the power to do mighty things. Fear of evil will have you blaming God for things that do not fit in your paradigm. Is fear a neutral thing?  Does it depend on what we do with it?

Solomon said it best in Ecclesiastes 12: 13 Fear God and keep his commandments. (NIV). Through the Tree of Knowledge, we got the fear of death but the fear of God was not far away.  Fearing God is not bad and is needed in today’s society.

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Was David a Priest?

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Yes, David was a priest in the order or “in the way” of Melchizedek.  No, he was not a priest after the order of Aaron or anything to do with the Tabernacle or Ark.  David had a heart for God so he did many good works.  Near the end of his life (1 Chronicles 22 -26), David made plans for the Temple and helped to organize the Levites and Priest.  At times in his life, David did things that might border on priestly rights and duties and we will look at all (or many) of these.  This topic cannot be discussed without Psalm 110 being brought into the conversation, so it will be.

I will start with the NO answer.  David could not work in the Tabernacle or with the Ark simply because he was not a son of Aaron or Levi. (Levities 8 + 9) David did do some questionable things that could be mistaken as priestly duties and rights.  But even these actions need to be viewed in the light of some other leaders.

  1. King Saul – 1 Samuel 13 is the story of Saul offering a sacrifice.  Verse 9 has Saul ordering “someone” to bring the offering to him.  The context of the story makes it sound like he did the cutting and sprinkling of the blood.  Verse 13 has Samuel telling Saul his kingdom and lineage will not last.  (Saul’s line could have ruled “for all time”.)  He actually “lost the kingdom” in 1 Samuel 15.
  2. Jeroboam – 1 Kings 11,12, and 13.  11:6 explains that Solomon had not followed God or His commands and that the nation of Israel would be divided.  Jeroboam also had a promise of a lasting kingdom if he did right (vs. 39).  12:31 (NIV) Jeroboam built shrines on high places and appointed priests from all sorts of people, even though they were not Levites.  13:33 +34 repeats his disobedience and the outcomes.
  3. King Uzziah – 2 Chronicles 26: 18,19,21.  Uzziah was a grandson of David who actually had done well until he gave into his pride.  He went into the Temple and was offering incense.  The real Priest confronted him.  He broke out with leprosy and lived separately until he died.

Please set these examples and all of the other “kings” of Israel next to Deuteronomy 17: 14-20.  These verses were the Lord’s rules for the kings who would reign over His people.  Verse 18 states that he is to make a copy (his own) of the Law and read it every day.  If David had done this it is a good bet that Solomon did not, because he broke the rules in verses 14 -17 very well.  In Jeremiah, King Josiah held a Passover because the Book of the Law was found during a Temple cleaning and he had never seen or read it before. Makes you wonder what the priest was working from?

If my three examples were judged for making sacrifices, burning incense, and allowing non-Levitical priests.  It would stand to reason if David had done these types of things he also would have been held guilty.  He had his problems but acting as a Priest in the order of Aaron was not one of them.

WELL HE DID –

  1. Eat the Bread of Presence (1 Samuel 21:1-9).  Yes, this was after he lied and deceived Ahimelech the priest, and thought about killing Doeg. I will give this one up as God’s grace and mercy and not David’s right behavior. A point of interest here is that Ahimelech’s questions to David were about legal purity and not a family origin.
  2. Wear a linen ephod. 2 Samuel 6: 12 – 23 and 1 Chronicles 15:27 has David along with the Levites wearing linen ephods as they moved the Ark of God to Jerusalem.  An ephod is a piece of clothing.  Yes, ephods are frequently associated with “priest”.  In the case of the tribe of Dan stealing one and the “house priest” it belonged to, it may seem that the robe was also worshiped.  Even if David was trying to “blend” in at the start of the parade by the end he may have taken off the ephod and was dancing around in his underwear.  A priest of the order of Aaron could not have done that, but one from the order of Melchizedek could have.  Sorry, David wearing an ephod, to me, is more like everyone trying to dress like the pastor.
  3. Move the Ark to Jerusalem.  This is David acting more like Melchizedek than Aaron.  The Tabernacle of Moses was still in use in Gibeon (2 Chronicle 1:3).  This Tabernacle of David or Tent of David has more to do with him wanting the blessing of God than him doing priestly functions.  The Tabernacle of David is a type of how to worship by grace away from the rules of the Law. 1 Chronicles 16:1-7 has David putting the priest and Levites in charge of a 24-hour praise session around the Ark.  Verse 37 – 40 has the priestly families split into two groups and doing duty in two locations – Jerusalem and Gibeon.  
  4. Build his own altar.  In 1 Chronicles 21: 18 – 30 and 2 Samuel 24: 18 – 25 David was ordered to build an altar by the prophet Gad.  He had to do this to stop a plague that his actions had started (counting the people).  This altar became the area where the Temple of Solomon was built.  David had people with him so I will suggest that he did not build the altar or kill the animals, which had to be done by a priest.
  5. Arranged the priest and Levities into divisions.  He also ordered that provisions be made and collected to build the Temple, that the leaders of the people were to help Solomon, and he changed the duties of the Levites because they were not going to be carrying the Ark and the Tabernacle around (1 Chronicles 22+ 23).  Chapter 24: 3 states that the heads of the priestly families were there with him.  He was not making these decisions by or for himself, but as a king who wanted Jehovah served and glorified.
  6. Write Psalm 110.    Some scholars will state a slightly different view on that – did he write it, was it written in his style, or was it written about him?  To me, because it is so prophetic, David wrote it and I just don’t feel he is the object of the conversation.  Matthew 22:43-45, Mark 12:36+37, Luke 20:42-44, and Acts 2:25 + 34 deal with verse one and the question of how David can call his son Lord and Messiah.  If you rewrite verse one as it should be, it would say – “Jehovah says to my Adonay”. Adonay has several meanings – God, ruler, husband, or someone in authority, that is an earthly authority.  (Check the lettering to see the difference in the word Lord.)   I am not sure that David would have talked about himself as a priest in the order of Melchizedek (vs 4), that is very boastful. If he did he would have had all of his clothes on!

Yes, David was a priest but of the order of Melchizedek. (<- That link is to Melchizedek in Hebrews, which I hope explains him at a deeper level)  Melchizedek is an interesting character, he is mentioned in three books of the Christian Bible but volumes have been said about him.  He is first mentioned in Genesis 14:18 as the “priest of God Most High” who shares a meal with and then blesses Abraham and is given an offering.  Psalm 110 adds to Melchizedek’s persona by bringing in the concept of eternal priesthood and adding the word “order”.  The Hebrew word dibrah (#1700 Strong’s) left me confused so I went to several translations for clarity.  The KJV and NIV use the word “order” while others use “like” or “in the same way”.  The Book of Hebrews (Chapter 7 discusses Melchizedek’s history) really adds to Melchizedek’s resume when he and Jesus are compared to each other. (More will be written later as this ballooned out of this study in ways I did not expect.). But back to the question of was David a priest.  Hebrew 7:12 states that a change of the priesthood and a change of the Law must go hand-in-hand, and verse 14 dispels David as a priest under the Law of Moses because he was of the tribe of Judah. So, David was a priest but not in the order of Aaron because the Law did not change and he was from the wrong tribe.

It took a while to piece together the thoughts on righteous kingship and priest. Moses gave me an example of that type of leadership.  There is no doubt of Moses’ calling and his authority but the plagues and other miracles were before the Law was given. Moses’s work before Aaron and his sons were selected, should show that he was working as Melchizedek did, a “king/priest of righteousness”.   Exodus 19:6 (which is before the giving of the Law) says all of Israel was to be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. The episode with the golden calf changed what could have happened.  When God gave the Law the priesthood was given to Aaron.  The priesthood of “all of Israel” in the “order of Melchizedek” went to the family of Aaron, not the entire nation.  David would fit into the order of Melchizedek because he was the king of Jerusalem and righteous, having a heart for God.

This thought is found again in Revelation 1:6 – we are kings (kingdom) and priests unto God.  Different translations use kings or kingdoms but it is in line with Exodus 19:6. I have seen several of these “plan A/plan B” or “what if” things recently.  God had a big plan but stubborn hearts temporally changed the first plan to a second plan.  God’s plan A is not dead but on hold until we accept God’s plan, which is what Jesus gave us at the cross.

So, the bold things David did, he did as a king/priest in the “order” of Melchizedek.  Some of his actions would not have fit under the Law of Moses and the priesthood of Aaron. 

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Better in the Book of Hebrews

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The writer of Hebrews (the Holy Spirit) uses words, phrases, and themes in the book to present Jesus for who He is – the Messiah.  This post will introduce “better” as one of these tools in the construction of this great book.  (I have written on the phrase “let us” in a post several years ago.).  Kreitton is the Greek word that is most often translated to our word “better” in Hebrews (Strong’s 2909).  Polys or a form of it (4183) is the other word that is used.  Diaphoras (1313) is translated to our word “superior”.  The exact number and use of these words depend on the translation you use.  

Kreitton is used in twelve verses and polys is used once.  Twice Kreitton carries the idea of useful and twice it is used as excellent.  I will point these out later as they are discussed.  

For this post, I will loosely divide the times the words are used into two sections.  The first section begins with 1:4 (superior/excellent, one of the variations) and goes to 10:34.  I see the focus here as the work of Jesus and His ministry.  Between 1:4 and 6:9 are the “elementary teaching” about Jesus that we need to “drink in” to produce a “useful crop”.  From 7:7 to 10:34 we get a taste of the “solid food” of Melchizedek, the high priest, and the covenants and sacrifices that Jesus fulfilled and took the place of.

  1. Hebrews 1:4
  2. Hebrews 6:9
  3. Hebrews 7:7 This use of kreitton is seldom rendered better.  In the NIV it is “greater”.
  4. Hebrews 7:19
  5. Hebrews 7:22
  6. Hebrews 8:6 (2 in KJV).  In the NIV there are two superiors and one better.  So, it is Diaphoras and then Kreitton, Kreitton.  This verse and 1:4 will be discussed later.
  7. Hebrews 9:23
  8. Hebrews 10: 34

The second set starts with 11:4, which is the word polys and refers to Abel’s sacrifice.

  1. Hebrews 11: 4* great number of times.  
  2. Hebrews 11:16
  3. Hebrews 11:35
  4. Hebrews 11:40
  5. Hebrews 12:24

This set deals with our faith and the things we will see because of our faith.  11:40 and 12:24 have a context of “useful” according to Strong’s Concordance. 

11:4 MAY infer that Abel offered “more” than Cain.  Loosely, you can get that idea in Genesis 4 depending on the translation. I do not know enough about Hebrew but there is a plural form of “firstlings” which is where I got this thought.  My other thought was that Abel had offered this sacrifice before.  A final thought on these sacrifices is that in the Law, grain or “fruit of the soil” was a part of the offerings at the Tabernacle.  (Something to think about!)The second section begins and ends with Abel and his sacrifice.  To me, that is a frame that keeps all of the “better” things in context. 

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