Tag: fire

The Fire of God

Posted on by jovial_cynic

And Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and laid it on his son Isaac, and he took in his hand the fire and the knife. So the two of them walked on together.
Genesis 22:6 (NASB)

Fire is dangereous. It burns. It destroys. But when you look carefully at scripture, it is also a symbol of where God dwells.

The first time we see this Hebrew word אֵשׁ (esh), or fire, it’s when God passes between the pieces of the sacrifice before Abraham. It’s there that we first learn that God reveals himself in the flame.

Now it came about, when the sun had set, that it was very dark, and behold, a smoking oven and a flaming torch appeared which passed between these pieces.
Genesis 15:17 (NASB)

The next time we see it, God rains down fire and brimstone from heaven onto the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. When Lot’s wife looked back at the destruction of the city, we wonder: did she see God in the ensuing pillar of fire? Is this why she died?

Then the Lord rained brimstone and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah from the Lord out of heaven.
Genesis 19:24 (NASB)

After Genesis, the next time we see the esh, it’s in the Burning Bush, where God meets Moses.

Then the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a blazing fire from the midst of a bush; and he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, yet the bush was not being consumed.
Exodus 3:2 (NASB)

So in this passage in Genesis 22, with the fire in his hand, we read that Abraham walks with his son. Together.

Perhaps we’re meant to understand that God is there, too.

Furnace of God

Posted on by jovial_cynic

Now Abraham got up early in the morning and went to the place where he had stood before the Lord; and he looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the surrounding area; and behold, he saw the smoke of the land ascended like the smoke of a furnace.
Genesis 19:27-28 (NASB)

In Genesis 11, which covers the Tower of Babel, I wrote about the relationship between the bricks and the furnaces that made them, tying bricks and furnaces to human bondage. To Empire.

So when Abraham sees “the smoke of a furnace” (literally kiln), I wondered about the connection.

The word for “furnace” here is כִּבְשָׁן (kivshan), and it is not the same word used in Daniel for the furnaces in Babylon. That word is אַתּוּן (atun).

Both mean “furnace.”

The Babylonian furnace is tied to human bondage and enslavement. But what about the kivshan here in Genesis 19?

Perhaps kivshan isn’t man’s furnace, but God’s. Here in Genesis, it’s used to describe fire and brimstone from heaven, but later, it describes the very presence of God, descending on Sinai.

Now Mount Sinai was all in smoke because the Lord descended upon it in fire; and its smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace, and the entire mountain [a]quaked violently.
Exodus 19:18 (NASB)

This presence is tied to a different picture of “bondage” or “enslavement.” Here, we have the 10 Commandments that show up in the next chapter, followed by several chapters of laws and ordinances, which all culminate in the commitment made in Exodus 24. The whole time, and for the next 40 days, God is the Fire on the Mountain.

Then Moses came and reported to the people all the words of the Lord and all the ordinances; and all the people answered with one voice and said, “All the words which the Lord has spoken we will do!”
Exodus 24:3 (NASB)

Kivshan, or “God’s furnace” as I’m calling it, has an interesting root: כָּבַשׁ (kavash) which means… bondage. Slavery.

But this isn’t slavery under man. In scripture, this word is most frequently used to describe ordered servitude under God, starting in Genesis 1.

I. to subject, subdue, force, keep under, bring into bondage
– 1. (Qal)
– – 1. to bring into bondage, make subservient
– – 2. to subdue, force, violate
– – 3. to subdue, dominate, tread down
– 2. (Niphal) to be subdued
– 3. (Piel) to subdue
– 4. (Hiphil) to bring into bondage
Strongs H3533 כָּבַשׁ: kavash

God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
Genesis 1:28 (NASB)

This word is often used to describe land being subdued for God’s people, for God’s purposes, which makes the Exodus kavash so poignant: God’s presence is tied to commitment. That commitment is akin to being a “slave” for God.

It sounds quite awful, unless you know that God is Good.

But there’s something else here. In Micah, we read that God, in His great compassion, will kavash our iniquities. Capture it, subdue it, wrestle it down and cast it into the depths of the sea.

He will again have compassion on us,
And will subdue our iniquities.
You will cast all our sins
Into the depths of the sea.
Micah 7:19 (NASB)

So what we learn is that the furnaces of man (Babylon) are a corruption of the furnace of God, because slavery under the boot of Empire is not like slavery under God who loves us.

The furnace of God is God’s own presence among us, wiping out our sin and cleansing us.

Flood and Fire

Posted on by jovial_cynic

But he urged them strongly, so they turned his way and entered his house. He prepared a feast for them and baked unleavened bread, and they ate.
Genesis 19:3 (The Contemporary Torah, JPS, 2006)

There are all sorts of links between the Genesis flood and the destruction of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, but the theme of alcohol afterwords is striking.

The rabbis point out that the word “feast” here in Hebrew means a “drinking feast.” That’s what מִשְׁתֶּה means.

A feast. Literally, “a drinking feast.” Lot offered them wine because he was fond of it himself.
Sforno on Genesis 19:3

The teaching isn’t that alcohol is “bad,” but perhaps it’s one of those things that people turn to after grief of loss, and when they do, it leads to greater grief and shame.

Noah, a man of the soil, proceeded to plant a vineyard. When he drank some of its wine, he became drunk and lay uncovered inside his tent. Ham, the father of Canaan, saw his father naked and told his two brothers outside.
Genesis 9:20-22 (NIV)

One day the older daughter said to the younger, “Our father is old, and there is no man around here to give us children—as is the custom all over the earth. Let’s get our father to drink wine and then sleep with him and preserve our family line through our father.”

That night they got their father to drink wine, and the older daughter went in and slept with him. He was not aware of it when she lay down or when she got up.
Genesis 19:31-33 (NIV)

This is a kind of idolatry.

Perhaps the angels abstained to give this hint.

Strange Fire

Posted on by jovial_cynic

Now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took their respective firepans, and after putting fire in them, placed incense on the fire and offered strange fire before the Lord, which He had not commanded them.
Leviticus 11:1 (NASB)

I recently read a post regarding the “Strange Fire” of Leviticus 10:1. Aaron’s sons are killed for burning an incense that God had not commanded. The post said that God just hates when we do stuff without permission and that we should take God very seriously.

This is a bad teaching.

For starters, this wasn’t some new issue that just came up out of nowhere. God had already told them about “strange” fire and incense in Exodus. He already told them “Don’t do it.”

You shall not offer any strange incense on this altar, or burnt offering, or meal offering; and you shall not pour out a drink offering on it.
Exodus 30:9 (NASB)

But what makes a fire or flame “strange?”

Perhaps an answer is given to us in Leviticus 6: a strange fire is any fire that didn’t come from the continually burning fire that God provided.

The fire on the altar shall be kept burning on it. It shall not go out, but the priest shall burn wood on it every morning; and he shall lay out the burnt offering on it, and offer up in smoke the fat portions of the peace offerings on it. Fire shall be kept burning continually on the altar; it is not to go out.
Leviticus 6:12-13 (NASB)

Good fire is GOD’S fire.

Therefore, strange fire is man’s fire. It’s not good.

So what does this have to do with Genesis?

Back in Genesis 11, we learned that Shinar and the bricks of the Tower of Babel point to Empire. Slavery. Bondage. Ur of the Chaldeans means “FLAME of the Chaldeans.” These bricks are baked in Babylonian furnaces, fueled by humanity. The furnaces are fueld by us.

Strange Fire consumes us. It devours us. It spends us like fuel to keep the machine of Empire and slavery burning. And not just us. Our children as well.

Jeremiah, in his outcry against Israel repeats this warning. This the fire God “did not command,” echoing Leviticus 11.

They have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the Valley of Ben-hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, which I did not command, and it did not come into My mind.
Jeremiah 7:31 (NASB)

The Fire of Man is lit to bake the bricks of bondage, idolatry, and confusion.

The Fire of God stays continually burning and is the source of Life for those who seek Light and Warmth.

Fire and Smoke

Posted on by jovial_cynic

So make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out. This is how you are to build it: The ark is to be three hundred cubits long, fifty cubits wide and thirty cubits high. Make a roof for it, leaving below the roof an opening one cubit high all around. Put a door in the side of the ark and make lower, middle and upper decks.
Genesis 6:14-16 (NIV)

Everything we know about the construction of the Ark is in Genesis 6:14-16.

Later, God gives very precise measurements for other construction projects.

In Exodus 40, Moses completes construction of the Tabernacle, and God’s glory falls in smoke and fire.

In 2 Chronicles 7, Solomon completes construction of the Temple, and God’s glory falls in smoke and fire.

In Genesis 6, Noah completes construction of the Ark, and I bet there was smoke and fire aboard.

Let there be Light.