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Matthew B. Brown

“Cube, Gate and Measuring Tools: A Biblical Pattern”

There is a close relationship between the ancient Israelite temple and the book of the Apocalypse in the New Testament.

The holy of holies of the temple was based on a divine pattern that was revealed to Moses. What we know of the holy of holies can be compared to what we are told about the New Jerusalem in the book of Revelation in Rev. 21. The New Jerusalem that comes down out of heaven is described as a gold cube, just as is the holy of holies of the temple.

The entrance to the New Jerusalem consisted of three gates on each side, each gate guarded by an angel. This reminds us of the veil of the temple, which was decorated with embroidered cherubim who guarded the way to the holy of holies.

The Ark of the Covenant that sat in the holy of holies represented God’s throne and was supposed to have been placed over the “foundation stone” (the “navel of creation”), which, in turn, sat over the “abyss” (the primeval chaos or flood).

This “throne” of God was associated with the divine attributes of righteousness, truth, and uprightness. These three attributes can be seen as requirements for entrance to the temple, as we see in Ps. 15:2 — compare this to Rev. 21 (my notes here don’t contain the details, but perhaps we are to compare all of Ps. 15 with Rev. 21:7–8, and that both should be considered to be requirements for entry into the respective holy place).

Psalm 24 also represents an entrance liturgy that discusses entry requirements for the temple. According to rabbinic traditions (I have no specific reference), the psalm is said to be associated with the king gaining access to the holy of holies of the temple. The psalm speaks of passing through the gates to ascend to the temple.

We are told in Luke 13:22–30 that the gate for entrance into salvation is “strait” or narrow. There is also talk of “striving” (struggling, contending) to enter through the door, and also of knocking at the door (here M. Brown gives an explanation of a Catholic “entrance liturgy” that involves knocking on a door with a mallet).

Note that Psalm 118:19 makes reference to a temple gate known as the Gate of Righteousness.  “Righteousness”, anciently, was symbolized by the plumb line (Isa. 28:17; a measuring tool) and leveling instruments.  The targum to Psalm 89:8 indicates that faithfulness/truth surrounds God like a circle or compass. Also, the Hebrew verb yashar (I don’t have any references he used, but see, e.g., Ps. 5:8) means: to make straight, right, or level. It involves creating a straight line, not deviating to the right or left. (There is much more to this discussion that is missing from my notes — generally, the attributes or requirements for entering the temple, including righteousness, uprightness, etc., are often symbolized by measuring tools, such as those used by God to create the world, or those used to build the temple.)

In Ezekiel 40:3, when Ezekiel is shown in vision the future/ideal temple, he sees an angel “with a line of flax in his hand, and a measuring reed; and he stood in the gate.” We see here again the relationship between the temple gates and the measuring tools — the line/rope and rod are tools used for building the temple. We see this same theme in Rev. 11:1 and Rev. 21:15, where a rod is used to measure the sacred precincts.

Ezekiel 46:1–2 — we get a description of the king kneeling before the temple gate. He had to “measure up” to be worthy to worship at the temple (from this point on I think I became so enthralled in the presentation that I forgot to take detailed notes, basically only taking down relevant scriptural passages — I will attempt to reconstruct what I can based on this paucity of real notes).

Going back to our temple entrance liturgy in Psalm 24, verses 1-2 make reference to God’s actions at the Creation and the conquering of Chaos. God builds the earth upon the conquered Sea. Other scriptural passages describe God as a master builder using builders’ tools.  Proverbs 8:27, 29 tells about how God set his compass upon the chaos waters and ascribed limitations that they could not pass.  Job 38:5 talks of God laying the foundations of the earth, measuring and “stretching out the line” upon it — God used builders’ tools.

In Psalm 89, verse 9 describes God’s power over the chaos waters, how He rules over the raging of the sea. This is an important symbol of God’s power.  In Ps. 89:25, we can understand that God has delegated this divine power to the Israelite king, who shall likewise rule over the sea.

Psalms 2, 110 — God anoints king, sets him on his holy hill and gives him power over his enemies.

1 Kings 5:17 (see also Ezra 6:3) — King lays the foundation stones for the temple, following similar pattern to God in Creation

Psalm 72:1–2 — This psalm is declared, in the superscription, to be “A Song for Solomon”, and attributes to him the powers and duties of God. “Give the king thy judgments, O God, and thy righteousness unto the king’s son.  He shall judge thy people with righteousness, and thy poor with judgment.” The succeeding verses continue to demonstrate just how much divine power God has delegated to the king:

Psalm 72:4–11  4 He shall judge the poor of the people, he shall save the children of the needy, and shall break in pieces the oppressor.  5 They shall fear thee as long as the sun and moon endure, throughout all generations.  6 He shall come down like rain upon the mown grass: as showers that water the earth.  7 In his days shall the righteous flourish; and abundance of peace so long as the moon endureth.  8 He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth.  9 They that dwell in the wilderness shall bow before him; and his enemies shall lick the dust.  10 The kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall bring presents: the kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts.  11 Yea, all kings shall fall down before him: all nations shall serve him.

The righteousness expected of the king in order to be worthy of this trust is described in Pss. 19:13; 89:24; 101.

In 1 Kings 3:6, we are told that King David possessed the three divine throne attributes (mentioned above): truth, righteousness, and uprightness. The fact that the Davidic king was seen to sit on the very throne of Jehovah (1 Chron. 29:23) emphasizes the need for the king to possess these essential qualities.

The stories in Scripture related to the Creation, the Temple, and the End Times (Eschaton) contain a pattern of similar images and symbols.  We see the cube, the sets of three gates (veil), the cherubim (angels), the Ark of the Covenant (throne of God), the entrance requirements, and the measuring tools — these very significant symbols can be seen in biblical passages regarding the Creation, the Temple, and the New Jerusalem of the End Times.  There are significant parallels between what happens in Heaven and what happens on Earth, and God can be seen to delegate his divine power to mankind.

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For more on similar temple-related themes, please see the following papers, also presented at the Expound Symposium (the overlapping of themes was not planned):

Jeffrey M. Bradshaw, “Standing in the Holy Place: Ancient and Modern Reverberations of an Enigmatic New Testament Prophecy”

David J. Larsen, “Ascending into the Hill of the Lord: The Psalms as a Key to Understanding the Rituals of the First Temple”

My apologies to Matthew Brown for anything in my notes that may not fully or properly represent the wording or intentions of his presentation.

First, here is the abstract:

The Psalms contain many allusions and also direct references to the temple and temple ritual and are one of the few windows we have into the religious experience of the First Temple in Jerusalem. This paper will attempt to shed some light on ritual practices alluded to in the Psalms that I will argue were central to the ritual system of that Temple. Dr. Silviu Bunta, in a recent publication, argues that 1 Enoch 14 should not, as is commonly argued, be understood as the earliest example of the ascent to heaven motif in Jewish literature, but that Ezekiel’s vision in Ezekiel 1 should be seen as a temple vision and, thus, as an earlier, biblical account of an ascent to heaven.  Moving a step beyond Bunta’s conclusions, I argue that the heavenly ascent motif can be traced even further back, into the pre-exilic traditions of Solomon’s Temple, as illustrated by a number of pre-exilic Psalms and other biblical traditions, and that a ritualized ascent into heaven to see the face of God was one of the central features of the temple cult.  Descriptions of temple pilgrimages, festal processions, passage through temple gates, divine theophanies, and other religious experiences involving the temple can be seen to parallel key elements of the later heavenly ascent literature.

Ascending Into the Hill of the Lord: The Psalms as a Key to Understanding the Rituals of the First Temple

The purpose of this post is to simply announce, for those who haven’t seen them, a couple of papers that I have recently posted on my Scribd account.

The first, entitled “Insights from the Ascension of Isaiah“, is a re-publishing of a couple of old blog posts dealing with the early Christian text, The Ascension of Isaiah. I analyze the details of this text regarding how Isaiah ascended up through the various levels of heaven to the highest heaven, where he was given the privilege of seeing the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost — as three separate persons.

The second, “Three Gods in One: Perspectives on Mormon Social Trinitarianism“, is a paper that I was required to write for a class in Systematic Theology at Marquette University (with Prof. Ralph Del Colle).  The paper is quite different from the material that I usually write about or post here on this blog, but I hope that it is of interest. It is quite a long paper and looks at LDS perspective on the Trinity in the writings of Joseph Smith, and how his views are interpreted by LDS thinkers: Orson Pratt, David Paulsen, and Blake Ostler.  Again, systematic theology is not my cup of tea, but I hope my little foray into the field here is at least somewhat entertaining.

I also just recently posted a paper entitled “Insights into Ezekiel’s Remarkable Merkabah Vision,” which is, again, a reposting of one of the first pieces I wrote on this blog.  It looks at that wild and crazy vision of Ezekiel, where he saw the throne of God on the backs of some interesting creatures, and so forth, and interprets it in light of the objects that were present in the Holy of Holies of the Temple.  Basically, the theory is that what Ezekiel was seeing was a portable version of the throne of God in the Holy of Holies. It is a very short piece and doesn’t go into much detail, but I think that the idea is interesting.

NB: You can see a great presentation by William Hamblin related to this last topic here.

I plan to post items on my Scribd account periodically, so check there every once in a while for the latest piece.

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In Ezekiel 1, the prophet experiences an amazing theophany that has inspired and perplexed readers for centuries. Ezekiel was privileged to see the Merkabah, the flying chariot-throne of God, and “upon the likeness of the throne was the likeness as the appearance of a man above upon it” (Ezek 1:26).

In the account that we have of this vision, we read of a whirlwind, fire, living creatures, wheels, a firmament, and other complex images. Attempts to depict what Ezekiel was seeing have been varied and rather amusing. Early Jewish and Christian writers were enamored with Ezekiel’s vision, and much time and effort was dedicated to pondering its mysteries (as can be seen in the Ma’asei Merkavah and the Kabbalah, for example). Looking past the imagery, many scholars have recognized in Ezekiel’s Merkabah the essential elements of Solomon’s Temple, which had been destroyed. If we are to understand what Ezekiel was seeing, we must look to the Temple!

Hebrew University’s Rachel Elior analyzes the similarity between the Merkabah imagery and the Temple setting. The winged cherubim of the Holy of Holies (1 Kgs 6:23–29, 8:6-7; compare Ezek. 1:5–11),  the stands in the Temple court with their copper wheels (I Kings 7:27–30, 33; compare 1:10, 13-16), the four threesomes of creatures facing all four points of the compass, the lions, oxen, cherubim, and ofanim (wheels)-all made of burnished bronze –

-became four sacred winged creatures, sparkling with that same bronze luster, with the faces of lions, oxen, eagles, and human beings. They stood on four wheels (Heb. ofanim) which had the appearance of “two wheels cutting through each other” and faced all four points of the compass (Ezek 1:4–11, 16–21), like their counterparts in the Temple. The gold-plated winged cherubim in the sanctuary, whose wings were extended and “touched each other”, and which stood on their feet, were transformed in Ezekiel’s vision into sacred, sparkling, winged creatures, “each of whose wings touched those of the other” (Ezek 1:9) and whose legs “were fused into a single rigid leg” (Ezek 1:7); their appearance was “like burning coals of fire…” (Ezek 1:13). There is thus a whole system of correlations between the ideal picture of the destroyed earthly Temple and the visionary Temple revealed in heaven (Rachel Elior, The Three Temples, trans. David Louvish; Oxford: The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2004).

Ezekiel saw the principal elements of the First Temple form a mobile unit which was not fixed in an earthly Temple but was a heavenly reality that could travel wherever God pleased. In essence, however, this is the vision of Isaiah (Isa 6)–Yahweh seated upon the cherub-throne in the Holy of Holies. Ezekiel was visited by this chariot-throne while in exile in Babylon, and then saw it return to the Temple in Jerusalem. In a time when the people had lost their city and their Temple but hoped to return and rebuild it again, Ezekiel’s visions gave them the assurance that God could and would be with them at all times and in all places.

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If you haven’t yet seen it, my notes from Margaret Barker’s recent lecture at the Temple Studies Symposium last week has some good stuff on Ezekiel and his vision of Eden (chapter 28, also skipped by this SS lesson) and how it relates to Adam and the temple. You can see my notes here.

Also on this topic, see also the following series of videos from Professor William Hamblin’s presentation at the SANE conference at BYU in November 2008.

What is the Chariot in Ezekiel 1, Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Adam and Eden are the beginning and the end of the Bible.

An overly literal reading of the text can obscure profound insights.

The Return to Eden was an important part of Christian teaching. See Cyril of Jerusalem, First Lecture on the Mysteries, 1.  Jesus is the last/second Adam & great high priest. The NT reverses story of Adam and Eve.

Original temple represented Garden of Eden. Sometimes the word “paradise” is not used in scripture — we often get forest, orchard, garden of delight, garden on plain, etc.

Ezekiel, a priest (Ezek. 1:3), described Eden as the mountain garden of the ‘elohim (Ezek. 28:13–14). The Genesis Eden was the garden where Yahweh of the Elohim (the “LORD God”) walked. Ezekiel’s Eden was the “garden of the gods” on the holy mountain of the gods/God (Ezek 28:12–19). The key figure in Ezekiel’s Eden became Adam. The figure in Ezekiel’s Eden was remembered as a high priest. In Ezekiel, the character driven out was the high priest. Ezekiel’s story is likely earlier than Genesis.

The figure in Ezekiel wore 9 different stones in Hebrew text, but twelve stones in Greek — just like high priest’s breastplate. He was a cherub, or was with the cherub.

In Exod. 25:8-9, 40 — Moses has a vision was the 6 days of creation. He had to replicate on earth what he had seen in his mounatin-top vision. Gen 1 = Exod. 14. The creation of Adam corresponds to the high priesthood.

The temple itself was built as a paradise place. The Great Hall of temple was decorated as a Garden, with cherubim and palm trees carved on the walls (Ezek. 41:15–20). The Temple was on a high mountain just as Ezekiel’s Eden is on high mountain (Ezek. 40:2).  He saw a river flowing from the temple, just as rivers had flowed from Eden (Ezek. 47:1–12).

Righteous are like trees in the temple of the Lord; there was a bronze serpent in temple; also a representation of the chariot(s) to the sun.

2 Enoch 8 — When the Lord returned to Paradise, he rested on throne under Tree of Life; When he returned to Paradise, seated on the chariot of cherubim, all the plants came into bloom, and the throne was set by the tree of life (Apocalypse of Moses 22:3-4).

The temple as Eden was the setting of the Book of Revelation: the heavenly city as a huge holy of holies (Rev. 21:15–16), the tree of life and the heavenly throne, the river of the water of life (Rev. 22:1–2).  – Christians in Holy of Holies. eating fruit of Tree of Life; restored access to the Tree of Life (Rev. 2:7; 22:3-4)

Adam created male and female in Gen. 1, and in Gen. 2 was formed from dust and then given breath of the Lord (Gen. 2:7). Breath of Life — ritual for giving life, power of speech. Only in Garden was Adam separated into distinct male and female beings. He was set “to till and to keep”. Word for till, ‘bd, is technical term for temple service, and keep, shmr, meant to preserve the tradition. Jewish interpretations did not think this was a command about gardening (Genesis Rabbah XVI.5).

Jubilees — Adam had to wait 40 days before entering Eden; Eve — 80 days — purification (Jub. 3:8-14). Adam burned incense as he left Eden (Jub. 3:27). Noah knew Eden as the holy of holies, and the dwelling of the Lord (Jub 8:19).

Apocalypse of Moses — Adam lost his garment of glory, the righteousness with which he had been clothed (Apoc. Moses 20:1–2). St Ephrem, “God clothed Adam with glory” (Commentary on Genesis 2). Adam and Eve in Paradise –garments of glory and beauty – Adam had been clothed with glory in Eden (Book of the Cave of Treasures, I). –Genesis doesn’t say what garment was lost.

At Qumran they wanted to regain “all the glory of Adam”…The knowledge of the Most High…the wisdom of the sons of heaven.” (Community Rule IV)

Adam’s garment of glory was woven by Wisdom, and Adam was proverbially wise -Job 15:7–8 — “are you the first man that has listened in the council of God?”

–clothing of Wisdom — like clothing of high priest; symbolism of vestments (Ben Sira 6:30-31), c.f. Teaching of Silvanus CG VII.4.89, 91; also Gospel of Thomas 78.

Life of Adam and Eve is background to Genesis: — Satan was driven from from Heaven and vowed revenge, as in Qur’an (see Life of Adam and Eve 12-16).

–Satan refused to worship Adam — he claimed was greater/older than Adam — Satan expelled from Heaven for this

This is the story behind Psalm 2 and Jesus’ temptations (Luke 4:7).

–Deut. 32:43

–Heb. — all angels are to worship the Son

–Devil asks Second Adam to worship him, to reverse his ancient humiliation

–angels serve Jesus on throne in the wilderness

–all heaven and earth worship the one on the throne

–possible that Adam and Eve story is far more ancient than book of Genesis, instead of a late fabrication

Ezekiel’s visions of the chariot throne leaving the temple were Adam leaving the temple/Eden. The “form and appearance” are technical temple terms. –Forms of the living gods, forms of living spirits — Similar ideas in the Qumran Songs of Sabbath Sacrifice — “form” often translated as Rock — should be the “invisible heavenly form”.

Later teachers–sin made it impossible for Adam to know his true self “Because of sin, it was not given for man to know the d’mut on high; were it not for this sin, all the keys would be given to him and he would know how the heavens and the earth were created…” (Abot de R Nathan, A39)

–King of Tyre was the invisible form of the King of Israel — the fallen high priest figure– Charges against Ezekiel’s fallen high priest figure resemble the words the words to unfallen Adam in Genesis

Adam is the image of the “form” of God

“Be beautiful and great and fill the earth with glory” — may be related to Adam being tall, lustrous, glorious

Genesis Adam was to subdue, kbsh, the earth and have dominion, rdh. But Micah 7:18–19 suggests “binding up” our iniquities.  Adam’s work was one of Atonement — upholding the eternal covenant, binding all things together. “Have dominion” rdh, understood as in 1 Kgs 4:21–24.

–Ezekiel’s vision — Adam’s duty to “subdue” is in Ezekiel “to seal”. Ezekiel’s jewelled figure perfect in beauty perfect in beauty and full of wisdom: Adam beautiful and wise. Jewelled figure corrupted wisdom and become proud through its beauty, filling the earth with vilence, and achieved only greatness in commerce.

–Who was the snake? There was a bronze snake in temple until Hezekiah destroyed it. — Wisdom promises to open eyes and make sons of God, like Satan’s promise (Gen. 3:5)–Satan took the form of the symbol of Wisdom, his first deception. (Think Satan as serpent is similar to “devil coming as an angel of light”)

–Adam’s disobedience was his attitude towards knowledge; he intended to eat Wisdom from the tree of life (Prov. 3:18). He  chose knowledge of good and evil over “wisdom”

Before he sinned, Adam could hear the song of the seraphim singing “Holy, Holy, Holy” (Testament of Adam 1:4), as in Isaiah 6. Adam took gold, frankincense and myrrh from Eden to remind him of the garden, the temple, that he had lost, and these were buried with him (Testament of Adam 3:6). The magi bringing them as gifts to Jesus is the first sign in the New Testament of the new Adam.

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This material is based on Margaret Barker’s handout together with notes of my own taken from her presentation.