Via these two songs and other Scriptures shared, you will find answers to question such as: Who is the Prince of Persia? What is the Divine Council mentioned in Psalm 82:1 (NRSVue)? How quickly did the event at the Tower of Babel occur? What or who is the Rock in Matthew 16:13-18 that Jesus would build His church on?
Who Sings the Songs?
Revelation 15:3a says:
And they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb -NRSVue
If you read that chapter, you see that the "they" singing those two songs are those who conquered the beast, image, and number. The ones singing the two songs are martyred tribulation Christians. Why are they singing these two songs, and why are they singing them at this specific point in the tribulation?
We see they are singing these two songs right before the seven angels come forth with the seven bowls of God's wrath to be unleashed. The seven bowls of wrath comprise the second half of the tribulation. What is happening in Revelation before these two songs are sung? We see the rapture occurring at the seventh trumpet, and likely during the Jewish Festival of Trumpets. We see it from different views throughout chapters 11-14. In chapter 11, verse 15, we see the rapture event begins with:
Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, saying, “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah, and he will reign forever and ever.” - NRSVue
Verses 11-15 fulfill the Mystery mentioned in Chapter 10 verse 7, and also mentioned in 1 Corinthians 15:51-52.
The Seventh Trumpet ushers in the beginning of Christ taking His Kingdom back from the Enemy of Darkness. The beginning of this campaign is the rapture of the saints, followed by the martyred Christian saints singing these two songs in heaven, and then the full wrath of God is unleashed on the earth for the second half of the tribulation. It's possible that the Christians singing these two songs in heaven are Jews, as Jews are commanded in the Old Testament to memorize the Song of Moses.
The Song of the Lamb
The Song of Moses is recorded for us in Deuteronomy chapter 32. The Song of the Lamb, however, we get to learn when we read of these martyred Christians singing it. The Song of the Lamb is recorded in Revelation 15:3b-4, and is as follows:
“Great and amazing are your deeds,
Lord God the Almighty!
Just and true are your ways,
King of the nations!
4 Lord, who will not fear
and glorify your name?
For you alone are holy.
All nations will come
and worship before you,
for your judgments have been revealed.” -NRSVue
The song starts with praise, and a title for God. He is called "Almighty." This is significant, as you'll see in the Song of Moses. The Greek word translated "Almighty" here is pantokratōr, which literally means The Ruler of the Universe. God is being specified as not just any god, but as THE Ruler of ALL.
The song then goes on to emphasize that God's ways are just and true. We already know that. Is this just being sung as praise, or is it connected to his being The Ruler of the Universe? The connection is there, and you'll see it in the Song of Moses. God isn't just a god over a specific nation. He is the Creator God of all.
Verse 4 tells of God's name. His name is the tetragrammaton YHWH, which we usually pronounce as Yahweh, but adding in the Hebrew I Am, it may be pronounced Yahuah. Yahweh literally means "The Self-Existent One." Verse 4 thus could be: 'Lord, who will not revere and glorify you - The Self Existent One." The emphasis here is that Yahweh was not created. He is the One who did the creating, thus he is the Almighty - The Ruler of the Universe.
This song contains a prophecy, where it says in verse 4 that "all nations will come and worship before you." We see this expounded further in the ending chapters of Revelation. The fact that this Song says "King of the nations," (vs 3) and "All nations will come and worship" is significant. This goes with why God is referred to as The Ruler of the Universe.
As you are about to see, The Song of the Lamb is an abbreviated version of the Song of Moses.
Why 'Ruler of the Universe,' and "nations?" This is because The Song of the Lamb is Reversing the Tower of Babel Incident.
Genesis 11:7-8 says:
Come, let us go down and confuse their language there, so that they will not understand one another’s speech.” 8 So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. -NRSVue
The Tower of Babel incident is when people were divided up into nations, and immediately physically moved by God all over the globe to different continents with different languages. This is why, for example, we have the same false gods, such as the goddess Artemis, all over the world, but with different names, such as Diana, Agrotera, Hecate, the goddess of Wicca, and much more.
What most fail to recognize in the above verses, is that it says in verse 7 'Let us go down and confuse their language.' Who is this "us?" This is the Divine Council. If you've never heard of this, or you think the Divine Council isn't Scriptural, then please keep reading, as you'll soon see that the Divine Council is VERY real, and 100% relevant to The Song of the Lamb and The Song of Moses.
The Song of the Lamb emphasized God the Almighty - The Ruler of the Universe, and the King of Nations, because after the tower of Babel, members from God's Divine Council became judges over certain nations. Hang tight, as I'll show you this in the Bible. In fact, one of the places this is laid out happens to be in The Song of Moses.
The Song of the Lamb is the undoing of the Tower of Babel incident. It is the bringing back together of all nations for all to worship The Ruler of the Universe.
We now move on to a study of The Song of Moses, which will also contain many Scripture to back what I just claimed about The Song of the Lamb...
The Song of Moses
The Song of Moses is recorded in Deuteronomy chapter 32: verses 1-43. Chapter 31 mentions this song, and states in verse 21:
And when many terrible troubles come upon them, this song will confront them as a witness because it will not be lost from the mouths of their descendants. For I know what they are inclined to do even now, before I have brought them into the land that I promised them on oath.” -NRSVue
The Israelites were taught The Song of Moses, were to memorize it, and to teach it to their children. Then, when they witness the prophecies in that song, they will recall the lessons of that song. This is likely why the Song of Moses is a song, and not just a writing. Songs are easier to memorize. In the Hebrew, this probably had a specific rhythm and meter, which made it easier to memorize.
They were to memorize this song before they enter the Promised Land, and now we Christians, the people of God under the New Covenant, should know the Song of Moses before we enter the Ultimate Promised Land - New Jerusalem:
And in the spirit he carried me away to a great, high mountain and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God. -Revelation 21:10 NRSVue
Please read The Song of Moses below in its entirety, and then we will study it:
“Give ear, O heavens, and I will speak;
let the earth hear the words of my mouth.
2 May my teaching drop like the rain,
my speech condense like the dew,
like gentle rain on grass,
like showers on new growth.
3 For I will proclaim the name of the Lord,
ascribe greatness to our God!
4 The Rock, his work is perfect,
and all his ways are just.
A faithful God, without deceit,
just and upright is he;
5 yet his degenerate children have dealt falsely with him,
a perverse and crooked generation.
6 Do you thus repay the Lord,
O foolish and senseless people?
Is not he your father who created you,
who made you and established you?
7 Remember the days of old;
consider the years long past;
ask your father, and he will inform you,
your elders, and they will tell you.
8 When the Most High apportioned the nations,
when he divided humankind,
he fixed the boundaries of the peoples
according to the number of the gods;
9 the Lord’s own portion was his people,
Jacob his allotted share.
10 He sustained him in a desert land,
in a howling wilderness waste;
he shielded him, cared for him,
guarded him as the apple of his eye.
11 As an eagle stirs up its nest
and hovers over its young,
as it spreads its wings, takes them up,
and bears them aloft on its pinions,
12 the Lord alone guided him;
no foreign god was with him.
13 He set him atop the heights of the land
and fed him with produce of the field;
he nursed him with honey from the crags,
with oil from flinty rock,
14 curds from the herd, and milk from the flock,
with fat of lambs and rams,
Bashan bulls and goats,
together with the choicest wheat—
you drank fine wine from the blood of grapes.
15 Jacob ate his fill;
Jeshurun grew fat and kicked.
You grew fat, bloated, and gorged!
He abandoned God who made him
and scoffed at the Rock of his salvation.
16 They made him jealous with strange gods;
with abhorrent things they provoked him.
17 They sacrificed to demons, not God,
to deities they had never known,
to new ones recently arrived,
whom your ancestors had not feared.
18 You were unmindful of the Rock that bore you;
you forgot the God who gave you birth.
19 The Lord saw it and was jealous;
he spurned his sons and daughters.
20 He said, ‘I will hide my face from them;
I will see what their end will be,
for they are a perverse generation,
children in whom there is no faithfulness.
21 They made me jealous with what is no god,
provoked me with their idols.
So I will make them jealous with what is no people,
provoke them with a foolish nation.
22 For a fire is kindled by my anger
and burns to the depths of Sheol;
it devours the earth and its increase
and sets on fire the foundations of the mountains.
23 I will heap disasters upon them,
spend my arrows against them:
24 wasting hunger,
burning consumption,
bitter pestilence.
The teeth of beasts I will send against them,
with venom of things crawling in the dust.
25 In the street the sword shall bereave,
and in the chambers terror
for young man and woman alike,
nursing child and old gray head.
26 I said, “I will make an end of them
and blot out the memory of them from humankind,”
27 but I feared provocation by the enemy,
for their adversaries might misunderstand
and say, “Our hand is triumphant;
it was not the Lord who did all this.” ’
28 They are a nation void of sense;
there is no understanding in them.
29 If they were wise, they would understand this;
they would discern what their end would be.
30 How could one have routed a thousand
and two put a myriad to flight,
unless their Rock had sold them,
the Lord had given them up?
31 Indeed, their rock is not like our Rock;
our enemies are fools.
32 Their vine comes from the vinestock of Sodom,
from the vineyards of Gomorrah;
their grapes are grapes of poison;
their clusters are bitter;
33 their wine is the poison of serpents,
the cruel venom of asps.
34 Is not this laid up in store with me,
sealed up in my treasuries,
35 for the day of vengeance and recompense,
for the time when their foot shall slip?
Because the day of their calamity is at hand;
their doom comes swiftly.
36 Indeed, the Lord will vindicate his people,
have compassion on his servants,
when he sees that their power is gone,
neither bond nor free remaining.
37 Then he will say, ‘Where are their gods,
the rock in which they took refuge,
38 who ate the fat of their sacrifices
and drank the wine of their libations?
Let them rise up and help you;
let them be your protection!
39 See now that I, even I, am he;
there is no god besides me.
I kill, and I make alive;
I wound, and I heal;
and no one can deliver from my hand.
40 For I lift up my hand to heaven
and swear, As I live forever,
41 when I whet my flashing sword
and my hand takes hold on judgment,
I will take vengeance on my adversaries
and will repay those who hate me.
42 I will make my arrows drunk with blood,
and my sword shall devour flesh—
with the blood of the slain and the captives,
from the long-haired enemy.’
43 Praise, O heavens, his people;
worship him, all you gods!
For he will avenge the blood of his children
and take vengeance on his adversaries;
he will repay those who hate him
and cleanse the land for his people.”
-Deuteronomy 32:1-43 NRSVue
Verse 1 tells us who this song is to. It's to those in the heavens and to those on the earth. This could be poetic hyperbole, but given the context of the Song of the Lamb and this Song of Moses, it here is literal. This song is to angels and humans. In using the word "angel" in this treatise, I will be referring to not just God's supernatural messengers, but also to his divine council and other spiritual beings God made.
In verse 3 it says "I will proclaim the name of the LORD." LORD (in all caps) is YHWH in the Hebrew. In the Bible, most names have meanings, and that is also true of Yahweh, which means The Self-Existent One. This Song of Moses proclaims that God is THE God - the Creator, the One who made us, the Self-Existent One, above Whom there is no higher power.
Verse 3 has the word "Rock," with a capital R. We also see "rock" in this song with lower case r. Capital R Rock is defined in this song as being God, while lower case r rock is defined as the shaky foundation of other religions.
The Song of Moses is connected to many things in the New Testament, and one of the ways it is connected is via the capital R Rock. God is the Rock of our Salvation, as seen in verse 15. Rock means both the beginning/source, and the foundation. This is why Jesus is called our Cornerstone in the New Testament. The cornerstone is the first rock laid out in the foundation of a building.
Locality and spiritual problems mentioned later in the The Song of Moses tie the Rock with the Rock of Matthew 16:13-18:
Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” 14 And they said, “Some say John the Baptist but others Elijah and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” 15 He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” 16 Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” 17 And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you but my Father in heaven. 18 And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. -NRSVue
The first connection we see is the location: Caesarea Philippi, which was located on a large bedrock, in front of the Cave of Pan, also known as the Gates of Hell, or Gates of Hades. This evil cave was at the foot of Mount Hermon, where the book of 1 Enoch tells us the fallen angels of Genesis 6:1-4 had their meeting place. Caesarea Philippi was in the area of Bashan. The Song of Moses mentions Bashan in verse 14.
After Peter makes his profession to Jesus, professing that He is the Messiah, the Son of the Living God, Jesus says "flesh and blood has not revealed this to you but my Father in heaven." Have you ever noticed that MANY people say they are Christians, but they don't bear Christian fruits? Jesus says in the gospels, 'by their fruits you shall know them.' Galatians chapter 5, verses 19-25 lists examples of works of the flesh, versus fruits of the [Holy] Spirit [in a true Christian]. These faux Christians claim they are saved, because they said a cutesy little prayer, but that's it. Their life didn't change. They remained slaves to sin (Romans 6:16).
What's different about Christians who really become Christians, like Peter eventually did? It was 'revealed to them by God.' Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount to 'seek, and you will find, knock, and the door will be opened.' The Scriptures in both Old and New Testaments repeatedly say that God looks at our hearts. If we are really seeking God and His ways, then he will draw us to Him, as He did with Peter. The Song of Moses will go into following God, versus not following God, and some of the spiritual implications of both.
Verse 18 in the above Matthew 16 does a play on words. If you've done much study of the Holy Bible in the Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, then you've seen that God does a LOT of word play like this throughout the Bible. This is part of what makes reading the Scriptures in the original languages such a blessing. We see that our God has a great sense of humor, as some of the word play is downright hilarious.
In verse 18, Jesus is telling Peter that just as his name means rock, he has now received salvation upon the Rock of Salvation (Jesus), and also that the literal large rock they were standing on would have a church built there, of which the Gates of Hades, the cave in which they were standing right in front of, would not prevail against it.
Ancient ruins show there indeed was a church built on that very rock, and that church was based on the Rock of Salvation - Jesus Christ, who is God in the flesh. Satan's current rule of this world cannot and will not prevail against the Church - The Body of Christ on the earth.
We now return to the Song of Moses. Take a look at verses 4b-7. They emphasize God's loyalty to His people, but contrast the disloyalty of them to Him. Verse 6 points out that God is the Creator. He made them. He made us. He made all. This keeps being emphasized, and for good reason. As we see later in The Song of Moses, God's people turn from him, and turn to lower case g gods. Verses 8 and 9 tell us where these "gods" originated. Verses 8 and 9 are the key verses to The Song of Moses, and to fully understanding The Song of the Lamb, for they refer to the Tower of Babel incident. For this reason, it is worth quoting those two verses again below:
When the Most High apportioned the nations,
when he divided humankind,
he fixed the boundaries of the peoples
according to the number of the gods;
9 the Lord’s own portion was his people,
Jacob his allotted share. - Deuteronomy 32:8-9NRSVue
First, notice the title given for God - "Most High." Remember in The Song of the Lamb, God's title was "Almighty," which means Ruler of the Universe. Here, "Most High" is the Hebrew equivalent. The Hebrew for Most High is ʿelyôn, which literally means "The God above all gods."
The above tells us that The God Above all gods divided the humans, so that their boundaries of where they were divided were fixed "according to the number of the gods." God set members of His Divine Council (supporting scriptures to follow) over specific nations as judges of those nations. As for Jacob, which is Israel, God set Himself as their Judge.
Recall at the Tower of Babel incident, Genesis 11:7-8 says:
Come, let us go down and confuse their language there, so that they will not understand one another’s speech.” 8 So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. -NRSVue
"Us" is the Divine Council. Now we see in The Song of Moses that not only did the Divine Council participate with God in this dividing of the nations, but that Divine Council members were assigned nations to be judges of.
Psalm 58:1-2 goes into this as well:
Do you indeed decree what is right, you gods?
Do you judge people fairly?
2 No, in your hearts you devise wrongs;
your hands deal out violence on earth. -NRSVue
We see a problem. These Divine Council members - gods, were to judge the nations righteously, and point them to God. Instead, they used their God-given free-will to sin, just as humans do. Instead, they devised wrongs and dealt out violence.
Take a look at Psalm 82:1-2:
God has taken his place in the divine council;
in the midst of the gods he holds judgment:
2 “How long will you judge unjustly
and show partiality to the wicked? -NRSVue
We see that God holds regular meetings with His Divine Council. In fact, we see such meetings various times in the Bible, including in the first chapter of Job. Notice that "divine council," gods (Hebrew: Elohim in the plural usage) and "judge" are used interchangeably in the above, and in other instances in the Scriptures referring to God's Divine Council.
In the above Scripture passage, the Divine Council meeting is about the unjust and wicked judgement the Divine Council members are doling out to their assigned nations. Rather than pointing their nations to Yahweh God - The God above all gods, the Ruler of the Universe, they are directing their people towards idolatry, worshiping Divine Council Members as gods, etc - as we'll see when we read further in The Song of Moses.
The Book of Daniel also makes reference to a Divine Council member/god/judge, where this member is referred to as a "prince" of their allotted nation:
But the prince of the kingdom of Persia opposed me twenty-one days. So Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, and I left him there with the prince of the kingdom of Persia -Daniel 10:13 NRSVue
Daniel had been in deep prayer, mourning, and fasting for weeks, begging God to reveal to him the understanding of a prophecy he had received. Finally when a messenger from God - an angel, arrived, the angel explained in the above verse 13 why it took so long for him to get to Daniel. The Divine Council member assigned to the nation of Persia tried to stop the angel from reaching Daniel. The archangel Michael ("one of the chief princes") arrived to help that angel, and fought with the Divine Council Member assigned to Persia.
We see Michael fighting with bad angels on multiple occasions in the Bible, including being insinuated in Daniel 12:1a:
At that time Michael, the great prince, the protector of your people -NRSVue
And Revelation 12:7:
And war broke out in heaven; Michael and his angels fought against the dragon. The dragon and his angels fought back -NRSVue
As we now return to The Song of Moses, let us review verses 8-9, and notice The Most High is the God above gods, and the Divine Council members -gods are assigned their nations:
When the Most High apportioned the nations,
when he divided humankind,
he fixed the boundaries of the peoples
according to the number of the gods;
9 the Lord’s own portion was his people,
Jacob his allotted share. -NRSVue
From this and the above Scriptures we just looked at, we also learned that not only is Jacob/Israel the portion that God took, but that He assigned the archangel Micheal as a protector over Israel.
Verse 10 has God calling Jacob/Israel "the apple of his eye." In the Hebrew, it means "the pupil of his eye." The pupil was considered the delicate part of the eye that required protection. God calling Israel the pupil of His eye meant that He found Israel precious, and wanted to protect His people.
In verse 12 we see that Jacob/Israel was guided by God, and they didn't go for foreign gods. The foreign gods were defined for us in verses 8-9. The Israelites at this point were staying true to the God allotted to them, which is Yahweh, the God above all gods.
The next few verses describe the blessings that the people of God received and lived by, because they followed the one true God. Verse 14 lists something very interesting. Verse 14 says:
curds from the herd, and milk from the flock,
with fat of lambs and rams,
Bashan bulls and goats,
together with the choicest wheat—
you drank fine wine from the blood of grapes. -NRSVue
In listing the abundance of the people of God, because they were being true to God, and not going after the foreign gods, we see here in this verse a list of abundance, including: "fat of lambs and rams, Bashan bulls and goats." Why does it say Bashan bulls, instead of just 'bulls?' Recall our Rock connection of The Song of Moses with Matthew 16:13-18 that we looked at earlier. Caesarea Philippi was in the Bashan land.
The Bible has some interesting things to say about Bashan bulls. Psalm 22:12-13 says:
Many bulls encircle me;
strong bulls of Bashan surround me;
13 they open wide their mouths at me,
like a ravening and roaring lion. -NRSVue
This is the Psalm that Jesus referenced in the Gospels when He was on the cross, and He cried out part of the first verse of Psalm 22:
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? -Psalm 22:1a NRSVue
Bulls of Bashan were surrounding Jesus at His crucifixion. Bashan is where Mount Hermon is, which is where the Cave of Pan is, known as The Gates of Hell/Hades. Caesarea Philippi used to be called the city of Dan. Have you ever noticed that the tribe of Dan is not mentioned even one time in the New Testament, but all of the other tribes of Israel are?
Dan refused to take their allotment of land given them by God. Instead, they wanted the land of Laish, which lay at the foot of Mount Hermon. They attacked the peaceful, defenseless people of Laish, and forcefully took that land for themselves. They set up an Micah's idol there, and became completely steeped in a foreign god. In verse 12 of The Song of Moses, there was no foreign god with Dan or the other tribes, but Dan, along with eventually all the tribes, forsook the God of gods for foreign gods instead.
Another mention of the Bulls of Bashan is in Ezekiel 39:18:
You shall eat the flesh of the mighty and drink the blood of the princes of the earth—of rams, of lambs, and of goats, of bulls, all of them fatted calves of Bashan. -NRSVue
"You" in the above are birds who are sent to eat the flesh of people and animals after a massive battle. The birds are called to eat the flesh of people, rams, lambs, goats, and bulls of Bashan - "... of bulls, all of them fatted calves of Bashan." A fatted calf of Bashan is a baby from a Bashan bull. This means "all of them" - people and animals, were affected by the spiritual darkness of Bashan bulls - demons or demonic forces.
Bulls of Bashan represent demons, demon possessed people, and people who go after foreign gods and thus are directed or somewhat steered by demonic forces. While Bulls of Bashan mocked Jesus at His crucifixion, we see that these evil entities can be overcome, as they are in the above Scripture.
Bulls and calves picture often in the Bible's depiction of God's people forsaking Him, and going after foreign gods. The Song of Moses in verses 16 and 17 allude to the time Israel made a golden calf to worship, but also built by it an altar to Yahweh. While Moses was away, they worshipped both the calf and Yahweh together. We'll see this in more detail when we study verses 16 and 17 in Deuteronomy 32.
First we see in verse 15 that the people of God became so comfortable in their God-given prosperity, that they no longer gave glory to God for all He provided, but rather they gave glory elsewhere - probably to themselves, and maybe to foreign gods. This verse tells us they "scoffed at the Rock of his Salvation." - "his" being Jacob - the people of God. They scoffed at the God of gods, and no longer looked to Him as the Author of their salvation. Instead, they let the influence of the Bulls of Bashan speak to their spirits.
Verses 16 and 17 of The Song of Moses here in Deuteronomy 32 says:
They made him jealous with strange gods;
with abhorrent things they provoked him.
17 They sacrificed to demons, not God,
to deities they had never known,
to new ones recently arrived,
whom your ancestors had not feared. -NRSVue
The NRSVue translation is a bit tricky here in verse 17, but the Wycliffe has it well-done. Verse 17 in the Wycliffe says:
They offered to fiends, or to devils, and not to God, to gods which they knew not, to new gods which they discovered in their searching, that their fathers did not worship.
The people of God ceased to be God's people, because they instead provoked the God of gods to jealousy by going after "strange gods." These are gods that they found in searching. These are gods that their ancestors did not worship. Therefore these are "strange gods," or as verse 12 calls them - 'foreign gods.'
The word "demons" in the NRSVue verse 17 is the Hebrew word shedim. This word occurs only twice in the Old Testament, and both are connected. The other instance of shedim is in Psalm 106:35-38:
but they mingled with the nations
and learned to do as they did.
36 They served their idols,
which became a snare to them.
37 They sacrificed their sons
and their daughters to the demons;
38 they poured out innocent blood,
the blood of their sons and daughters,
whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan,
and the land was polluted with blood. -NRSVue
"Demons" in verse 37 is the only other instance of the Hebrew word shedim in the Old Testament. These verses expound on The Song of Moses, where Jacob forsook God for foreign gods. We see that these gods were demons, and behind the idols to those gods were demons. Jacob forsook God, and all the abundance and blessings God gave, to go after gods Jacob's ancestors didn't know, and to start sacrificing their children to the idols of those gods. In the above verses we see shedim - demons, being used interchangeably with idols.
Back to our Deuteronomy 32:16-17 verses, we see shedim - demons, being used interchangeably with gods. Therefore, we see that the fallen members of the Divine Council are also known as demons.
I don’t allow a wife to teach or to control her husband. Instead, she should be a quiet listener. CEB
Moreover, in the area of teaching, I am not allowing a woman to instigate conflict toward a man. Instead, she is to remain calm. ISV
I don’t advocate that the newly converted women be the teachers in the church, assuming authority over the men, but to live in peace. TPT
I'm not saying that women should teach men, or try to dictate to them; rather, that they should be left undisturbed. N.T. Wright Translation
I do not permit a woman to teach that she is the originator of man, rather she is not to cause a disturbance. REV
Have you noticed a theme in all of the 1 and 2 Timothy scriptures I've quoted? It's all about false teachings in the church. That's literally the topic of both books. Timothy's church was in Ephesus, and in Ephesus at that time, women weren't allowed to learn. When they start becoming Christians and going to church, false teachers were trying to educate these unlearned women in things not of God. These unlearned women were causing a disturbance in the church, by asking unlearned questions, and some even trying to bring Artemis worship into the Christian church, as the Artemis temple was one of the ancient wonders of the world, and was right there in Ephesus. The women IN EPHESUS were not allowed to teach until after they LEARNED, first.What! Was it from you that the Word of God went forth, or to you only did it come? ... So, my brothers and sisters, desire the gift of prophecy, and do not forbid speaking in tongues. - 1 Corinthians 14:33-36 and verse 39 Montgomery Translation
provoked me with their idols.
So I will make them jealous with what is no people,
provoke them with a foolish nation. -NRSVue
Verse 26 is all people who have turned away from God. This was for the Israelites then, and for people who leave God, today:
and blot out the memory of them from humankind,” -NRSVue
and my sword shall devour flesh—
with the blood of the slain and the captives,
from the long-haired enemy.’ -NRSVue
And the fifth angel blew his trumpet, and I saw a star that had fallen from heaven to earth, and he was given the key to the shaft of the bottomless pit; 2 he opened the shaft of the bottomless pit, and from the shaft rose smoke like the smoke of a great furnace, and the sun and the air were darkened with the smoke from the shaft. 3 Then from the smoke came locusts on the earth, and they were given authority like the authority of scorpions of the earth. 4 They were told not to damage the grass of the earth or any green growth or any tree, but only those people who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads. 5 They were allowed to torment them for five months but not to kill them, and the agony suffered was like that caused by a scorpion when it stings someone. 6 And in those days people will seek death but will not find it; they will long to die, but death will flee from them.7 In appearance the locusts were like horses equipped for battle. On their heads were what looked like crowns of gold; their faces were like human faces, 8 their hair like women’s hair, and their teeth like lions’ teeth; 9 they had scales like iron breastplates, and the noise of their wings was like the noise of many chariots with horses rushing into battle. 10 They have tails like scorpions, with stingers, and in their tails is their power to harm people for five months. 11 They have as king over them the angel of the bottomless pit; his name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek he is called Apollyon. -NRSVue
The long-haired enemy are these locust/scorpion-like demons who are released from hades/the pit. They have "hair like women's hair." When this was written, in society, men had short hair, and women had long hair. "hair like women's hair" meant 'long hair.' This long-haired enemy kept captive people who were not Christians (Christians have the seal of God - see Eph. 1:13-14). This captivity was via being stung by these demonic creatures, and the pain was so intense that these people wanted the release of death to get away from the pain, but death evaded them. They will be the captives in pain to the long-haired enemy for five months.worship him, all you gods!
For he will avenge the blood of his children
and take vengeance on his adversaries;
he will repay those who hate him
and cleanse the land for his people.” -NRSVue
