WHAT CAME FIRST, THE WRITTEN WORD OR STARGAZING?

WHAT CAME FIRST, THE WRITTEN WORD

OR STARGAZING?

The patriarchs were stargazers. Adam, Seth, Enos, Canaan, Mahallalel, Yared, Enoch, Methuselah, Noach, Shem, Avraham, Yitzack, Yaacov, Yoseph and his brothers, all knew something of God’s messianic plan, and they studied the Davar (Hebrew), the Logos (Greek), the Word (English) in the heavens. What did they study? What do the heavens declare? Scripture declares that the heavens, the sun and moon, all declare the glory of YHWH and His handiwork. The patriarchs knew this! Day to day the Word is worded, and night to night, there is knowledge [of the Word]. There is no place where there is not a night sky, and no place where the Word is not ‘voiced’ or heard (Psalm 19:1-4). The heavens also declare the dragon/serpent, and the virgin; the Lion, and a single star that descends out from the twelve stars who humble themselves before that sole star!

The patriarchs studied and knew that the heavens with its stars are a tabernacle for Yacov and his twelve tribal sons of whom the twelve stations called mazzaroth (“signs”) in Hebrew, and zodiakos (“circle”) in Greek commemorate, in the ecliptic circle or path for the sun (Psalm 147:1-4). The patriarchs studied and knew that the twelve major constellations in the heavens, each one ‘ruling’ the cosmos for approximately thirty days (a month) were pictures in the night sky of the messianic plan of Elohim. All twelve moons or months preach the glory of God. The patriarch, Job knew of Pleaides (“the Seven Sisters”), Orion, Arcturus the Bear, and Mazzaroth meaning, “twelve signs.” Yochanon when writing the final scroll of Holy Writ, the Apocalypse wrote of a great sign in heaven, “a woman dressed with the sun, the moon under her feet, and a crown with twelve stars on her head.” Another sign shown was “a dragon in the sky, with seven heads, ten horns (or, kings), and on his head a crown of seven diadems.” What Yochanon saw in the heavens first, he then wrote on parchment.

The Jewish historian, Flavious Josephus wrote of Seth, the son of Adam who knew the zodiac and its language. Josephus suggested that God gave the early patriarchs, the antediluvians, long lives so that they might perfect their astronomical inventions (Book 1; Chapter 2; Section 3): "Now this Seth, when he was brought up and came to those years in which he could discern what was good, became a virtuous man; and as he was himself of an excellent character, so did he leave children behind him who imitate his virtues. All these proved to be of good dispositions. They also inhabited the same country without dissentions and in a happy condition, without any misfortunes falling upon them until they died. They also were the inventor of that peculiar sort of wisdom, which is concerned with the heavenly bodies and their order. And that their inventions might not be lost before they were sufficiently known, upon Adams prediction that the world was to be destroyed at one time by the force of fire, and at another time by the violence and quantity of water, they made two pillars, the one of brick, the other of stone. They inscribed their discoveries on them both, that in case the pillar of brick should be destroyed by the flood, the pillar of stone might remain and exhibit these discoveries to mankind. Now this remains in the land of Siriad to this day” 

Persian and Arabian traditions ascribe the understanding of the zodiac (from the Hebrew tsodi meaning “the way” or “the path”) to Seth and great, great, great, great, grandson, Enoch. Avraham was told by Elohim to count the stars and in doing so he counted his children. Neutron stars, protostars, pulsars, quasars, spiral galaxies, ring galaxies, Seyfert galaxies, white dwarfs, brown dwarfs, red giants, magnetars, X-ray busters, nebulae, globular clusters, globular clusters, circumstellar matter, dark matter, etc., all make up what is called “a cosmic zoo” (Stedman 202), and like the Hebrew language itself, the heavens display the world’s first Picture Show of Messiah.

The star descending from Yacov was that star assigned to Yeshua, the star that the stargazing Magi saw in the east that led them to Jerusalem where the king was to sit. It was a star, in its course, not an apparition or ghost star that led the Magi onward to BeitLechem. The Magi were Zoroastrian priests perhaps, whose duties included the mapping and interpretation of the movement of stars. They lived close to a Jewish seminary and were certainly familiar and studious of the messianic predictions. Or, the Magi were perhaps descendants of the Jewish captives in Babylon (609, 597, 586 BC) who remained behind from the 50,000 who returned to Jerusalem. The Magi were certainly esteemed students of prophecy and astronomy observing the seasons and kokavim or stars and interpreting their signs, the purpose for which the stars were created (Genesis 1). 

Are you a stargazer? The heavens were like musical notes, a grand cantata, sign-posts of God to man, and are eschatological banners of YHWH’s soon coming. But, can we read His music today? Not so good! We need the written Word, black ink on paper, since we are [more] fallen. Yet, the Word of God is living. He spoke to Noach in the fertile crescent, to Avraham in Ur, to Moshe in Egypt, and to Reggie in Lake Charles Louisiana. The Davar/Logos/Word lives outside the confines of cosmology and paper.

The Word of God came first, and it was written everywhere, in the heavens, in the land, in creation, even in the hearts of man (John 1:9). We are without excuse!