That Marvelous Menorah (Part 2)

 

In part one, I touched on some of the numbers involved in the parts of the menorah. I’d like to introduce an idea to you that’s been bumping around in my head for a while. It’s a 4-4-4=12 thing. Take a look at the diagram below.

Notice how the theme of 4, the door, comes up each time we count the lamps. We also get to 4 if we count the branch junctions from the base to the top of the Servant Branch.

There are three ways to get to a four, which gives us a 4-4-4. If you’ve looked at that number in Gematria or Isopsephy, you’ll see that it often ties to Jesus, or his perfect love for us.

This is where I take a little bit of a left turn. Bear with me.

A year ago, or so, I noticed that there was a little repetition between Genesis 19 and Judges 19. Nineteen is the number that symbolizes God’s perfect judgement, so it caught my attention that these oddly similar chapters were both the nineteenth of their books.

In Genesis, it’s the account of Lot being visited by two angels. Sodom and Gomorrah are supposed to be destroyed very shortly and Lot has the angels staying in his home. A violent and depraved mob shows up, demanding the angels be released so that the men of the town can rape them. Lot tells them he’ll give them his two virgin daughters instead.

In Judges, a Levite’s wife plays the harlot then scoots back to Bethlehem to stay with her father. The Levite gives it “4 whole months” then comes to Bethlehem to speak kindly to his cheating wife to convince her that she should come home. The Levite stays with his father-in-law for four days. He leaves there and winds up in the home of a man from Ephraim (as the Levite is) and a violent and depraved mob shows up. They, too, demand the traveler so they can rape him. Again, the mob is offered a virgin daughter instead, and the Levite throws his wife into the deal. But, the virgin daughter is spared and the wife is tossed out by the Levite. She’s abused all night and dies with her hands on the threshold of the house. It’s a long story, but civil war ensues. The mob came from the tribe of Benjamin, and ultimately the tribe is almost completely wiped out – except a remnant of 600 men, who hide out in a cave for 4 months.

Did you see that? There’s a 4-4-4 in Judges 19 and 20. Four months, four days, four months. That got me thinking about the design of the menorah, which has a similar pattern in the counting, as explained above.

I started to look at the fours in these chapters of the book of Judges.

The first four is when the Levite let his wife (who played the harlot) go as she would to her former life. He waited four months, specifically, before he pursued her.

The second four is the number of days he initially decided to stay with his father-in-law and wife, as he spoke kindly to her. He didn’t need to do that at all. It was clearly grounds for divorce. He didn’t even go there to shame her. He offered her redemption instead.

It’s also interesting to note that he tarried a couple of extra days, for a total of six, and then he gathered up his bride, set her atop an ass, and was taking her home. The KJV says he was taking her to the house of the Lord, not home. Hmmm. This “four” was all about redemption.

The final four came about after the tribe who eventually ended up killing the Levite’s bride came to justice. This four is all about destroying the enemy and avenging the bride.

Four, four, four. Free will, redemption, vanquishing of enemies.

That’s an apt description of perfect love, isn’t it?

Here’s a partial list of the words with a Hebrew Gematria of 444:

But let me get back to the other numbers of the menorah. You probably know that the Hebrew alphabet has 22 letters in it. The Bible has 3 sets of 22s in it, for a total of 66 books. There are three elements in the menorah design: Bowls, knops, flowers. Three elements times 22 (the total number of each element in the design) is 66.

There’s a lot more to the design, but I’ll have to stop here for now. It looks like there’s going to be a part three. I hope you stick around to read it.

Eyes up!