Welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Genesis. This is study #5 of Genesis, chapter 10 and we are continuing to look at Nimrod and we are going to read Genesis 10:8-10:

And Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth. He was a mighty hunter before JEHOVAH: wherefore it is said, Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before JEHOVAH. And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar.

In our last couple of studies, we have seen that Nimrod is a figure of the apostate church and, perhaps, of Satan because the Lord stressed he was a mighty hunter and the enemies of God “hunt” for the precious life; they hunt the people of God, just as Saul pursued after David. And Satan goes about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour – he “hunts” the people of God. Nimrod can also be seen as a type and figure of Satan because he rules over a kingdom. When there is a kingdom, there is normally a king that rules over it. The beginning of his kingdom was “Babel” or Babylon and in the Bible Babylon is a picture of Satan. Therefore, the king of Babylon is a type and figure of Satan, so Nimrod does qualify as a picture of Satan.

We were looking at the word “Shinar” because Babel, Erech, Accad and Calneh were all in the land of Shinar. We looked at Daniel 1:1-2:

In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah came Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon unto Jerusalem, and besieged it. And the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand, with part of the vessels of the house of God: which he carried into the land of Shinar to the house of his god; and he brought the vessels into the treasure house of his god.

So, there is a close identification between Shinar and Babylon. It is similar to the use of the term “Chaldeans,” which is also a synonym for Babylon. So, too, Shinar is tied to Babylon and in our last study we were looking at Zechariah, chapter 5. It is one of the most difficult books in the Bible and there is much we still do not know the spiritual meaning of, but the meaning is clear in Zechariah 5, verse 1 where God speaks of His Word as a “flying roll.” It said of the flying roll, which typified the Word of God, in Zechariah 5:4:

I will bring it forth, saith JEHOVAH of hosts, and it shall enter into the house of the thief, and into the house of him that sweareth falsely by my name…

Then in Jeremiah 7, verses 8 through 11, God describes Judah (the corporate church) as a “den of robbers” and a place where there is spiritual robbery taking place, so the “house of the thief” is the apostate corporate church.

It went on to say in Zechariah 5:4:

… and it shall remain in the midst of his house, and shall consume it with the timber thereof and the stones thereof.

We are going to continue by reading Zechariah 5:5-8:

Then the angel that talked with me went forth, and said unto me, Lift up now thine eyes, and see what is this that goeth forth. And I said, What is it? And he said, This is an ephah that goeth forth. He said moreover, This is their resemblance through all the earth. And, behold, there was lifted up a talent of lead: and this is a woman that sitteth in the midst of the ephah. And he said, This is wickedness. And he cast it into the midst of the ephah; and he cast the weight of lead upon the mouth thereof.

We wonder what this is speaking about. We are going to look at this word “ephah.” It is Strong’s #374 and we find that it is a word that God uses often to represent the Gospel or the truths of the Word of God, the Bible. For instance, we read in Leviticus 19:35:

Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment, in meteyard, in weight, or in measure.

In the Bible, “judgment” is synonymous with the Law of God. Then it goes on to say in Leviticus 19:36-37:

Just balances, just weights, a just ephah, and a just hin, shall ye have: I am JEHOVAH your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt. Therefore shall ye observe all my statutes, and all my judgments, and do them: I am JEHOVAH.

The Lord tells us to do no unrighteous in judgment in verse 35 and He closes His remarks by saying, “Therefore shall ye observe all my statutes, and all my judgments, and do them: I am JEHOVAH.” In between these statements, He speaks of being just in measures, weights and balances. Yes, there is a certain application to people that deal with weights and measures. Even in the world today, there are departments of weights and measures. When you get a gallon of gas at the gas pump, you will see a sticker on the station that says it has been inspected by the Department of Weights and Measures to make sure that when you pay for a gallon of gasoline, you are receiving a true gallon of gas. We have “weights and measures” all over the place. When we go to the supermarket or the deli, we buy a pound of cheese, a pound of ham and a pound of turkey. They have set the price per pound, but what if you bought a pound of turkey, but you received only three-quarters of a pound? You would be upset because you paid for a pound. Perhaps, the scale was faulty or maybe the owner of the deli decided to “short” people on the weight to make more money. That practice is illegal and unjust. Yes, God has given laws in that area, too. When you buy something by the pound it should be accurately weighed. The world understands that. However, more than that, God is speaking about being honest in His “judgments,” or His Word, the Bible. On a spiritual level, having just judgments is very similar to the idea of being fair with the “weights and measures” of the meat you have paid for, but false gospels are not just – it is like they have their “finger on the scale” or they have “lifted up a talent of lead” upon the ephah, as we read about in Zechariah, chapter 5. It says in Deuteronomy 25:13:

Thou shalt not have in thy bag divers weights, a great and a small.

Here, someone wants to sell something, but they did not have the electronic measurements we have today. They had a “bag of weights.” So, if the buyer wanted a certain weight of an item the merchant man was selling, the merchant man would take out his “bag of weights.” Even in ancient times, there would have been a “standard” that was to represent the proper weight, but the dishonest merchant would have “great and a small” weights and, in some cases, he would misrepresent the weight and deceive the person. This is how it relates to false gospels. It goes on to say in Deuteronomy 25:14:

Thou shalt not have in thine house divers measures, a great and a small.

Here, the word translated as “divers measures” is the same word translated as “ephah.” It says in Deuteronomy 25:15:

But thou shalt have a perfect and just weight, a perfect and just measure shalt thou have: that thy days may be lengthened in the land which JEHOVAH thy God giveth thee.

What does having perfect weights and measures (ephahs) have to do with having length of days? Of course, it identifies with the true, faithful and just Gospel, the Word of God, the Holy Bible. It is called “holy” because it is pure and right and perfect. The Bible gives nothing but just “weights and measures” and accurate balances. When the Bible “weighs” the sinner, it finds guilt and it demands satisfaction on that scale. When men come with another gospel and they say, “Here is what the Bible says regarding your sin. Yes, you must have payment for sin and here is how you can be justified in God’s sight by doing work.” Then they pull out their bag of divers weights, great and small, and they suggest that you need to walk down the aisle, say the Sinner’s Prayer, accept Christ and be water baptized, and so forth. By offering a works gospel, they falsify the balances. It tells us in Amos 8:5:

Saying, When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn? and the sabbath, that we may set forth wheat, making the ephah small, and the shekel great, and falsifying the balances by deceit?

It was “another gospel” that Israel of old put forth and it was “another gospel” that the New Testament churches put forth and they became deceitful in their merchandise. God does liken the Gospel to “merchandise” in Isaiah 55:1: “…come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.” The churches deal in the merchandise of the Gospel or the Word of God, but they do so as deceitful merchantmen that falsify the balances.

It says in Proverbs 11:1:

A false balance is abomination to JEHOVAH: but a just weight is his delight.

The faithful proclamation of the Bible as contrasted with that which is a lie and that which has perverted the grace of God. Today, we know that the corporate churches offer nothing but “false balances.” There is no salvation taking place within the corporate body since 1988, so there are only false balances within the churches and there are no righteous dealings taking place there.

We are helped in understanding the “weight” and what it represents when we go to Proverbs 16:11:

A just weight and balance are JEHVOAH'S: all the weights of the bag are his work.

Immediately, we can see why God is so concerned about this, because the “weight” and the “balance” pertain to the Gospel and God’s salvation program. How is it possible for a sinner to become saved? We are saved by the faith of Christ and faith is a work, so we are saved by the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. In fact, His work demonstrated His faith and, therefore, “all the weights of the bag” in the spiritual realm are His work.

On one hand, you have a desperately wicked sinner. He is corrupt and his heart is gushing forth with iniquity. He is under the wrath of God and the Law of God demands satisfaction and justice. The Law demands payment and it must be a just payment for the sin that the individual has committed: the wages of sin is death. That is the Law. The Bible says that “all the weights of the bag are his work.” It was His work in dying for the sins of His elect at the foundation of the world when He made a payment that satisfied the Law’s demand. That was the “weight in the bag.” It was the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. When there was a dirty, rotten sinner that was subject to the wrath of God in the day of salvation, God would bring the Gospel to that sinner’s hearing and it was as if the “weights of the bag” of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ was placed on the scale and a just transaction was performed to redeem that elect sinner. He was “bought with a price” and he became Christ’s. He purchased us. He owns us and, of course, the child of God is grateful for this fact. There has been the application of the proper “weight” and “balance.”

However, false gospels do not put Christ’s work on that scale, but they place the works of the individual on the scale, like the work of “accepting Christ,” and then they claim, “This is a just transaction. The Law has been satisfied. God’s justice is satisfied. The wrath of God has been satisfied because you have accepted Christ.” But God says, “No, that is falsifying the balances by deceit. It is unacceptable.” We read in Micah 6:11:

Shall I count them pure with the wicked balances, and with the bag of deceitful weights?

In other words, there is not the work of the Lord Jesus Christ in the bag. It is man’s works. Man’s work is as nothing and it never measures up and it is not sufficient payment – it is robbery. As a result, the churches have become a “den of thieves.” Remember how angry the Lord Jesus was when He overturned the tables of the moneychangers because they were merchandising the gospel in their falsehoods and they did not use just “weights and balances.”

Let us go back to Zechariah 5:7:

And, behold, there was lifted up a talent of lead: and this is a woman that sitteth in the midst of the ephah. And he said, This is wickedness. And he cast it into the midst of the ephah; and he cast the weight of lead upon the mouth thereof.

Has the weight of lead changed what the ephah weighs? Yes, it does because it is heavy and, therefore, they are not dealing honestly. It goes on to say in Zechariah 5:9-11:

Then lifted I up mine eyes, and looked, and, behold, there came out two women, and the wind was in their wings; for they had wings like the wings of a stork: and they lifted up the ephah between the earth and the heaven. Then said I to the angel that talked with me, Whither do these bear the ephah? And he said unto me, To build it an house in the land of Shinar: and it shall be established, and set there upon her own base.

Then the chapter ends. People have read this passage for thousands of years and they would have wondered: “What is God talking about?” And, yet, we understand it very well in our day because we know that God has ended the church age and at the beginning of the Great Tribulation the Lord released Satan (who is typified by the King of Babylon) to overcome the camp of the saints. Satan, as it were, annexed the corporate church and the churches became part of the kingdom of Satan (Babylon). Therefore, there is the wicked “ephah” that is a false weight that has a weight of lead upon it and it was set up and established in the land of Shinar, which is Babylon. This is basically telling us that all the New Testament churches in all the world became part of Babylon.

I think we have spent enough time on “Shinar” and we have how Nimrod’s establishment of his kingdom in Babylon in the land of Shinar does relate to the kingdom of Satan.

Lord willing, in our next study we will continue in Genesis, chapter 10. It is not an easy chapter because there are genealogies mixed in with some of these statements, but it is a very interesting chapter. Please join us in our next Bible study in the Book of Genesis.