Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Genesis. Tonight is study #27 of Genesis, chapter 21. We will read Genesis 21:20-21:
And God was with the lad; and he grew, and dwelt in the wilderness, and became an archer. And he dwelt in the wilderness of Paran: and his mother took him a wife out of the land of Egypt.
These verses end the account of Hagar and Ishmael in the wilderness, and then the narrative moves on and returns to discuss Abimelech of the Philistines. So, this concludes this passage, and as I mentioned at the close of our last study, initially I could not see a deeper spiritual meaning, but the wonderful thing is that we can keep praying and comparing Scripture with Scripture; then God may open up our understanding, which I think He has done in this case, revolving the word “Paran.” The wilderness of Paran is where Ishmael grew up and dwelt: “And he dwelt in the wilderness of Paran.”
The word “Paran” is a Hebrew word that is found 11 times in the Old Testament. It is Strong’s #6290 in the concordance. Of the 11 times it is used, six of those times it is used in relationship to Israel’s 40-year sojourn in the wilderness after they had come out of the land of Egypt. Paran was not that far away from Egypt. Remember that Hagar was an Egyptian woman, so she would naturally have gravitated toward her homeland, and Paran was in that direction. What we are going to try to do is to look in the Bible to see how God uses the wilderness of Paran. I think we will then gain a spiritual understanding of what is going on here with Ishmael and Hagar.
First, let us go to Numbers 12 where God is speaking of Miriam, after Miriam and Aaron had rebelled against the authority God gave to Moses, and God made Miriam a leper for a while. Moses besought the Lord to heal her, and then it says in Numbers 12:14-16:
And JEHOVAH said unto Moses, If her father had but spit in her face, should she not be ashamed seven days? let her be shut out from the camp seven days, and after that let her be received in again. And Miriam was shut out from the camp seven days: and the people journeyed not till Miriam was brought in again. And afterward the people removed from Hazeroth, and pitched in the wilderness of Paran.
Paran is also mentioned in Numbers 13:1-3:
And JEHOVAH spake unto Moses, saying, Send thou men, that they may search the land of Canaan, which I give unto the children of Israel: of every tribe of their fathers shall ye send a man, every one a ruler among them. And Moses by the commandment of JEHOVAH sent them from the wilderness of Paran: all those men were heads of the children of Israel.
So, Paran is the place the 12 spies left from before entering the land of Canaan to search out the land for forty days. But before they went to Paran, they had been in Hazeroth: “And afterward the people removed from Hazeroth, and pitched in the wilderness of Paran.” God tells us about the encampments of the nation of Israel in the wilderness. He told us how many encampments there were and the order of them in Numbers 33:1-3:
These are the journeys of the children of Israel, which went forth out of the land of Egypt with their armies under the hand of Moses and Aaron. And Moses wrote their goings out according to their journeys by the commandment of JEHOVAH: and these are their journeys according to their goings out. And they departed from Rameses in the first month, on the fifteenth day of the first month; on the morrow after the passover the children of Israel went out with an high hand in the sight of all the Egyptians.
Then it lists all their encampments, and it says in Numbers 33:17-18:
And they departed from Kibrothhattaavah, and encamped at Hazeroth. And they departed from Hazeroth, and pitched in Rithmah.
It does not say that they departed from Hazeroth and pitched in the wilderness of Paran, which tells us that “Rithmah” (which is related to “juniper tree”) was in the wilderness of Paran. Paran would have been the overall location and Rithmah would have been an area within that wilderness, just as I live in a town that is located within a county. I think this is the idea. Rithmah was a location in the wilderness of Paran. This is the only way we can harmonize this account in Numbers 33 with the statement in Numbers 13. God did not mention Rithmah in Numbers, chapter 12, but he said, “And afterward the people removed from Hazeroth, and pitched in the wilderness of Paran.” But in Numbers 33, He did not mention Paran, but He said, “And they departed from Hazeroth, and pitched in Rithmah.” So, it must be that Rithmah was in the wilderness of Paran.
We can count the encampments or movements. Anyone can do this in Numbers 33. You must be careful because of the way it is worded, but you can see how God moved them from one place to the other. The encampment in Hazeroth was the thirteenth movement; that is, it was the thirteenth time Israel moved. They went from Hazeroth the thirteenth time the “cloud” had gone before them. Remember that they moved according to the movement of the “cloud,” as God tells us in Numbers 9. Throughout that chapter, He connects the movement of the cloud and movement of Israel with His commandment. God even said, “At the commandment of JEHOVAH the children of Israel journeyed, and at the commandment of JEHOVAH they pitched.” God never spoke a word, but it was through the movement of the “cloud” that God gave commandment, thereby linking the “cloud” with God’s commandments.
This is the reason when we read verses like Matthew 24:30 where it says He will come in the “clouds,” we understand the cloud to be God’s commandments or the Word of God, the Bible. And where did we see Christ coming as the Judge of all the earth with the eyes of our understanding? Did we see it in the physical sky or clouds? No – we saw it on the pages of the Bible. It is the spiritual “cloud” of the Word of God. It is the Word of God that also directs us and causes us to move. For a time we were located within the corporate churches, but then God (through the “cloud” of judgment) opened up the Scriptures to show us that it was time to “move” out of the churches. It is a very similar idea, except that Israel did so on a physical level, but we do it in the spiritual realm. This is very significant when we realize that Hazeroth was the thirteenth encampment, because the number “13” in the Bible points to the time of the end and it has to do with “super fulness.” The 13,000th year of earth’s history was 1988, when God brought judgment upon the churches. He also opened the Scriptures in due time to reveal that His judgment had been accomplished upon the “house of God,” the corporate church. We began to understand this a few years after the 13,000th year and we began to come out of the congregations.
Hazeroth is a Hebrew word, Strong’s #2698, which is derived from #2691, the word for “court” or “courts.” It is used dozens of times. If you look up the word “court” or “courts” in your concordance, you will see this Strong’s number, which is #2691. That is the word from which Hazeroth is derived. You may see it translated as “village” or something else, but it is primarily translated as “court.” For example, it is the word we find in Leviticus 6:16:
And the remainder thereof shall Aaron and his sons eat: with unleavened bread shall it be eaten in the holy place; in the court of the tabernacle of the congregation they shall eat it.
It was to be eaten in the court in the holy place. Or, it is used in Jeremiah 19:14-15:
Then came Jeremiah from Tophet, whither JEHOVAH had sent him to prophesy; and he stood in the court of the JEHOVAH'S house; and said to all the people, Thus saith JEHOVAH of hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, I will bring upon this city and upon all her towns all the evil that I have pronounced against it, because they have hardened their necks, that they might not hear my words.
He stood in the court of JEHOVAH’s house. If we were going through the book of Jeremiah, what would the word “court” represent, spiritually? It is the same thing we saw in the verse we read in Leviticus where it identified with the holy place. Here, it identifies with JEHOVAH’s house or the churches and congregations of the world. That is where you find the “court.” I will read a couple of verses that will “clench” the idea, as the saying goes. It will confirm what this word identifies with, in Revelation 11:1-2:
And there was given me a reed like unto a rod: and the angel stood, saying, Rise, and measure the temple of God, and the altar, and them that worship therein. But the court which is without the temple leave out, and measure it not; for it is given unto the Gentiles: and the holy city shall they tread under foot forty and two months.
The holy city is synonymous with the “court” that was given to the Gentiles to be trodden under foot. It has to do with God’s judgment which began at the house of God. There is no mistaking what it refers to because it is obvious.
So, we can see that since Hazeroth means “court,” Israel dwelt in this “court” or holy place. And then God moved on, as the “cloud” departed from Hazeroth and went to the wilderness of Paran. Is that not interesting? That was where Hagar and Ishmael were located and where Ishmael dwelt after Isaac had been weaned. He had been evicted from Abraham’s encampment and he had gone out into the wilderness. And there we find all this language where God is indicating His intention to save the “sons of Ishmael” and to fulfill His promise to Abraham that He had heard him and would make Ishmael a great nation.
If someone is just tuning in and you did not hear the earlier studies, just check them out. We do not go over the same points in every study, just because someone has tuned in at a later point. It is there. It is a record anyone can check, and you can see how the weaning of Isaac ties in with the time of the end. And the time of the end began at the 13,000th year of earth’s history when the Great Tribulation began, followed by Judgment Day. We have been learning these things in the Bible and we have experienced all these things because we have been living for some time now right on the “edge” of the end of the world, so we can see the significance of Numbers 12:16 when it tells us that they left Hazeroth or left the court. It identifies with leaving the churches. After 13 encampments, representing 13,000 years, they then moved to the wilderness of Paran. It is a perfect match with Ishmael finding himself in that same wilderness.
But now, there comes a more interesting question: What does the word “Paran” mean? The Lord is making a big deal about Ishmael dwelling in the wilderness of Paran. We have seen how this word was used six times regarding Israel’s wilderness sojourn. It is the point from which the spies entered into the land of Canaan, so we have some information about it. But what does “Paran” represent? What does it mean?
Lord willing, when we get together in our next Bible study, we will look at this and try to find an answer to those questions.