Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #12 of Genesis 35, and we are going to read Genesis 35:8-10: 

But Deborah Rebekah's nurse died, and she was buried beneath Bethel under an oak: and the name of it was called Allonbachuth. And God appeared unto Jacob again, when he came out of Padanaram, and blessed him. And God said unto him, Thy name is Jacob: thy name shall not be called any more Jacob, but Israel shall be thy name: and he called his name Israel.

I will stop reading there.  For the last few studies, we have been looking at verse 8 and the spiritual meaning of Deborah, Rebekah’s nurse who died and was buried in Bethel under an oak.   And God says the name of it was  Allonbachuth.

I am glad that you are probably saying to yourself at home, “Yes, Deborah means ‘word.’ I know that.”  That is good if that has been impressed upon us, and maybe we will not forget it.  However, we do have a tendency to forget because we are just men, so it is always good to be brought to remembrance of these things.

Deborah does identify with the Word of God, and she was a nurse, which is the same word that is translated as “suck.”  And we know that the Lord likens His Word to a mother who provides milk for her children.  We drank of the “milk of the word” in time past when God saved us.  And how were we born?  We were born by the Word: “For faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”  The Word gave us birth.  We were begotten of the Word, and then the Word fed us. 

But at the time of the end, it was time to move on from the “milk,” so God opened the Scriptures to reveal the deep things of God that He had stored up to spiritually nourish His people over the course of the end time tribulations.  First there was the Great Tribulation, which was followed by a second tribulation.  There are two tribulations at the time of the end, and these two tribulations are two judgments.  The word “tribulation” is basically a synonym for “judgement.”  It is the time when the Lord would open up His word to reveal the deeper things which are likened to “the meat of the word.”  So we have grown in grace and the knowledge of God.  We have matured and come to the point where we are able to eat “meat,” so that is why Deborah (the Word) is said to have died.

But there is an additional emphasis in verse 8 where it says she was “buried.”  As I mentioned before, there are a number of words here that point to being “down.”  When you are buried, you are normally put down in the ground.  Then there is the word “beneath,” which has to do with being down below.  And Bethel means “house of God,” and we know that the churches were the house of God.  So the Word is no longer providing “suck” because she has died, and she is “beneath” the house of God and “under” an oak.  So even with the word “under,” there is a really strong emphasis on the Word being “down” or “beneath,” especially being beneath, or under, the house of God.  So we went to Revelation 11, and I will read it again, in Revelation 11:2:

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 three English words translated as “tread under foot” is a translation of one Greek word, “pat-eh'-o,” which is only found five times in the New Testament.  We started in Revelation 11:2, and that was the first use of this word, and then we went to Luke 21 where God said that Jerusalem would be trodden down of the Gentiles, or nations, so it was a similar context.  And both of those verses have in view the end of the church age, the time when God’s judgment was upon the house of God.  It is the time when Satan was loosed, and the “two witnesses” were killed.  The two witnesses identify with “the law and the prophets,” or “Moses and Elijah.”  And the term “the law and the prophets” is a figure of speech to represent the Word of God.  So the Word of God was killed when Satan rose up, and their “dead bodies” were lying in the streets of the great city which is spiritually called Sodom and Egypt.  And yet, it is the apostate corporate church that the Spirit of God had departed from, and they had the Word of God, but they were treading it under foot.  And that is the reason that Genesis 35 tells us that Deborah, the one who had given “suck,” died and was buried “beneath Bethel,” or beneath the house of God.  She was buried under an oak, and the name of it was called Allonbachuth, which means “oak of weeping.”  We have seen that the word “oak” used earlier in Genesis 35 is very similar to “ay-law',” the name of God.  (I think the only difference is vowel pointing, so it would be basically the same word.)  It is a name that God uses in the Old Testament, so when we read that Deborah is beneath the “oak of weeping,” it is like “God of weeping.”  And this immediately reminds us of what we read of the Lord Jesus in Luke 19:41-44:

And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it, Saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes. For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, And shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another; because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation.

There is a lot of information in those verses, but we can see the tie-in to Matthew 24.  That is how the chapter began when Christ said that not one stone would be left upon another.  And that prompted the disciples to ask, “Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?”  Then the Lord answered them, and He spoke of the judgment on the churches and the judgment on the world in this chapter.  In this context, Christ beheld the city, and He wept over it, so that means He was “above” it.  He was above, of course, because He is God, and God looks down from above.  So, historically, the woman Deborah was buried in the place Bethel under an oak, but spiritually it points to the tragic and sorrowful fact that God’s Word was killed at the point of Satan’s loosing into the churches and congregations, and it is beneath them.  They were treading the “holy city” under foot, and it was the “holy city” because the Word of God was there, but they were paying it no heed.  They gave “lip service” to it, but they did what they pleased, and to handle God’s Word in that way is certainly to “trod it under foot.”  If we turn to Ezekiel 34, it is also a chapter in which God speaks of the end of the church age.  It says in Ezekiel 34:9-10:

Therefore, O ye shepherds, hear the word of JEHOVAH; Thus saith the Lord JEHOVAH; Behold, I am against the shepherds; and I will require my flock at their hand, and cause them to cease from feeding the flock; neither shall the shepherds feed themselves any more; for I will deliver my flock from their mouth, that they may not be meat for them.

When the Lord ended the church age, this is exactly what He did.  He caused the shepherds (the pastors, elders, deacons, priests, popes) to cease from feeding the flock, and God Himself took over that responsibility.  And that is what Ezekiel 34 points out as God emphatically states that He will feed His sheep upon the mountains of Israel.  It is really a wonderful chapter for that reason.  God is going to feed His sheep, and not use the pastors because He is not using the churches.  So He will bring His people out, and outside the corporate church are the “mountains.”  Remember, that was the command in Matthew 24:16: “Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains.”   The mountains identify with God, His kingdom, and His Word.  And the people of God came out of the churches, and God kept His promise and spiritually fed them.

Again, God is speaking to the pastors, and He says in Ezekiel 34:18-19:

Seemeth it a small thing unto you to have eaten up the good pasture, but ye must tread down with your feet the residue of your pastures? and to have drunk of the deep waters, but ye must foul the residue with your feet? And as for my flock, they eat that which ye have trodden with your feet; and they drink that which ye have fouled with your feet.

That was the situation within the churches up until the point the elect children of God came out.  During the time leading up to May 21, 2011, it was the Great Tribulation, and the wrath of God was on all the world’s churches, and Satan was their ruler.  He had the authority over the churches, and the doctrines and the true points of the teachings  of the Bible were contested and overturned, and a lie was put in its place, and this is what the churches taught to the people in the pews.  Then God ended the church age and completed the process of separating the wheat and the tares so that by May 21, 2011 all the “wheat” were outside the churches, leaving only the tares behind.  So the people of God would no longer drink of the “waters” that were fouled by the feet of the pastors, and the “feet” has to do with the will of man that was polluting the pure teachings of the holy Bible.  The will of man is like a fly in the ointment of the apothecary that makes it a foul thing.  It is no longer true to the recipe or ingredients that the Lord dictated in order for it to give a good odor and be a well-pleasing smell to the Lord.  The false gospels all give forth a stinking savour, and they have fouled the Word of God.  And these pastors were saying, “Here, have some of this water of the Gospel,” but it was a false gospel that perverted the Gospel of grace by adding the works of men by insisting that man has to do something to be saved: “Yes, it is by election, but you must believe.” And many other teachings of God’s Word was perverted, polluted, and fouled.  The word “fouled” is a good descriptive word to describe the gospels that were being taught within the churches and congregations at their end. 

So God remedied that situation by calling us out, and then He took over because outside of the churches the Latter Rain was falling, and God had opened the eyes of His people to follow the proper, biblical methodology of comparing spiritual with spiritual.  And when  that is done, who does the Bible say is teaching?  It is the Spirit of God, the Holy Ghost, so God is fulfilling His promise that He would feed His sheep upon the mountains of Israel.

We found this word “pat-eh'-o” that was translated as “tread under foot,” in Revelation 11:2 which spoke of the holy city being tread under foot for forty two months.  It is also in Luke 21:23-24 where Jerusalem was tread under foot of the Gentiles, or nations.  But it is used three more times, and I think it is important to show something regarding the way God has used this word.  So we are going to go to Luke 10:17-19:

And the seventy returned again with joy, saying, Lord, even the devils are subject unto us through thy name.  And he said unto them, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven. Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you.

The word tread is our Greek word “pat-eh'-o.”  We find the word “power” used twice in this verse.  The first instance is where it says, “I give unto you power to tread on serpents…”   That word is Strong’s #1849, and it comes from a Greek word “ex-oo-see'-ah.”  The second instance is where it says, “and over all the power of the enemy,” and that word is the Greek word “doo'-nam-is,” Strong’s #1411.  So they are two different Greek words, so this is why we have to go to the Greek because when we are reading in English, it appears to be the same word: “ Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you.”   You see, the power of the enemy, or “doo'-nam-is,” is not the “ex-oo-see'-ah”  of the enemy, because the word “ex-oo-see'-ah,” which is in the first part of the verse, can also be translated as “authority.”  So Christ was speaking to the seventy that went out two by two, and they picture the Gospel as it went out during the church age.  The number “two” identifies with the caretakers of the Word of God, and there would also be an emphasis on the “two witnesses.”  Two would go here; two would go there; and two would go another direction, but it is always “two,” representing Moses and Elijah, “the law and the prophets,” or the sending forth of the Word.  In other words, Christ was saying, “I will give you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy.”  It is not the “authority” of the enemy because at this point in time, the God-given authority has been given to the people of God and the Word of God as it was operating in the midst of the churches.  It was not given to Satan.  He did not have the authority at that time.  If we turn back to the book of Revelation again, and let us read Revelation 11:2:

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.

We are going to find this word for “tread under foot” accompanying that idea of “authority.”  In Luke 10, it is the seventy (the two witnesses) that are given authority over all the power of the enemy to tread under foot.  And we will also see that with the end of the church age when that authority was given to Satan, but before that, let us read on because it ties in with Luke 10 concerning the seventy going out two by two.  It says in Revelation 11:3-4:

And I will give power unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth. These are the two olive trees, and the two candlesticks standing before the God of the earth.

(The word “power” here is italicized, so it was not in the original Greek.)  We see the emphasis on the number “two,” representing the caretakers of the Word and identification with the Word of God itself.  Then it says in Revelation 11:5-6:

And if any man will hurt them, fire proceedeth out of their mouth, and devoureth their enemies: and if any man will hurt them, he must in this manner be killed. These have power to shut heaven, that it rain not in the days of their prophecy: and have power over waters to turn them to blood, and to smite the earth with all plagues, as often as they will.

This word “power” is the word “ex-oo-see'-ah,” the same word from Luke 10 which means “authority.”  So they had power.  Again, it says, “And if any man will hurt them, fire proceedeth out of their mouth, and devoureth their enemies.”  It is telling us that they have power, or authority, over all the power of the enemy, which is Satan and his kingdom.  Going back to Luke 10, it said in Luke 10:19:

Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you.

You see, there is the relationship.  You would have the authority, and you will do the treading under foot.  But in the times and seasons of God’s program, there was a change, and the church age came to an end.  And that is what we read in Revelation 11:7:

And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them.

Lord willing, in our next study we will we see that with this “turn of the table,” it gave Satan authority over the churches, and he would have the power to tread underfoot the “two witnesses,” all that were within the churches and congregations of the world.