Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #17 in Genesis 37, and we will read Genesis 37:9-11:

And he dreamed yet another dream, and told it his brethren, and said, Behold, I have dreamed a dream more; and, behold, the sun and the moon and the eleven stars made obeisance to me. And he told it to his father, and to his brethren: and his father rebuked him, and said unto him, What is this dream that thou hast dreamed? Shall I and thy mother and thy brethren indeed come to bow down ourselves to thee to the earth? And his brethren envied him; but his father observed the saying.

In our last study, we spent some time in Scriptures that indicate that the “sun” is a type and figure of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now we are going to move on, and we will look at the “moon.”  Through this dream, God is giving us information about the sun, moon, and eleven stars.  We are helped because when Jacob responded to Joseph, he likened himself to the sun, but he also likened Joseph’s mother to the moon.

It should be pointed out that Joseph’s mother had died years earlier.  At this time Joseph was 17, and since he was born when Jacob was 91, that makes Jacob 108 at this point, and it was upon his coming out of Haran when he was 100 that Rachel died in childbirth, as she gave birth to Joseph’s younger brother Benjamin.  Again, Jacob said, “Shall I and thy mother and thy brethren indeed come to bow down ourselves to thee to the earth?

Since this was such a grandiose dream, maybe Jacob was thinking that this had something to do with some glorious future event like the resurrection, and then Rachel could be in view.  Or, historically, maybe he was just referring to his present wife Leah, or to one of the concubines (which is doubtful).  You see, it is difficult when we look at this only historically.  But, spiritually, it makes perfect sense because the “mother” identifies with the “moon.”  The moon is likened to the mother; and the sun is likened to the father.  We will come back to that later, either in this study or the next, because that is going to serve to confirm our understanding of what the moon spiritually represents.

But to begin with, we are going to look at some Scriptures that use this word.  The word translated as “moon” here is Strong’s #3394, and it is basically the same word as another word with the same consonants, Strong’s #3391, and that word is translated as “month” or “moon.”  So the word for “moon” is the same word for “month,” and that is so because the Jewish people used a lunar calendar, as far as keeping track of time on a monthly basis upon the changing of the moon, which would bring forth a new month.  So it is not surprising that the word “moon” is also translated as “month.”

Now let us turn to Psalm 89:35-36:

Once have I sworn by my holiness that I will not lie unto David. His seed shall endure for ever, and his throne as the sun before me.

Here, David is really a reference to Christ.  Remember that the word “David” means “beloved,” so God moved the writer of this Psalm to refer to David, but it is a spiritual reference to the Lord Jesus.  Once we understand that, we immediately recognize that when it says, “His seed shall endure for ever,” we know that Christ is the seed (singular), and all those He saved are counted for the seed in Him.”  So His seed shall endure forever; the elect receive eternal life.  Then it says, “…And his throne as the sun before me.”  Again, the sun identifies with Christ, and this is an indication that the sun will go on, or the Light of Christ.  Christ is the Light of the world, and He is the Light of the world to come as well, and He continues on forever.

Then we read in Psalm 89:37:

It shall be established for ever as the moon, and as a faithful witness in heaven. Selah.

So we are told that the moon is established forever, and it cannot be referring to the moon that is up in the sky and is part of this creation, because this creation will not go on forever, and neither will the sun that lights the earth.  It is not the physical sun or moon, but God is referring to the things that the sun and moon point to, and what they are signs of, and remember that in Luke 21 the Lord speaks of signs in relationship to the sun, moon, and stars.  It says in Luke 21:25: “…And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars…”  This has to do with our present time of Judgment Day, but as the Bible speaks of them, the spiritual meaning is different from their physical operation for which they were placed by God in the heavens.

So the moon is established forever.  And what is established forever that could be represented by the moon?  What could it be?  And what we find is that the moon is a type and figure of the Word of God, or the Law of God.  The Word of God is established forever.  There are a few Scriptures that are similar to what we will read in 1Peter 1:25:

But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.

The Word of the Lord endures forever.  When this world passes, the Word of God will continue into eternity future.  And that matches what we were told concerning the moon being “established for ever,” and we will see that the moon is representing the Word.  And the Word is the Law because the Bible is the Word of God, and the Bible is God’s Law book, so this is what the Lord is really pointing to when He uses this word translated as “moon.”

Let us go to Psalm 8:3:

When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained;

When we read this, we can understand it is speaking of the creation; God worked six days, and He created the universe, the earth, and all things on the earth, so it can be referred to as “the work of His fingers.”  But what else in the Bible refers to the “finger of God”?  The answer is that the Ten Commandments were written with the finger of God. 

In the New Testament, a woman caught in adultery was brought before the Lord, and they asked what they should do with her.  They said, “Moses said she should be stoned, but what say you?”  Then Christ kneeled down, and He wrote with His finger on the ground.  And the fact that He wrote with His finger indicates that He was writing the Word of God because He was the Word in bodily form, and anything He wrote would be the Word.  But more than likely, He was writing the Ten Commandments with His finger.

And the moon is the work of God’s fingers.  That alone would not prove that the moon is a representation of the Word, but it does fit with that idea.  Just as God wrote the Ten Commandments with His finger…and by the way, the number “10” points to “completeness,” so if God writes the Ten Commandments with His finger, it indicates that He has written the whole Bible.  It all came forth from Him, and is the complete Word of God.  So this fits.

It also says that the stars are the work of His fingers, and we will see this as we continue on in this study, and we will take a look at references to “stars” that identify them with the children of God, all those that truly become saved.  Is it true that the fingers of God have made the stars, the elect believers?  And the answer is, “Yes.” The finger of God identifies with His giving us His Word, the Bible, which was the Word that was sent forth unto salvation: “For faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”  So the Word entered into the lives of those who were chosen unto salvation, and it created new hearts within them to make them “new creatures.”  It gave them life and made them a star, spiritually, because they possessed the light of God, the light of the Gospel, and they became a light bearer from that point forward as messengers of the Word of God.  The Word is that which gives light, as God has assigned it in this world.  So we have no problem realizing that not only the moon, but the stars are works of God’s fingers. 

Now let us look at a couple of verses that are basically saying the same thing.  One is in the Old Testament, and one is in the New Testament, and they have to do with our present time of Judgment Day, and it has to do with the moon.  So let us turn to Isaiah 13:9-11:

Behold, the day of JEHOVAH cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate: and he shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it. For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light: the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine. And I will punish the world for their evil…

This is very familiar to us.  It is similar to Matthew 24:29, and we will go there, too, but notice that it says, “and the moon shall not cause her light to shine.”  It is feminine, and “her light” would tie in with the moon as a figure of a “mother.”  Also, it is odd language because the moon is an inanimate object.  It does not have its own light.  It does not have a will or a mind to decide, “I will at this time no longer cause my light to shine.”  How can that be?  Of course we understand that this is a figure of speech, and that God is the mind behind this – it is according to His will, and according to His Word.  Exactly!  The Lord is using the moon, and He is letting us know that the moon is making a decision, and the moon is going to willfully withdraw it light, causing it not to shine, and that matches with Matthew 24:29:

Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken:

Again, the moon is referred to as “feminine.”  And the moon shall not give her light, as though it were up to the moon to play a part in this, but once we understand it represents the Word of God, the Word of God did give light as God determined for it to do during the day of salvation.  Just as the sun is the great light that lightened the day, the moon reflects the light of the sun to shine in the night.  So too, the Word of God, the Bible, gets its light from God.  God is the One that provides the light of His Law and His Word to shine according to His will.  And it was the shining of the Gospel (the Bible) in the darkness of this world that drew those that the Lord intended to save to Himself, and it brought that salvation to those souls.  Remember the parable of the sower that sowed the seed, and we are told that the seed was the Word of God.  So God moved His people to go forth and declare and preach the Gospel, the Word fell upon the hearts of men.  Then if a person happened to be God’s elect, in the fulness of time for that individual God would bless that Word, and a “new creature” would come forth.  This was the light of the Word, but in Judgment Day, immediately after the Tribulation, the moon would not give her light. 

Lord willing, when we get together in our next study, we are going to look at the moon as the “mother,” and we will see that this provides confirmation to us that we are understanding it correctly, and that the moon is a type and figure of the Law of God, the Bible.