Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #11 in Genesis 38, and we will begin by reading Genesis 38:18-23:

And he said, What pledge shall I give thee? And she said, Thy signet, and thy bracelets, and thy staff that is in thine hand. And he gave it her, and came in unto her, and she conceived by him. And she arose, and went away, and laid by her vail from her, and put on the garments of her widowhood. And Judah sent the kid by the hand of his friend the Adullamite, to receive his pledge from the woman's hand: but he found her not. Then he asked the men of that place, saying, Where is the harlot, that was openly by the way side? And they said, There was no harlot in this place. And he returned to Judah, and said, I cannot find her; and also the men of the place said, that there was no harlot in this place. And Judah said, Let her take it to her, lest we be shamed: behold, I sent this kid, and thou hast not found her.

I will stop reading there.  We have been looking at the items of the pledge.  We already looked at the bracelets, and now we are going to look at the staff. 

In our last study I mentioned that the Hebrew word translated as “staff” is also translated as “rod.”  We went to Numbers 17 where we read the account of the twelve rods that were laid up before the Lord, and then Aaron’s rod budded and blossomed.  It was a spiritual picture that indicated that Aaron’s “rod,” or the “tribe” of Levi, would blossom and bear almonds.  (And all God’s people are priests, spiritually speaking.)  It would bring forth fruit, and fruit points to salvation.

Now we are going to look at the word “staff” that is used in our verse.  Let us go to Micah 6:9:

JEHOVAH'S voice crieth unto the city, and the man of wisdom shall see thy name: hear ye the rod, and who hath appointed it.

Here, the word “rod” is the same Hebrew word, Strong’s #4294, that is translated as “staff,” which Judah gave to Tamar.  Again, it says, “Hear ye the rod,” and a rod would be a stick, and you cannot hear a rod, but you can hear the Word of God, so the staff is being used here as a figure of the Word of God, the Gospel.  We are called upon to hear the Word of the Lord, the Gospel of the Bible.  We can confirm that understanding as pointing to the Gospel if we go to Leviticus 26.  We read in Leviticus 26:26:

And when I have broken the staff of your bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall deliver you your bread again by weight: and ye shall eat, and not be satisfied.

We understand that in the Bible “bread” identifies with the Word and the doctrines of the Bible, which is what is in view in the Lord’s Prayer that was for the day of salvation, a petition for our “daily bread.”  Also, in the Lord’s Prayer there is a supplication for the Day of Judgment where a man comes to his friend at midnight requesting three loaves, or three “breads,” and that is a petition for our day because the door of salvation is shut.  The “man” had already entered into His house and shut the door, but He does give the “bread,” and that represents the Gospel as it goes forth.

However, when messengers of the Gospel (Israel of n the Old Testament, or the churches of the New Testament) become unfaithful, then the judgment of God comes upon them, and He breaks “the staff of bread.”  It is not a famine of “food or drink,” as we read in Amos 8:11:

Behold, the days come, saith the Lord JEHOVAH, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the JEHOVAH:

That is the nature of a spiritual famine.  You can have the “bread,” the Word of God, but you will not have “hearing,” as faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.  But if the Lord withdraws His Spirit, then there is no faith (Christ) with the hearing of the Bible.  That results in a spiritual famine, and that is what God is referring to in Leviticus 26:26:

And when I have broken the staff of your bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall deliver you your bread again by weight: and ye shall eat, and not be satisfied.

(The “ten women” refers to the completeness of women, in this case the corporate church.)  They eat, but are not satisfied – they are still trying to bring the Gospel, and they are preaching, and there are people sitting in the pews,  and although they “eat,” they are not satisfied. 

By the way, this fits in with the verse we looked at earlier in Micah.  Remember it said in Micah 6:9:

JEHOVAH'S voice crieth unto the city, and the man of wisdom shall see thy name: hear ye the rod, and who hath appointed it.

Then it says in Micah 6:13-14:

Therefore also will I make thee sick in smiting thee, in making thee desolate because of thy sins. Thou shalt eat, but not be satisfied; and thy casting down shall be in the midst of thee; and thou shalt take hold, but shalt not deliver; and that which thou deliverest will I give up to the sword.

The wrath of God is upon them because of their sins, and the judgment is that they will eat their bread, but it will not satisfy them, and the reason it will not satisfy is because it is not God’s “bread.”  It is not God’s true and faithful Gospel of the Bible that they are delivering to the people.  It is their own gospel.

And this is also in view in Isaiah 4:1:

And in that day seven women shall take hold of one man…

We read about “ten women” in Leviticus 26 because “ten” is the number of completeness, but here are “seven women,” and that would identify with the seven churches spoken of in Revelation 2 and Revelation 3. The Lord addressed the angel of each of the seven churches, and the “churches” were cast in the feminine role.  The elect are the true bride of Christ, but there were those in the churches that were the “professed” bride of Christ, as they were only claiming to be saved.

And Christ is the “man” spoken of in Isaiah 4:1:

And in that day seven women shall take hold of one man, saying, We will eat our own bread, and wear our own apparel…

That is, they are saying, “We will develop our own gospel according to our own understanding and liking.  We will tailor it to fit our lusts and the things we desire, and that is how it is going to be, but we will design our own righteousness.”  And their own righteousness involves things like attending church regularly, being a member in good standing; being baptized; or “accepting Christ” in order to obtain salvation.  That is their “own apparel,” which is like the “fig leaves” that Adam and Eve covered themselves with to hide their nakedness (sin), but it is not a genuine covering for sin.  Yet the churches prefer these things because it is easy and within their own control.  Of course their “bread” will not satisfy, and their apparel will not truly cover them.  Yet this is how it is, and we realize that at this time when the church age has ended.

Then they say, in Isaiah 4:1:

… only let us be called by thy name, to take away our reproach.

“We want to be called Christians.  We want the name of Christ.  We do not want to be called Buddhists or Muslims, or whatever god is out there.  We understand at least this much – we understand the Bible is where salvation is in Christ, so we will grab ahold of Him.  We want to be called by His name, but we have certain conditions regarding having our own bread and apparel.”  Of course this is immediately dismissed by God.  And not only that, but it raises His furor.  His anger burns, and then He waits for the set time which was the time when judgment began at the house of God.  Then He poured out His fury on the churches and congregations that dared to do these things.

We want to look at what it means when it says, “…and ye shall eat, and not be satisfied,” as we read in Leviticus 26:26, and we also saw this idea in Micah 6:14.  There are a couple of verses in the Psalms that will help us understand this.  It says in Psalm 90:14:

O satisfy us early with thy mercy; that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.

In the next Psalm, it also says in Psalm 91:16:

With long life will I satisfy him, and shew him my salvation.

So we can see that to “eat bread” and not be satisfied means that one has not experienced the mercy of God and received everlasting life by being granted God’s salvation.  That would be the spiritual meaning.

We were looking at the word “staff,” and we went to Micah 6 where we saw it said, “…hear ye the rod,” or hear the “staff,” or hear the Word of God, which was likened to bread.  Then it said in Leviticus 26:26, “…And when I have broken the staff of your bread,” or the “rod” of your bread, and that certainly ties in with the Word of God.  If the staff of your bread is not broken, then there can be satisfaction when hearing the Word of God.  There can be mercy, eternal life, and salvation.  But when it is broken, it cannot satisfy; there can be no mercy, no eternal life, and no salvation.

Let us go back to Genesis 38 and look at the third item regarding the signet.  Again, it said in Genesis 38:18:

And he said, What pledge shall I give thee? And she said, Thy signet…

It is the first thing Tamar said, but we are looking at them in a different order because I wanted to save this for last because it is the best example of how God opens up this word in the Bible.  It is remarkable and amazing when we look into it. 

The first thing we need to understand is the Hebrew word translated as “signet” in verse 18 is Strong’s #2368.  There is another use of this word in this same chapter in Genesis 38:25:

When she was brought forth, she sent to her father in law, saying, By the man, whose these are, am I with child: and she said, Discern, I pray thee, whose are these, the signet, and bracelets, and staff.

The word translated as “signet” in verse 25 is a related word to the word used in verse 18.  It is Strong’s #2858, and in verse 18 it is Strong’s #2368.  There is a significance to this, and I hope we will get a chance to talk about that.

But first, let us look at the word “signet,” #2368, that is found in Genesis 38:18.  We find this word in Song of Solomon 8:1-5:

O that thou wert as my brother, that sucked the breasts of my mother! when I should find thee without, I would kiss thee; yea, I should not be despised. I would lead thee, and bring thee into my mother's house, who would instruct me: I would cause thee to drink of spiced wine of the juice of my pomegranate. His left hand should be under my head, and his right hand should embrace me. I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, that ye stir not up, nor awake my love, until he please. Who is this that cometh up from the wilderness, leaning upon her beloved? I raised thee up under the apple tree: there thy mother brought thee forth: there she brought thee forth that bare thee.

This account relates to us the love story between Christ and His church, His eternal bride, “my sister, my spouse,” and we looked at this in our previous study because the word “spouse” is the same word as “daughter in law,” in regard to Tamar being Judah’s “daughter in law.”  That word is also translated as “spouse,” as found in the Song of Solomon, as well as being translated as “bride.”  We have already covered that in our past studies regarding how Tamar is a type of the elect and Judah is a type of Christ, so this term “daughter in law” makes perfect sense, spiritually.

But here and throughout the whole book of Song of Solomon, there are these poetic descriptions.  For example, it said in Solomon 8:5:

Who is this that cometh up from the wilderness, leaning upon her beloved? I raised thee up under the apple tree…

And the apple tree refers us back to Song of Solomon 2:1-3:

I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys. As the lily among thorns, so is my love among the daughters Son.  As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons. I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste.

The imagery is of the bride, “my sister, my spouse,” sitting under the apple tree.  Just consider a reference in the New Testament.  Although it is a different tree, it is the same type of picture.  It says in John 1:47-49:

Jesus saw Nathanael coming to him, and saith of him, Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile! Nathanael saith unto him, Whence knowest thou me? Jesus answered and said unto him, Before that Philip called thee, when thou wast under the fig tree, I saw thee. Nathanael answered and saith unto him, Rabbi, thou art the Son of God; thou art the King of Israel.

You see Nathanael was under the “fig tree,” or we could say under Christ, just like the souls under the altar.  He was under God’s gaze in the kingdom of Satan. 

And so too, “my sister, my spouse” was under the apple tree.  Then it goes on to say in Song of Solomon 6:8:

Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame.

The word translated as “seal” is our word translated as “signet,” Strong’s #2368.  It is translated as “signet” in Genesis 38, but here it is translated as “seal,” and that is going to be very important, although we have run out of time in this study.

I hope you are checking these things out in your Bible and checking in your concordance.  If you do so, you will see how these words are used.  That is why I give you the Strong’s numbers so you can check it out and see where it leads.  Lord willing, we will begin to discuss this again when we get together in our next Bible study.