banner

Last Updated on :
Saturday, November 22, 2014

 

sp spacer

NEXT: "His Face As The Appearance Of Lightning"

spacer

PHANEROSIS
The Subject Itself


spacer
spacer
spacer
spacer


PAGES 107-109

Daniel next informs us concerning the Spirit-man "the Man of the One" that "His body was like the beryl." The "body" here is the "One Body" of which Paul speaks in his epistles; as, "the Ecclesia which is His body, the fulness of Him

PAGE 108

(the Spirit) who perfects all things in all" saints. When the fulness is brought in the body will be complete (Rom. 11:25; Eph. 1:23); and it will then be "like a beryl." The original word in Daniel for this precious stone is Tarshish. It is said to have been so called because it was brought from Tarshish; but the learned are not agreed as to what particular gem is meant. The Greeks called it beryllos; hence the word in the English version beryl; and Pliny says, it was rarely found elsewhere than in India, the Tarshish of the Bible. The prevailing opinion is that its colour is a bluish or sea-green. But the interpretation of the original depends upon the teaching in connection with the word, not upon the colour of the gem.

"His body was like a Tarshish." This word occurs in six other places in the original. In the first two it designates one of the three precious stones in the fourth row of the Aaronic breastplate of righteousness, and answered to the tribe of Dan which signifies "judge"; and of Dan's career in the latter days, Jacob prophesied, saying "Dan, as one of the tribes of Israel, shall avenge his nation. There shall be a Judge, a serpent in the way, an adder in the path, biting the heels of the horse, so that its rider shall fall backward. I have laid in wait for Thy salvation, O Yahweh"! (Gen. 49: 16-18; Heb. 2:7). That is, Jacob, who was about to die when he uttered these words, foresaw that he would sleep in the dust until Dan, as a lion's whelp, should leap from Bashan (Deut. 33:22); that then, "in the latter days," would be the era of deliverance, when he would himself be saved, and all the tribes would do valiantly, and the Judge of Israel would avenge his nation, to the overthrow of their oppressors (Deut. 32:29-43).

Here, then, is a destroying and conquering power associated with the tarshish or beryl in the breastplate of judgment. It is similarly associated by Ezekiel with the wheels of the Cherubic chariot. He says, "the appearance of the wheels and their work was as the aspect of the tarshish"; and their felloes were full of eyes, and so lofty, "that they were dreadful." And "the Spirit of the Living One was in the wheels." Hence they are styled, in Dan. 7:9, "The wheels of the Ancient of Days," whose description identifies him with "the Man of the One," and the apocalyptic "Son of Man .... His garment white as snow, and the hair of his head as pure wool; his throne flames of fire, his wheels a consuming fire." The eighth foundation gem (answering to the priestly tribe of Levi) of the wall of the golden city on which the name of an apostle is engraved, is a tarshish or beryl (Rev. 21:20, cp with Rev. 7:7). We conclude then, from these premisses, that the tarshish-like body of the Spirit-Man seen by Daniel, is a priestly body or community, in which is incarnated the spirit of

PAGE 109

the Eternal; and that in the latter days, it will eventuate the great salvation in concert with the tribes of Israel, as a destroying and conquering power. This God-manifestation "is a consuming fire."

Such is the doctrinal interpretation of tarshish as a representative precious stone. The root from which it is derived, is also in harmony with the exposition; for tarshish is derived from rah-shash, "to break in pieces to destroy," which is the mission of the "Stone" Power, when the time comes to smite the Babylonian Image upon the feet (Dan. 2:34, 35, 44, 45).

 


spacer