(293) – DRAGON 5

As we have seen in the study “Dragon IV,” Joseph, son of Jacob, was obedient, faithful, virtuous, pure, righteous and holy, and so he was used by Jehovah to take his family into Egypt, thinking that he was doing a good thing, not knowing that he was really taking them to a school of moral and spiritual corruption and also to cruel slavery under the next Pharaoh. The biblical text says the following on the moral corruption: “Neither has she left her prostitution since [the days of] Egypt; for in her youth they lay with her, and they handled the bosom of her virginity; and they poured out their prostitution on her” (Ezek. 23:8). “Yet she multiplied her prostitution, remembering the days of her youth, in which she had played the prostitute in the land of Egypt ” (Ezek. 23:19). And Isaiah says: “Yes, you didn’t hear; yes, you didn’t know; yes, from of old your ear was not opened: for I knew that you did deal very treacherously, and was called a transgressor from the womb” (Is. 48:8). Someone reading this text will think that the people was bad, and that Jehovah was trying to educate them; but this is not so. Let us look at it: “This is what Jehovah who made you, and formed you from the womb, who will help you says: ‘Don’t be afraid, Jacob my servant; and you, Jeshurun, whom I have chosen’” (Is. 44:2). “Thus says Jehovah, your Redeemer, and he who formed you from the womb: “I am Jehovah, who makes all things; who alone stretches out the heavens; who spreads out the earth by myself” (Is. 44:24). The people of Israel was conscious that Jehovah was the author of their decadence, for Isaiah said: “OH, JEHOVAH, WHY DO YOU MAKE US TO ERR FROM YOUR WAYS, AND TO HARDEN OUR HEARTS FROM YOUR FEAR? RETURN FOR YOUR SERVANTS’ SAKE, THE TRIBES OF YOUR INHERITANCE” (Is. 63:17). And Jehovah, the potter, who made the vases of dishonor for ruin, answered: “Therefore will I also deal in wrath; my eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity; and though they cry in my ears with a loud voice, yet will I not hear them” (Ezek. 8:18 and Rom. 9:21-22).

As to the yoke of the cruel slavery, the Bible text says: “Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who didn’t know Joseph” (Ex. 1:8). This new Pharaoh, seeing the people of Israel multiplying and apprehensive about the future, did two things. He imposed a heavy yoke on them to afflict them (for they built the store cities of Pitom and Ramses for Pharaoh) and embittered their lives with heavy burdens. The second attitude was to order the killing of the male babies to prevent them from multiplying (Ex. 1:9-22). Only one boy escaped, because he was placed in a basket covered with tar and pitch, and set by the banks of the Nile. The daughter of Pharaoh found the boy when she went down to bathe in the river, and adopted him, moved with compassion, and named him Moses. The boy, according to the orders of the daughter of Pharaoh, was nursed by his own mother (Ex. 2:1-10). And Moses was instructed in all the science of the Egyptians (Acts 7:21-22). When he was already 40 years old, he saw an Egyptian striking a Hebrew man of his people, and killed him. When the crime was found out, Moses fled from Pharaoh, who decided to kill him (Ex. 2:11-15). When he arrived in Midian, Moses met the seven daughters of Reuel, the priest of Midian, who gave him his daughter Ziporah as a wife (Ex. 2:15-21). Forty years went by. Moses was 80 years old and pastured the flock of his father-in-law in Horeb. One day, he saw a burning bush that was not consumed by the fire. When he turned aside to see it, the angel of Jehovah called him, and Jehovah introduced himself, appointing him to deliver Israel from slavery. Moses asked: If anyone asks me who has sent me, what shall I say? Jehovah told him: “I WILL BE has sent me”. In the Bibles, it is written, “I AM has sent me,” but the Hebrew renders: I WILL BE. Then Moses said: They will not believe in me (Ex. 3:1-15). Jehovah told them: What do you have in your hand? And he said, “A staff.” Then he said, “Throw it on the ground.” So he threw it on the ground, and it became a serpent; and Moses fled from it. Jehovah said, “Stretch out your hand and grab it by the tail.” And the serpent became a staff in his hand. Then Jehovah told Moses to put his hand into his bosom. When he took it out, his hand was leprous. Then, putting it back to his bosom, it was restored (Ex. 4:1-7). Moses and Aaron went into the presence of Pharaoh and commanded him to deliver the people so that they could worship in the desert. In face of Pharaoh’s refusal, he commanded, and Aaron cast his staff before Pharaoh and his servants, and it became a dragon. The wise men of Egypt also cast their staffs on the ground, and they turned into dragons (Tanin). And Aaron’s dragon swallowed up Pharaoh’s dragons and his sorcerers (Ex. 7:7-13).

Our readers must be shocked, for we read in the Bibles that the rods became serpents. Genesis 3:1 says “serpent,” which in Hebrew is NAACH. In Num. 21:4-9, it is written NAACHIM SERAFIM (serpents of the seraphim). These very seraphim were over the throne of Jehovah, in Isaiah 6:1-2. But in Ex. 7:10-11 says “dragon” (Tan, Tanin in the plural).

The rod of Moses was also the dragon, the satan. Moses had the power of the dragon in his hand, but it is written that the rod was of god (Ex. 4:20 and Ex. 17:9). The one that kept this rod, or dragon, was Jehovah. In Num 20:9, it is written: “So Moses took the rod from before Jehovah, just as He had commanded him.” Now, Pharaoh is also dragon. “I am against thee, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great dragon” (Ezek. 29:3), in the Hebrew, “Tanin Gadol.” As a staff is dragon, Satan is also dragon. As the staff of Jehovah is the dragon, or Satan, it is the power through which Jehovah operates the evil, the plagues, the pestilences, the wars, and the slaughters. Whoever reads the story of Balaam, in chapters 22 through 24 of the book of Numbers, is going to read that the angel of Jehovah faced Balaam as an adversary (Num. 22:22 and 22:32). If the angel of Jehovah turns into Satan, it turns into a dragon or serpent, as we read in Rev. 12:9.

And Jehovah took Jacob and his sons, 66 souls in all, who multiplied in Egypt, forming the nation of Israel, approximately 1,500,000 people who got perverted and were condemned by Jehovah (Jude 5). But let us finish this issue of the dragon. Who turned the waters of Egypt into blood? (Ex. 7:19-22). A battle between dragons. Who filled Egypt with lice? The dragon, though, the magicians of Egypt could not do; then Moses’ dragon started to eat the dragons of Egypt (Ex. 8:24). The plague of the pestilence also came from Jehovah (Ex. 9:6). The staff belonged to Jehovah, really, and the staff would turn into dragon. All a dragon does, Jehovah likewise does. In the case of Job, Jehovah used the dragon to try and destroy Job. That was also true of Israel (Amos 9:3).

IT IS DIFFERENT WITH JESUS. HE DESTROYS THE WORKS OF THE DRAGON (1 John 3:8). AND GIVES POWER TO THE CHRISTIAN TO TRAMPLE ON THE DRAGON AND OVERCOME IT (Rom. 16:20 and Rev. 12:9-11).

 

By Pastor Olavo Silveira Pereira

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