Our Footsteps of Messiah series has focused on the prophecies contained in the Song of Songs. Once we reach the fourth chapter of the Song, some of the prophecies are repeated, yet we can glean more in-depth understanding with the first chapters already established. In Chapter Four, we read:
* How beautiful you are, my darling, how beautiful you are! Your eyes are like doves behind your veil; your hair is like a flock of goats that have descended from Mount Gilead. Your teeth are like a flock of newly shorn sheep which have come up from their washing, all of which bear twins, and not one among them has lost her young.
The Song of Songs describes how beautiful the Children of Israel were when they came up from their washing of the Reed Sea like a flock of clean sheep:
* How beautiful you are, my darling, how beautiful you are! Your eyes are like doves behind your veil; your hair is like a flock of goats that have descended from Mount Gilead. Your teeth are like a flock of newly shorn sheep which have come up from their washing, all of which bear twins, and not one among them has lost her young. Your lips are like a scarlet thread, and your mouth is beautiful. Your temples are like a slice of a pomegranate behind your veil. Your neck is like the tower of David, built with layers of stones on which are hung a thousand shields, all the round shields of the warriors. Your two breasts are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle that graze among the lilies.
Although the Israelites were in the middle of a "holiness sandwich," nevertheless they were unharmed. They were walking on credit in righteousness they hadn't personally attained. Instead, they walked in the righteousness of Yeshua, the living Word. They believed Adonai, which means they believed His Word as spoken to them through Moses, a metaphor for the Torah. At that moment that the Israelites came up from the washing of the Sea unharmed, the Midrash says that the following from our Song was said of their uprightness:
* “Your lips are like a scarlet thread, and your mouth is beautiful. Your temples are like a slice of a pomegranate behind your veil.”
The pomegranate is a symbol of the Torah's 613 commandments, for the number of pips in a pomegranate is around that number. The symbolism of the pomegranate pips as the 613 commandments suggests the doctrine taught by the apostles:
* For what does the Scripture say? “ABRAHAM BELIEVED GOD, AND IT WAS CREDITED TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS.” (Ro 4:3)
* for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation. (Ro 10:10)
Salvation comes with the potential to fulfill the righteous and holy commandments. We are given mercy and grace while we walk and learn in the wilderness, preparing to ascend to the Promised Land. Drop down a couple of verses, and the Song reads: “Your two breasts are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle that graze among the lilies.” One the applications of the two breasts is the milk of the Word, demonstrated by the two tables (tablets) of the Ten Commandments. If those two breasts represent the two (twin) tablets of the Torah given at Mt. Sinai, then their formation into something mature (613) would come through further instruction from Moses in the wilderness.
Ezekiel 16:6-14 rebukes the Israelites who later rebelled and walked in the very sins from which He'd delivered them. Adonai reminds them of how He found them struggling in their birth blood, twelve tribes now a nation in the midst of another nation, struggling to emerge from Egypt. He describes how He waited for them to grow up and to meet Him at Sinai to receive ...
