In our last post, we stated that the roles of prophet, priest, and king can be linked to how God’s trinity works since how earthly government works is reflective of how heavenly government works. These roles were not always distinct, and at times this was within God’s will, but often it was not.

Sometimes, serving in more than one capacity leads to consequences. For example, Saul offered sacrifices at Gilgal and Samuel reprimanded him which ultimately led to Saul’s kingdom being taken from him (1Sa 13:10-14). This was not the only time Saul had disobeyed God as Samuel instructed, for Saul had been disobedient to God several times (1Sa 15:9-10). Another example is King Uzziah offering incense in the temple and Azariah, the priest, reprimanding him for this because it was a duty only for priests, and Uzziah developed leprosy as a consequence for his actions, and he remained leprous until his death (2Ch 26:19-21).

In these instances, both Saul and Uzziah were not trying to draw attention toward God but to usurp him and his wishes for them due to their own selfish egos.

Yet, sometimes God blessed the actions of some who served in more than one capacity. In one example, king David built an altar and offered burnt offering and fellowship offerings to stay a plague sent due to his sin. He did this at the bequest of God through a prophet, however. It was a way for David to accept the responsibility for his actions going against God’s wishes (2Sa 24:16-25). In another example, king David wore a linen ephod and danced before the LORD when he brought the Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem (2Sa 6:14). In these instances, while some saw David, like his wife, Michal, drawing negative attention to himself, he was actually drawing the people’s attention toward God.

At times, some typified a type of Christ and served in all three roles. Samuel (judge, priest, prophet) was the last of the judges but the judges before him did not serve as a priest. Judges did serve as a type of prophet at times. Samuel became not only a prophet but a priest from that time going forward. He was a Levite, being a descendant of Kohath, a son of Levi.

David (king, priest, prophet) we know was a king. He sometimes acted as a prophet because many passages in Psalms are prophetic in nature. And he sometimes acted as if a priest, as just noted, to draw everyone’s attention toward God. These examples helped the people better understand the character their coming Messiah would possess.

Christ would also fulfill each of these roles, just not in the way the Jewish leaders thought he would. He came physically to Israel as a prophet (Mt 21:46; Jn 4:44), he now serves as a high priest for us (Hb 4:14), and will one day return to reign as king (1Ti 6:13-16).

Throughout biblical history, we see how God adapts his methodology at the same time his character remains unchanged. As God revealed more and more of his character, he also introduced other ways of communication to those who listened to him.

The Bible speaks of God talking to many of the patriarchs from Adam all the way through Moses personally. God walked and talked with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden (Gn 3:8-9), he spoke directly with Noah (Gn 7:1), he spoke to many of the patriarchs personally (e.g., Jacob; Gn 32:24-30), in visions (e.g., Abram; Gn 15:1), dreams (e.g., Joseph; Gn 37:5), and through angels (Abraham; Gn 18:3), and he spoke to Moses face-to-face through his Shekinah glory as a friend would talk with a friend (Ex 33:11).

God originally fulfilled all three roles of King, Priest, and Prophet as he led and taught Adam and Even in the Garden of Eden, he later had patriarchs function as priests for their families, and as prophets to the people. After the Flood, he had Melchizedek (Gn 14:18) function as king and priest to better portray how God expected these roles to function when they would be held by humans. Under Moses, God brought these functions under human leadership so they could better understand God and his role in their lives.

God appeared on Mt. Sinai in an awesome way: in clouds, smoke, and lightning (Ex 19:16), revealing his ultimate authority. Moses became the spoke piece for God to the people (Ex 20:18), and God spoke to him face-to-face through his Shekinah glory (Ex 33:11). This revealed Moses’ authority to the people and made them more inclined to listen to him as they looked to him as they would look to God as their leader—a type of kingly authority, if you will.

God appears to Moses, Aaron and his sons, and the seventy elders of Israel and eats and drinks with them (Ex 24:9-11); likely a type of communion as we would recognize it today – it would be symbolic of his future death for their reconciliation as his priestly role. God gives instructions to Moses as to exactly how the Tabernacle was to be constructed and ceremonies conducted. All aspects of the Tabernacle pointed to Christ, their coming Messiah and what he would do for them – a fulfillment of the promise God has given to Adam and Eve.

The Holy Spirit fills the seventy elders who are to lead the people. The elders assist the people to help them align God’s words into their daily living. Although the filling of the Holy Spirit was temporary during this time, it was prophetic of how he would one day indwell his followers permanently so they, too, can align with his words in their daily living.

Next, we will see how God now expected those individuals with these duties to now act and live so they can represent him to the people. I hope you join me for that.

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Visit Books & Words to Inspire by Randy C. Dockens

Last time, we saw how God’s love for us became a major driving force for the worldwide flood which he sent over the Earth. Satan was trying to destroy God’s gift of choice to us and God ensured that did not happen. This time, let’s look at God’s command against the Amorites in the land of Canaan.

What possible reason could God have for wiping out many of the those in the land of Canaan when Israel conquered the land? Why couldn’t they all just get along? God was in the process of creating a standard for the world. Let’s first look at what God told Israel about this:

“When the LORD your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nations—the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, seven nations larger and stronger than you—and when the LORD your God has delivered them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them and show them no mercy. Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons, for they will turn your children away from following me to serve other gods, and the LORD’s anger will burn against you and will quickly destroy you. This is what you are to do to them: Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones, cut down their Asherah poles, and burn their idols in the fire. For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession” (Dt 7:1-6, NIV; emphasis mine).

Israel was to be the standard, the beacon, for the entire world. Purity and devotion to God was an imperative given for them to affect the world and lead others toward God. Godliness can devolve into evil and chaos more easily than evil can evolve into godliness and order. God knew this and took precaution in that regard.

You may be thinking, well Abraham was already in the land at one point, why did God lead his descendants out just to bring them back to destroy the people there? Let’s look at what God told Abraham:

“Then the LORD said to him, ‘Know for certain that for four hundred years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and they will be enslaved and mistreated there. But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions. You, however, will go to your ancestors in peace and be buried at a good old age. In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure’” (Gn 15:13-16, NIV).

Here, again, God was being merciful. He was giving the Amorites time to repent and turn away from their evil practices. As you can see, he gave them a lot of time. Also, we should note here that God was enslaving the descendants of Abraham, the people of promise, to try and reach the Amorites who were Gentile. This does not agree with the narrative of God being wrathful to all Gentiles.

So, what was God’s overarching rationale for his actions here? This gave Israel a way to come out of Egypt as an unfettered nation making them totally dependent upon God and allowed them to become an instantaneous nation without ties to those around them. And, as stated above, it gave the Amorites time to respond to God: approximately 500 years, but they did not. The Amorites practiced sensuous and orgiastic fertility cult worship utilizing male and female shrine prostitutes and practiced child sacrifice which included the child being placed in the fire while alive. It was stated that other nations did not go to such extremes in brutality, lust, and abandon in such practices as did the Amorites. In some ways, this is similar to our discussion about the Flood in our previous post. Satan was scheming to prevent God’s promise to Abraham from coming true and blinded the Amorites to God’s love for them.

Before God had Israel conquer the land, God was not silent and did not act by surprise. He gave the people opportunities to respond positively to him:  God supplied the godly influence of Melchizedek (Gn 14:18-20), God supplied the godly influence of Abraham (Gn 12:6), and during the time of Abraham, God caused the destruction of other Amorites through the action of five kings around the Dead Sea area (Kedorlaomer, king of Elam; Tidal, king of Goyim; Amraphel, king of Shinar; and Arioch, king of Ellasar) which should have been a wake-up call for the people in the area (Gn 14:1-12): the following races of giants were destroyed: Zuzim, Emim, Horim, and Avim. This later allowed the Israelites to approach the land from the south without retaliation.

The Anakim and Rephaim, the races of giants, were like garrisons around the land of Canaan. It seems more than coincidence that these races of giants surrounded the Promised Land of Canaan that God promised to Abraham and his descendants. Before Israel arrived, God had those giant races in the area south of the Dead Sea be destroyed which allowed the Israelites to not have to contend with them as they approached from the south when they arrived a few centuries later. Yet, there were three main races of giants remaining once Israel reached Canaan: Sihon, near the upper part of the Dead Sea, Og, in Bashan near the Sea of Galilee, and Anak near the coast. God helped Israel destroy these before they entered their Promised Land to help increase Israel’s faith in him and to show that he would protect them as they entered the land he promised them. Yet, all the Anakim were not destroyed as we do read about Goliath and his brothers who were part of the Anakim race of giants (1Sa 17:4; 2Sa 21:15-22).

The giants during this time were likely between 9 and 10 feet in height (1Sa 17:4). The Israelites who spied out the land of Canaan called them Nephilim (Nu 13:33), likely because of their height compared to themselves and not because of angel origin. Satan had somehow gotten the Amorites to genetically produce giants so he could control the land that God had promised to Abraham. Yet, God took care of the situation: either as judgment or as faith by the Israelites in God showing God would protect them. Some do argue that because of the parenthetical statement in this passage in Numbers: “the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim” that they were, somehow, left over from the flood and evolved into this race of giants. Yet, there is also a verse that states all life on earth was wiped out by the flood (Gn 7:21-23). So, if they were descendants from the Nephilim, then it would then imply one of the wives of Noah’s sons had the angel DNA in her genome. Since Canaan, and the Amorites, were descendants of Ham (Gn 10:15-19), that would then suggest these giants could have come through him and his wife.

Also, despite what some claim, total annihilation was the exception rather than the rule. Details of what God asked the Israelites to do are important. The main goal was to have the people leave the land. God told Moses the following: “I will send the hornet ahead of you to drive the Hivites, Canaanites and Hittites out of your way” (Ex 23:28, NIV). God used natural elements to clear the land for the Israelites.

God reserved annihilation for the cities of inheritance. God stated the following: “In the cities of the nations the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes. Completely destroy them—the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites—as the LORD you God has commanded you. Otherwise, they will teach you to follow all the detestable things they do in worshiping their gods, and you will sin against the LORD your God” (Dt 20:16-18, NIV; emphasis mine). To God, Israel’s spiritual protection was important as that would set the foundation and purpose for their entire existence.

Any other engagement by the Israelites was to be an offer of peace: “When you march up to attack a city, make its people an offer of peace” (Dt 20:10, NIV). Yet, this was not the type of peace we think of today. It was not, you go do you and we’ll go and do us. No, peace here meant forced labor. Resistance to this would result in all men of the city being killed, and the women, children, and livestock would become plunder. That sounds harsh to us today. What was God doing here? Any means that Satan could exploit against Israel and God’s plan for them was eliminated. This was necessary for God to establish his standard.

Next time, we’ll explore this concept of a standard and why that was so important going forward. I hope you’ll join me.

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Visit Books & Words to Inspire by Randy C. Dockens