Re: Naked Bible 158: The Fate of the Ark of the Covenant
The Ark of the Covenant required ritually prepared priests to move it. Anyone else who touched it risked dying. It didn’t happen 100% of the time, but close enough.
We know the Philistines took off with it under Saul’s reign. There are no details as we might expect. Did they hijack the priests to move it? Apparently nobody was struck down except their idol to Dagon. The story of this would not be forgotten; all the neighboring nations would have been aware of it, maybe with a few embellishments.
Pharaoh Shishak would have known, so the Ark survived his expedition on behalf of Jeroboam (1 Kings 14:25). His own records don’t declare any action at Jerusalem at all, so it’s hard to figure how he would have taken the Ark, anyway.
There’s every reason to believe the Ark was in the Temple when Nebuchadnezzar laid siege to Jerusalem. We have no idea what happened after that. It’s missing from the lists of things he took, and from the lists of things returned to Israel under the Persians. It is significant by its absence.
It’s possible someone hid it before the city was taken. It’s likely the Babylonian troops got it (2 Esdras 10:22 — the Ark was plundered). Did they destroy it there, or later? We don’t know. What we do know is that it never made it back.
God said it would never be needed again (Jeremiah 3:16-17, Lamentations 2:1).
Re: Naked Bible 159: Noah’s Nakedness, the Sin of Ham, and the Curse of Canaan
Genesis 9 — A more precise Hebrew translation has Noah getting drunk and entering his wife’s tent. There’s every reason to believe she got drunk, as well. While they were both incapacitated, Ham goes in and impregnates his own mother. Seeing or “uncovering the nakedness of his father” is an idiom that means he had sex with his father’s woman (Leviticus 18:7).
The intent was to seize authority from his own father. It’s an ancient protocol to seize a ruler’s women and have sex with them to proclaim usurping the ruler’s authority. In this case, she became pregnant and Noah became aware at some point that it was not his child, but Ham’s. The whole point was to establish a new dynasty by this child. The name was to be Canaan, so Noah cursed the child to ensure he could not inherit anything.
Matthew 12:28-29 (NET) — “But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has already overtaken you. How else can someone enter a strong man’s house and steal his property, unless he first ties up the strong man? Then he can thoroughly plunder the house.”
In response to a question about the meaning of “blasphemy of the Holy Spirit”, the key to understanding this is the advancement of the Kingdom. Casting out demons always takes place wherever the Kingdom begins to reclaim the Elect from the nations; it’s a marker of the Kingdom moving in to claim it’s own turf (i.e., it’s people). Evangelism is not simply persuading someone to change brands of religion. We are invading, advancing the Kingdom of Christ into new territory. We are helping people to see the glory of changing their allegiance.
The image here is that Satan’s turf is being overrun. Thus, to accredit this work of the Holy Spirit to Satan is tantamount to rejecting the Kingdom. It’s in the same category as those high-handed sins God mentioned in Leviticus, for which there can be no ritual sacrifice to restore the sinner. The Pharisees would have recognized this reference. See also Hebrew 6:1-8. If someone rejects Christ as Lord, there is nothing anyone else can do for them.
I will go on to amplify this by saying that it’s all about the Covenant and its boundaries. In that passage in Matthew, the Old Covenant is shutting down and the New is displacing it. To reject this move from God is to reject God Himself. Anyone who can do that has gone too far and cannot be forgiven. It’s simply too blatant of an insult to God.
This is connected to John’s “sin that leads to death” (1 John 5:16-17). It is particularly heinous when someone who has entered into fellowship turns and publicly denounces Christ. That’s what Hebrews 6 refers to specifically.
We need to ditch the legalism of American culture in thinking this refers to some immutable law that stands apart from God. It’s altogether personal; you have poked at God and declared His work satanic. It’s hard to imagine any path back from that. It’s not to say He can’t break you down eventually and you repent. It means that there is no other hope for you. The Son is the only way to God.
‘There’s every reason to believe she got drunk, as well. While they were both incapacitated, Ham goes in and impregnates his own mother. Seeing or “uncovering the nakedness of his father” is an idiom that means he had sex with his father’s woman (Leviticus 18:7).’
Her being drunk makes more sense, because she wouldn’t go through that willingly if she had her sense intact.
The whole story really needs to be translated or explained better. It’s not as if Noah would curse Ham for doing a mere oopsy like seeing him naked out of nowhere.