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The Palm Tree in the Bible (4)
Moses and the Big Fire in the Palm-Top

André H. Roosma
3 February 2012 (NL orig.: 18 Jan. 2012)

stylized palm tree: trunk with three branches on each side at the top

In a first article on the palm tree in the Bible, we saw that throughout the Middle East it was seen as a symbol for the Tree of Life, and that the ancestor of the Hebrew letters sin and samekh was originally a picture of it.1
In a second and a third article we looked at a number of characteristics of the palm tree and how it was used symbolically in the Bible.

With this knowledge as background I now would like to have a look at the big plant standing on fire, as it seemed, near mount Choreb (Horeb); a fire from which God spoke to Moses (Exodus 3: 1-6; Deuteronomy 33: 16 lets us know that God dwelled or tabernacled at that place). The Hebrew text tells that this was a סנה - cenah or ceneh.
  big fire on top of palm tree
Was this perhaps what Moses saw?
In the old, pictographic script it says: sin/samekh: palm treenun: sprouting seedah: human figure with raised hands and bended kneessin/samekh: palm tree palm tree - nun: sprouting seed seed/ offspring/ what comes forth from - ah: figure raised hands and bended knees praising God with raised hands/ arms. I suggest that this looks like the description of the crown of a palm tree, where the fruit was growing as well as the living fronds (branches/leaves), pointing somewhat upward, giving the palm the appearance of a person standing with raised arms, praising God.

Perhaps you say: this is new to me, what is it that you are telling me now? Well, let us have a closer look at this hypothesis. Are there other facts that support this idea?

Those other facts appear to be there indeed. Stronger still: there are very many!

Firstly: throughout the entire Bible people wave with palm fronds or lay them down, whenever God is present somewhere or passing by (see Leviticus 23: 40; Nehemiah 8: 15; John 12: 13; Revelation 7: 9). So, God enthroning in fire on waving palm fronds is most fitting. Certainly more fitting than that He would dwell in a thorn bush (for His relationship with thorn bushes, see a.o. 2 Samuel 23: 6 - they are thrown away; Psalm 58: 10 - He sweeps them away; Proverbs 22: 5 - associated with ‘the perverse’; Eccl. 7: 6 - with the sound of burning thorns the laughter of fools is compared).2

In the previous part we already saw that the Bible sees the palm tree (תמר - tav: cross signmu: waterraisu: head (sideways) - tamar) fundamentally in relation with God, and that the temple was decorated extensively with images of palm trees, to symbolize God’s presence for the people.
We also saw the relationship with alp: ox headmu: waterraisu: head (sideways) - ’amar - to speak, especially the speaking of God. I referred to the speaking of God via Deborah, who led Israel while sitting under a palm tree (Judges 4: 5). And after the observation: the palm tree is the personal signature of God’s speaking, I asked: Could this have to do with the way in which God revealed Himself more often, when He spoke to or with people?

The interesting issue now is, that the story of God’s encounter with Moses, from a fire on a palm tree, has gone the world over, as it appears. Remainders of it can be found from that time on (!) in the myths of many peoples – till a little more than a hundred year later in China and also up to the Aztecs!
In Greek the palm tree is a ΦΟΙΝΙΞ - phoinix - phoenix. However, that is there also the name of a very big mythical bird (read: a great flying being; Exodus 3: 2 speaks of ‘the Angel of YaHUaH). According the Egyptians this flying being was the embodiment of the highest God and Creator (!). The Greeks (a.o. the poet Hesiod, 8th century BC) call him also ‘the Shining One’ (cf. Exodus 24: 17; Luke 9: 29; Revelation 1: 13-15).
The Roman Ovid tells that he appeared every 500 years (according some sources: 400 years, others 1461 years - accidentally the time between Moses and Christ...) making a big nest, at the top of a palm tree – so from there that identical name. At that nest he supposedly set himself on fire, but arose moments later again from the ashes. So all these peoples received the message: a great flying being – a shining embodiment of the highest God – appeared in a fire, from the top of a palm tree. And a renewal took place there (in particular of the relationship with His people, that therefore was no longer doomed to die in Egypt). Many details got mutilated, but many big lines fit exactly! Though it is a pity that in fact they missed the essence, and modified the Angel into a big bird, that by later erroneous confusion with the purple heron was made even a lot smaller...4
O yeah, the Chinese know that this great Being is the enemy of the dragon – you know, that snake that once had legs and that had preferred to devour all humanity with its fire. Often they picture this Being like a big bird, crushing snakes in its strong claws... And Tacit and others say that his appearance is largely like gold, and for the rest crimson or the color of bronze (cf. Daniel 10: 5-6; Revelation 1: 13-15;).

The Greek word ΦΟΙΝΙΞ - phoinix is worth a closer look. According my dictionaries, the etymology of it is unknown. There is a relation with the name of the Phoenicians. However, the interesting thing is, that the Greek letters were derived at the beginning of the first millennium before Christ from the old pictographic characters we previously talked about. When transliterating ΦΟΙΝΙΞ back into the old script, it reads: pu: opening, mouth, windainu: eyeyad: arm with open handnun: sprouting seedyad: arm with open handsin/samekh: palm tree, or: quph: rising sunainu: eyeyad: arm with open handnun: sprouting seedyad: arm with open handsin/samekh: palm tree (the Greek Φ derives in phonology from pu: opening, mouth, wind, and in shape from quph: rising sun). From right to left we read here: see a palm tree with its fronds and fruit branches (so, the crown) speak/blow or rise (as the rising sun / in fire). And that word, which the Phoenicians took with them to Greece, is then used for both the palm tree and for the phoenix flying being...
I am speechless about how clearly this confirms the above.
Another detail: the name of the area, where a lot of this all originally took place, is written in the old script as: sin/samekh: palm treeyad: arm with open handnun: sprouting seedyad: arm with open hand - Sinai. The similarity is striking, isn’t it?

And what about those 500 or 400 years Ovid talked about?
Well, what happened Biblically seen such a time before Moses? Menorah (palm tree!) with 7 big flames on it, symbol of God's presence God had an encounter with Abraham, who would become the father of Israel.
And some 500 years after Moses? Then the consecration of the temple in Jerusalem took place, which was decorated with palm trees and where the pure golden Menorah stood – a picture of the palm tree with at the top on both sides three branches and one in the middle,3 with on top a shining fire (in seven-fold; God’s fullness!)! That -holy- fire on top of the Menorah reflected the fullness of the presence of God there! Therefore that fire had to be kept aflame continuously.
And again some 400 to 500 years later: the consecration of the second temple.
All these cases involved a form of new life, a covenantal renewal of the Almighty God with His people.
That was involved as well, when again some 500 years after that (just over 30 AD) there were a number of men in that temple praising God with raised hands (just like the ceneh!) with God’s Spirit in the shape of flames on top of their heads...
Another thing: the great Roman historian Tacit says in his annals also that the Phoenix was still spotted in AD 34, on his way to Egypt...

So who dared to contend that the Biblical story about Moses is not confirmed by archeological facts, has to do his homework again, as it very clearly appears here.
Sometimes it may be a bit of a puzzle before we have every little piece in place. But again and again it appears: the Bible is a trustworthy book – regarding both the physical and the metaphysical reality!

Hallelu YaH !


Notes

On the basis of the above, the first Christians saw the phoenix as symbol of Christ and resurrection. Such appears from drawings and wall paintings, found in catacombs from that era.
Note that God’s appearance to Moses also involved new life, so a kind of resurrection for Moses and the entire people of Israel!

1 More information on the old Biblical script, as referred to here, in the Hallelu-YaH Draft Research Report: ‘The Written Language of Abraham, Moses and David – A study of the pictographic roots and basic notions in the underlying fabric of the earliest Biblical script.pdf document, a living document by André H. Roosma, 1st English version: 18 April 2011 (1st Dutch original: January 2011).
2 The usual translation ‘thorn bush’ or ‘bramble bush’ is based only on the first two letters of this word cenah being related to a word for ‘thorn’ or ‘sharp tip’. However, this can surely be brought in connection with the thorns on the edges of the palm fronds, and/or on the sharp, pointy remains of withered, removed palm fronds, on the trunk of the palm tree.
3 The palm tree as well as the Menorah was a national symbol of Israel for many centuries. Many objects were decorated with it, a.o. coins. Each had - on almost all pictures and sculptures - on both sides three branches/fronds and one in the middle. Both symbolically represented the presence of God. All of this strongly confirms the relationship between the two.
4 Much of the above I discovered in the Spring of 2011. Only recently I discovered that I was far from the first in the last 2200 years who associated the Phoenix with the Exodus. In the 2nd (or 3rd) century before Christ an Ezekiel (remarkably: living in Alexandria, Egypt!) in his Greek-Jewish tragedy The Exagoge (Exodus) lets the phoenix appear in Elim, the place where Israel stayed on its way from Egypt amidst 70 (fullness!) palm trees (Greek: phoinix - phoenix).
In this tragedy Ezekiel characterizes the flying Phoenix on the basis of the -apparently- then familiar descriptions/stories amongst others by the following remarkable terms: ‘wonderful like no one ever has seen’, ‘twice as large as the eagle’ (many eagles have a wing span of 2.0 to 2.5 m.; the cherubs in the temple - 1 Kings 6: 24 - had a span of about 4.5 m. ...; this excludes all confusion with the purple heron, which is only half as large as the golden eagle in wing span, and only 1/5 as heavy), ‘his voice pre-eminent exceeding all’ (!), ‘the king of all that has wings’.
Next to this, there is the witness of the first Christians via their drawings and paintings in the catacombs.

A number of historical data on the phoenix as presented here can a.o. be found in: Chapter 36 from: Thomas Bulfinch (1796-1867), Age of Fable: Vols. I & II: Stories of Gods and Heroes, 1913; and in various Wikipedia-articles, like: Phoenix (mythology).

In this context it is also worthwhile to look at the Hebrew word chul which appears in Job 29: 18. Often it has been translated as ‘sand’. However, some translations have here ‘phoenix’. Old Jewish sources (according Keil & Delitzsch in particular: b. Sanhedrin 108b) say that chul is another name for the bird אורשינא - ’ursin’; right: the original sin, that is: the original palm tree, in Greek: the original phoenix! Where that ur (אור) is also ‘light’ (cf. Genesis 1:3); so it involves the light- palm tree. Keil & Delitzsch argument that it should actually be sin-ur, yes, that is indeed the palm tree light - that Phoenix; Biblically seen the Angel of YaHUaH, standing enrobed in fire on top of the palm tree. May I call all these relationships remarkable?

The Egyptian name for the Phoenix was Bennu. Written in the old script: baitu: tent/housenun: sprouting seed - Hebrew: בן - Ben = Son. Many Christians see in the First Testament expression ‘the Angel of YaHUaH’ a manifestation of Jesus; a way in which Jesus, the Son, revealed Himself in that era...
Among the titles of the Bennu were: ‘He Who Came Into Being by Himself’ [this shows strong resemblance with the ’Ehjeh ’asher ’Ehjeh from Exodus] and ‘Ascending One’.

Concerning the 500 years (or a little less): in the Bible a fullness of time is a period of 7 x 70 years, that is 490 years. All periods given in the examples come very close to this!


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The other articles in this series on the Palm Tree in the Bible are: ‘(1) - Symbol of the Tree of Life’, ‘(2) - Full of Rich Symbol­ism’, ‘(3) - Sign of God’s presence and speaking’, (5) - The ‘language’ of the palm tree’, ‘(6) - Pole and Palisade’, ‘(7) - More on the word Tamar and a very young Palm Tree’, ‘The great golden Menorah – Sign of God’s Presence’.

 
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