Egypt we know is a type of the world, and all the systems and kingdoms of this world belong to the adversary. We know this because in Luke 4:6 The Devil said to Him, I will give You their splendor and all this authority, because it has been given over to me, and I can give it to anyone I want.
And Yeshua/Jesus did not argue with him and later in John 18:36 Yeshua/Jesus said to him, My Kingdom is not from this world; if my Kingdom were of this world, my servants would be fighting that I would not have been delivered up to the Judeans
In 2Corinthians 6:17
we are told:
Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you,
Do we still have a foothold in both kingdoms?
Are we trying to straddle both at the same time?
What the Hebrew nation were required to do was to leave Egypt behind. The ways of the world were in them and the Egyptian gods had become their gods.
Their culture had become entwined with theirs and developed root systems that were influencing their whole way of life and belief system.
They had been slaves for so long many had forgotten the reason their ancestors had moved to Egypt in the first place. In light of todays world systems and cultures, have we as Messianic believers truly come out of Egypt?
Are we truly delivered from bondage?
After their physical deliverance from Egypt, in order to get Egyptian culture, and the unclean spirits that were behind their culture, out of the Israelites they had to walk away from the source and leave it all behind them.
These desires came from the unclean spirits and were attached to their flesh and to their mindsets. Their flesh screamed when God gave Moses the new instructions and boundaries for living a life based on His ways, clean, holy and set apart to Him. Doesn’t our carnal nature sometimes do the same? Their flesh cried out for what they had left behind!
We are told they longed for the melons, garlic, cucumber and fish.
Meanwhile, the rabble among them had a strong craving for other food, and again the Israelites wept and said, Who will feed us meat? We remember the fish which we ate freely in Egypt, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic; Numbers 11:4,5
As we have been looking at the days of Noah, Lot and the end times; recall Lot’s wife who turned back; looking longingly at what she had left behind……….. this is dangerous and can be deadly for believers.
Luke 9:62 records words that were spoken by Yeshua/Jesus, No one, after putting his hand to the plow and looking back, is fit for the Kingdom of God.
Jesus/Yeshua was careful to explain that those who considered becoming His disciples would be well advised to first count the cost. (Lk 4:28) Because there was no going back once one stepped onto His path, and that it was better to have not begun the journey at all rather than to start and then give up.
These were strange examples in Numbers 11 and some scholars have noted that they were more likely references to the freedom of sexual perversions they had enjoyed in the Egyptian culture. It was very much like today, extremely liberal with an ‘anything goes’ mentality, the same as was prevalent in the city of Sodom.
The new instructions were restrictive to their life and behavior, and for the mixed multitude who left Egypt with the Hebrews, it was too narrow and strict; and their appetites and desires lusted after the old ways of promiscuous freedom. Many of the mixed multitude were no doubt those who murmured, complained and influenced others to be discontented. Numbers 11:4-6. The mixed multitude were not of the family of Isaac and Jacob/Israel.
There are many words in Hebrew for lusting.
One is
and comes from the root word Avah, which means lusting after bodily desires, not just food but sexual desires as well; and in this case it was more than likely a reference to forbidden sexual relationships. Sexual vices were acceptable for Egyptians but not under Moses.
Lusting – ה,תאוו
Numbers 11:4-6: And the mixed multitude that [was] among them fell a lusting: and the children of Israel also wept again,
Numbers 11:4
HEB: אֲשֶׁ֣ר בְּקִרְבּ֔וֹ הִתְאַוּ֖וּ תַּאֲוָ֑ה וַיָּשֻׁ֣בוּ
NAS: were among them had greedy
KJV: that [was] among them fell a lusting: and the children
INT: who were among had greedy again
Strongs 183 avah: to incline, desire, covet, greatly desire, be desirous, long, lust after.
Original Word: אָוָה
Part of Speech: Verb
Transliteration: avah
Phonetic Spelling: (aw-vaw’)
Definition: to incline, desire
In verse 6 it reads, there is nothing at all,
in Hebrew; Eyn kel bilethi.
Literally means: without any responsibility or law.
This promiscuous freedom and perversion leads to jealousy hatred, extreme selfishness, abuse, crime, and a total disregard for other people. It is the single-most destructive force to the family unit, which is why our Heavenly Father dealt so harshly with these foreigners, because potentially they would destroy the sanctity of the families among the children of Israel. When individuals get pleasure from material things it is mostly by comparing what they have to what their neighbors have. So although they could enjoy every taste they wanted in the manna which was provided, they gained no pleasure from it because everyone had exactly the same.
Today many countries of the world have lifted off all restrictions in lifestyles, to what was once frowned upon and illegal; and not even thought of in Christian circles, let alone allowed.
Acts 14:15 And saying, Sirs, why do ye these things? We also are men of like passions with you, and preach unto you that ye should turn from these vanities unto the living God, which made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that are therein:
Leviticus 17:7 And they shall no more offer their sacrifices unto devils, after whom they have gone a whoring. This shall be a statute for ever unto them throughout their generations.’
7 They must no longer offer any of their sacrifices to the goat idols[a] to whom they prostitute themselves. This is to be a lasting ordinance for them and for the generations to come.
The word in 17:7 is se’irm – goat idols,
which many Hebrew scholars identify with the
Egyptian goat deities.
The Egyptians did not make a distinction between lamb, sheep and goats and they were very similar in appearance. Sheep, rams and goats were worshipped in association with the gods/unclean spirits/demonic entities, named banebedjedet and knhum. The words for ram and soul sound the same in the Egyptian language and because of this, the ram or sheep deities were at times believed to be the appearance of other gods. Scholars say that these two previously mentioned entities, were the earliest known Egyptian deities and were originally the gods of the source of the Nile river.
The annual flooding of the Nile brought with it silt and clay. It was believed the sheep/ goat gods created the bodies of human children from this silt and clay; which was then placed in the mothers wombs. This may help us to understand why Pharaohs daughter was fascinated by the child, (Moses), she found floating down the river Nile as she would have considered it a direct gift from the god knhum.
It is believed she was bathing in the Nile at the time for ceremonial purposes in hopes to bring about a pregnancy. This association gives insight into the killing of the firstborn among the Hebrews and the final plague of the death of the firstborn of the Egyptians.
It was also significant in the placement of the Passover lamb, which to the Egyptians was a picture of the god khumn. When the Hebrews took a lamb, the Egyptian deity, into their home for 4 days with the intention of slaughtering and eating it; it would have caused a significantly bad reaction, angering the Egyptians who would have seen this act as a total disrespect of one of their important gods. Furthermore to actually kill one of their gods and use its blood to protect the Hebrews from the last plague of the death of the 1st born was the final insult to Pharaoh who was considered a direct descendant of the gods.
Leviticus 17:8 warns the children of Israel to keep from sacrificing to the se’irm or the goat/sheep god.
7 They must no longer offer any of their sacrifices to the goat idols[a] to whom they prostitute themselves.
