ROLLING STONES AND THE BIBLES LONG ARC

Joshua's Altar is within the most famous of the "Footprint Structures  (gilgalim) is found on Mt. Ebal. 

Rolling Stones and the Bible’s Long Arc  

A Word Study of Gilgal

There are six huge, foot-shaped stone structures found in the Jordan Valley and Samaria that are believed to be Iron Age I (13th–12th centuries BCE). These are known as "gilgal sites" (Gilgalim) or "footprint sites" built by early Israelites to ceremonially mark ownership of the land upon entering Canaan. They symbolize the biblical concept of "foot ownership," or claiming territory by treading upon it. 

They represent a physical monumental expression of taking ownership of the land, aligning with the biblical promise in Deuteronomy 11:24 that "every place where the sole of your foot shall tread shall be yours".

Gilgal Argaman

Gilgal Argaman is an Iron-age ceremonial site in the Jordan valley near Moshav Argaman. It is likely that this site was erected by the Israelites, led by Joshua, and was their first camp after crossing the Jordan.

The shape itself acts as a "footprint" of God or the community and representing divine possession and protection. 

1. Core observations about Gilgal

Gilgal (גִּלְגָּל) comes from the root ג־ל־ל (galal), “to roll,” and also carries the sense of “circle / wheel / round thing.”  

In Joshua 5:9, God says, “Today I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you. And so the name of that place is called "Gilgal" to this day. The name is explicitly tied to the verb “to roll.”  

Events at Gilgal:

• Twelve stones are set up from the Jordan (memorial for the twelve tribes).  
• Mass circumcision of the wilderness generation.  
• First Passover in the land; manna stops and they eat the land’s produce.  
• Gilgal is the site where Israel’s shame (Egypt, wilderness unbelief, uncircumcision) is removed and their identity as a landed covenant people is marked.

2. Rolling Stones and Milestones

There is a pattern: Rolled stones signify milestones. Round stones mark thresholds, opening/closing wells, caves, altars, tombs.

Old Testament: 

  - Stones rolled from wells (Genesis 29) give access to life‑giving water.  

  - In Joshua 10:16-18 Large stones were rolled against cave mouths sealed in 5 kings of Israel's enemies who would be judged and killed.  

  - In 1 Samuel 14:33 A great stone is rolled to Saul marking a great sin during battle with the Philistines.

3. Gilgal, Gulgoleth, Golgotha

New Testament:  

  - A large stone rolled in front of Jesus’s tomb, then found rolled away on the first day of the week.  

- Gilgal = ג־ל־ג־ל (glgl) and Skull = גֻּלְגֹּלֶת (gulgoleth) share the same "GLGL.

- Golgotha from the Aramaic "gulgolta" is  equivalent to gulgoleth→ “place of a skull.”  

- The final letter in גֻּלְגֹּלֶת is the final 22nd Hebrew letter Tav which is represents a cross and means mark/sign. In other words, add the cross, the Tav, to Gilgal and it is the place of the skull where Jesus was crucified. 

Letters and numbers:

  - Gimel (ג) = 3, Lamed (ל) = 30.  

  - Gilgal = ג־ל־ג־ל = GL + GL = 33 + 33 = 66.  

66 plus the Cross (the 22nd letter) = 88. 

Connections:  

•  Gilgal = “rolling/circle” place where reproach is rolled away for Israel.  
•  Gulgoleth/Golgotha = skull‑place, same root family, now with tav/cross marking the hill where Jesus bears and removes ultimate reproach.
• Jesus is generally believed he was 33 years old when crucified.
• The tomb and Joshua 10 are cases where the stone is rolled both ways, to seal and to open (33+33). The tomb is a hinge point of the rock. 

4. 33 and Lag BaOmer

This section is probably going to confuse most any reader. Since I write to think, I am going to write it anyway.  Besides, if the reader isn't already familiar with the Jewish holiday of Lag B'Omer, they are going to be lost from the very beginning of this section. 

Lag BaOmer is a Jewish holiday that celebrates a very old story about a plague among Rabbi Akiva’s students. It is associated with “hidden Torah” / inner light coming to expression.  

33 becomes a shorthand for a turning point (plague to joy, outer to inner). 

Hebrew writing of 33 is ל״ג (lamed‑gimel), pronounced "lag." Lag BaOmer is the 33rd day of counting the Omer between the Passover and Revelation at Sinai. 

Gilgal’s structure (33 + 33) can be seen as a two doors connected by a hinge. There is Egypt <> Canaan with the wilderness being the hinge. Circumcision is hinge point. The New Testament adds a third door with another gilgal another stone rolling away, being another hinge. 

5. Gilgal and the Empty Tomb as Parallel “Rolling Away” Points:

Gilgal (Joshua 4–5):

  - Twelve stones (tribes) 

  - Circumcision  

  - Passover in the land  

  - “I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt” 

Golgotha:

  - Skull‑place from same root family as Gilgal.

  - Cross (tav) planted on the skull‑hill.  

• Living water is marked by stones. Stone rolled from a well → life‑water for flocks. 
• Stone‑rock in the wilderness → water for Israel, Miriam’s rock that rolled with the 12 tribes.  
• Stones from the river at Gilgal → boundary crossed, new food, shame rolled away.  
• Stone from the tomb → living water and resurrection life disclosed.

Parallel:

  - Gilgal: reproach of Egypt rolled away, Israel marked and fed (Passover, land’s produce).  

  - Golgotha/garden: reproach of sin and death rolled away.

The “stone circle” of twelve tribes at Gilgal runs forward through the twelve apostles to the "final city." The people of God stay twelve‑shaped, but the circle widens to include all nations.

Notice an important progression that lines up well with how Joshua 5 and Deuteronomy frame the story.

Shame of slave‑labor in Egypt

Commentators on Joshua 5:9 note that “the reproach of Egypt” includes the stigma of being slaves: told when to get up, when to eat, what work to do, how long to labor.

In that setting, their work primarily enriched Pharaoh, a false master, and publicly exposed them as a humiliated, dominated people.

That “slave mentality” is part of what God is rolling away at Gilgal: they are no longer defined as forced laborers for another man’s empire.

Wilderness: no production, pure dependence

In the wilderness Israel does not plow, sow, or harvest. God feeds them with manna “to humble you and test you… and to do you good in the end.”

Deuteronomy stresses that they had “no bread and no wine,” their clothes didn’t wear out, and God Himself became their Feeder.

This period strips away both Egyptian slave‑economy and self‑reliant farming: no shame of serving Pharaoh, but also no pride in “my power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.”

In the land: dignified labor, still under God

Once they enter Canaan, God intends them to work the land: sow, harvest, plant vineyards, build houses. Deuteronomy 8 explicitly contrasts manna in the wilderness with the “good land” where they will eat bread without scarcity.

That labor is not a return to slavery. It is honored work under God, because:  

  - He gives the land and the power to get wealth.  

  - They bring firstfruits and tithes to acknowledge that their increase is from Him.

- Deuteronomy 26 lays this out: when they have harvested, they take the firstfruits in a basket, confess “He brought us to this place and gave us this land,” and present it before the Lord.

Judeo-Christian Work Ethic

Entering the Land (Canaan) represents a crucial shift. Work itself is not shameful; being owned by the wrong master. Work is covenant stewardship, not self‑made pride. In the wilderness, there is no production; God feeds them with manna “to humble you… and to do you good in the end,” so they will not say, “My power…has gotten me this wealth.” In the land, God insists that even their good, dignified labor must be framed by offerings—firstfruits and tithes that confess, “He brought us to this place and gave us this land.”  So the ethic is: work diligently, but never as if you are self‑made; you work on God’s ground, with God’s strength, and you give back to Him.

The Gilgal are milestones on the road to understanding this Covenantial relationship. 

Conclusion: 

So the movement is:

1. Egypt: shameful labor under a false master, no ownership, no true rest.  

2. Wilderness: no production at all; total dependence on God’s daily gift (manna). This is the hinge point. The time for the hiden to be revealed. The 33. 

3. Land: full, fruitful labor with no shame, because it is exercised as stewardship—they “still have to give to God” in firstfruits and tithes, publicly declaring that the land and its produce are His gift, not Pharaoh’s and not their own achievement.

Gilgal sits precisely at that hinge: the slave‑shame is rolled away; they are not going back to forced work for Pharaoh, but forward into dignified, covenant work in a God‑given land, where giving back to God (bikkurim, tithes) is not humiliation but the sign that their labor has been redeemed.

This post is still a work in progress. I've only recently started to really think about gilgal and make connections. So there's a good chance I'll be making change and updates to this blog post. I welcome any ideas or input.

SHADDAI

אֲנִי־אֵ֣ל שַׁדַּ֔י - I Am the Almighty God

Genesis 17:1—And Abram was ninety-nine years old, and God appeared to Abram, and He said to him, "I am the Almighty God; walk before Me and be perfect.

That verse is the first time in the Torah we see the Hebrew word שַׁדַּ֔י Shaddai.

In Genesis 17, God appears to 99-year-old Abram, reaffirming the covenant by changing his name to Abraham ("father of many nations") and Sarai’s to Sarah, promising them a son named Isaac despite their old age. God establishes circumcision as the physical, everlasting sign of this covenant. While blessing Ishmael, God clarifies the covenant passes through Isaac. 

El Shaddai (אֵל שַׁדַּי) is an ancient, primary name for God in the Torah, commonly translated as "Almighty God". It appears in the Torah, particularly associated with the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to signify God’s power to perform supernatural acts, especially in fulfilling covenants of fruitfulness, reproduction, and inheriting the land when natural means fail. 

According to Exodus 6:3, God was known to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as El Shaddai, distinct from the name YHWH. Thus, Shaddai is referred to as the Patriarchal name. Other, related names used during this period include El (God), El Elyon (God Most High), and El-Elohe-Israel (God, the God of Israel). 

Almighty/Power, often understood as "God Almighty" (from shadad), implies supreme, irresistible power. The name is used in blessings (Genesis 28:3, 49:25) and when calling for protection (Genesis 43:14).

Shaddai On the Doorposts

In modern Judaism, the letter Shin (ש) on a mezuzah case is a reference to Shaddai. Shin is the 21st Hebrew letter with a numerical value of 300. 

Shaddai Numerical Value:

Shin (ש): 300

Dalet (ד): 4

Yud (י): 10 

Total Numerical Value (Shaddai): 

300 + 4 + 10=314*

* By the way, the number 314 most commonly represents the first three digits of the mathematical constant Pi.  

There is a belief that Pi is hidden in Genesis 1:1 through gematria (numerical values of Hebrew letters) and mathematical, equidistant letter sequences, often cited as a ~99.96% accurate approximation, what amounts to the first few digits-314. Proponents suggest this is a deliberate encoding representing a Divine signature in the text. 

The Gaurdian of the Doors of Israel, on the doorposts of Jewish homes, is El Shaddai. Inside a mezuzah is the Shema. 

THE SHEMA PARALLEL

Shema is the Hebrew word "Hear." The Shema is a also a prayer which begins with a well know Hebrew verse:

יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל יְהֹוָ֥ה אֱלֹהֵ֖ינוּ יְהֹוָ֥ה | אֶחָֽד

Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is One

The Shema is made up of three passages: 

Deuteronomy 6:4-9—Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

Deuteronomy 11:13-21—“And if you will indeed obey my commandments that I command you today, to love the Lord your God, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul, he will give the rain for your land in its season, the early rain and the later rain, that you may gather in your grain and your wine and your oil. And he will give grass in your fields for your livestock, and you shall eat and be full. Take care lest your heart be deceived, and you turn aside and serve other gods and worship them; then the anger of the Lord will be kindled against you, and he will shut up the heavens, so that there will be no rain, and the land will yield no fruit, and you will perish quickly off the good land that the Lord is giving you.

Numbers 15:37-41—The Lord said to Moses, “Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘Throughout the generations to come you are to make tassels on the corners of your garments, with a blue cord on each tassel. You will have these tassels to look at and so you will remember all the commands of the Lord, that you may obey them and not prostitute yourselves by chasing after the lusts of your own hearts and eyes. Then you will remember to obey all my commands and will be consecrated* to your God. I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt to be your God. I am the Lord your God.’”

To be "Consecrated To God" is to be "Set Apart." In Hebrew, the word for Nazirite is Nazir (נָזִיר), which literally means "consecrated" or "separated". 

In Hebrew, mezuzah (מזוזה) literally means "doorpost". It refers to a small, decorative case containing a sacred, hand-written parchment scroll (klaf*) that is affixed to the right-hand doorpost of Jewish homes and rooms. The scroll contains biblical passages (Deuteronomy 6:4–9, 11:13–21) proclaiming the oneness of God and the commandment to "write them on the doorposts of your house". 

* A klaf (Hebrew: קְלָף) is a piece of specially processed, kosher animal hide parchment used by a sofer (scribe) to handwrite sacred Jewish texts, including Torah scrolls, Tefillin, and Mezuzahs.

Rabbinic sources, midrash and Jewish mysticism all draw a direct line from the blood placed on the lintel and mezuzot in Exodus 12 to the later mitzvah of mezuzah, treating both as a protective sign on the doorway that prevents the “destroyer” from entering. The mezuzah is a present sign of past blood. 

The practice of placing a mezuzah on doorposts has both a traditional religious timeline and a distinct historical/archaeological timeline: 

Religious Tradition (Biblical Era): According to Jewish tradition, the commandment was given at Mount Sinai in approximately 1312 BCE. While the Israelites were likely exempt during their 40 years in the desert (as their dwellings were temporary), the practice is believed to have become permanent once they settled in Canaan around 1272–1258 BCE.

Archaeological Evidence (Second Temple Period): The earliest physical evidence of mezuzahs—actual parchment scrolls—dates back roughly 2,000 years to the Second Temple era. These were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls in the Qumran caves. 

Historical Accounts: The historian Josephus (1st century CE) documented the mezuzah as an established, ancient custom in his time, describing how Jews inscribed God’s blessings upon their doors.

Standardization (Talmudic Era): While the practice was ancient, the specific laws—such as the exact parchment requirements, the slant of the case, and the specific 22 lines of text—were codified in the Talmud several centuries after the start of the Common Era. 

Hanukkah (commemorating the rededication of the Temple) is historically connected to the mezuzah through the thematic battle against forced Hellenization, which forbade Jewish practices like the mezuzah and Shabbat. The Maccabees fought to restore these practices and rededicate the Temple, linking the physical defense of Torah, including mezuzahs on doorways, to the freedom celebrated during the eight-day festival. 

Key Connections:

The Struggle for Observance: The Maccabean Revolt occurred because the Seleucid King Antiochus IV Epiphanes outlawed core Jewish observances, including the Shabbat, the study of Torah, and the placing of mezuzahs. The rebellion was not just for the Temple, but for the freedom to practice these commandments.

Rededication: The name Hanukkah means "dedication" or "inauguration". Re-establishing the mitzvah of the mezuzah (placing the scroll on the doorpost) was a direct way to re-sanctify homes and the city after liberation.

In summary, Hanukkah celebrates the victory that allowed Jews to once again openly place mezuzahs on their doors, honor the Shabbat, and maintain their religious identity. 

The association of the Mezuzah with the Hanukkah is an important detail as we will see when we get to the Gospel of John chapter 10. 

THE ORIGINAL SING ON THE DOORPOSTS

Exodus 12:13 -- The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are, and when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt.

The very first time the word “mezuzah” (doorpost) appears in Torah is Exodus 12, where the Israelites are commanded to put the blood of the Passover lamb on the doorposts and lintel so that the plague of the firstborn will “pass over” their houses and not destroy them. This linking of blood on the mezuzot with protection is foundational for later mezuzah symbolism.

Classical midrash and Zohar explicitly draw a line from that Passover blood to the later mitzvah of mezuzah, presenting both as a protective sign on the doorway, with God promising, in effect, “You mark your doors with the sign of My covenant, and I will stand guard outside and protect you.” 

Later Traditional and contemporary Jewish teachers often say that mezuzah “remembers” or “recalls” the Exodus.  Instead of lamb’s blood on the doorframes, we now mark our doors with the words of the Shema, testifying to the same God who redeemed us from Egypt and who still guards our homes. 

So in Jewish thought, the mezuzah is not only a fulfillment of Deuteronomy’s command but also a standing, daily echo of the Passover night, when marked doorposts were the means by which Israel was spared and brought out from Egypt.

Shepfold with Shepherd Guarding the Door

In the ancient Near East a shepherd would often lie down in the opening of a low stone sheepfold, literally becoming the “door” so that anything had to pass through to reach the flock. This image underscores that that flock’s security from thieves, wolves, and other dangers relied on the shepherd. 

John 10:1-3—“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber. 2 But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. 3 To him the gatekeeper opens. The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.

John 10:27-30—My sheep hear (shema) my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand. I and the Father are one.”

Jesus is the Good Shepherd who is also the Door, and in new‑covenant terms he is the one who “writes” what the mezuzah signified. 

Shepherd, Door, and  Writing on Hearts. 

In John 10, Jesus unites two roles: “I am the door of the sheep” and “I am the good shepherd,” so the same person both guards the entrance and cares for the flock inside. 

Jeremiah 31 promises a covenant where God will “put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts” instead of on external objects. 

The Good Shepherd who is the "Door" is also the one, through his Spirit, inscribes God’s will inside his people, doing inwardly what the blood on the doorposts and the mezuzah announced outwardly.

John 10 intensifies this logic by making Jesus himself the living locus of that guarding presence: he is both shepherd and door, so that hostile powers must “get past” him to reach the sheep, and they ultimately cannot.  In Johannine theology, what the mezuzah signifies on wood and parchment—God’s watchful protection at the threshold—Jesus embodies personally at the boundary between God’s people and the world.

john 10:30 brings the together, and mirrors the first line of the Shema. 

John 10:30 (“I and the Father are one”) gathers together everything John has just said about the Shepherd and the Door, and it does so in a way that strongly resonates with the first line of the Shema.

Echo of “the Lord is one”

The Shema begins, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one,” declaring the unique oneness of Israel’s God as the basis for exclusive loyalty and love. 

In John 10, after describing himself as the good shepherd who gives his life for the sheep and as the door through which the sheep are saved and kept secure, Jesus climaxes with “I and the Father are one.” 

A number of scholars and teachers have argued that, in a Jewish setting saturated with the daily recitation of the Shema, this claim of oneness in the context of divine care for the flock is best heard as deliberately resonating with, and pressing into, that Shema-confession of God’s oneness. 

Bringing Shepherd, Door, and Shema together

In John 10, both Father and Son are portrayed as jointly holding the sheep in a grasp from which “no one can snatch them,” and Jesus immediately grounds that shared protective role in a shared “oneness.” 

That means the same One God who was confessed in the Shema as uniquely Israel’s protector and shepherd (cf. Psalm 23; Ezekiel 34) is now being revealed, in Johannine terms, as acting toward the flock through the Son, the Shepherd‑Door who embodies that divine guarding at the threshold. 

When you hear John 10:30 next to Deuteronomy 6:4, the Shema’s “the Lord is one” and Jesus’ “I and the Father are one” form a deliberate theological rhyme, gathering the themes of covenant protection, shepherding, and unique divine identity into a single new‑covenant disclosure.

The scribal practice around the final dalet of אחד in the Shema visually reinforces exactly the theological move I am tracing. In a kosher Sefer Torah and on mezuzah parchments, the dalet of אחד in “יְהוָה אֶחָד” is traditionally written larger than the other letters and with great care, because if it were mistaken for a resh (turning אחד into אחר, “another”), the verse would read as if confessing “the Lord is another” instead of “the Lord is one.” This enlarged dalet is understood to guard the confession of God’s unique oneness at precisely the point where a tiny graphic change could introduce “another” god.

In that light, the link from John 10:30 (“I and the Father are one”) to the Shema is not only conceptual but visually prefigured in the script itself: the written dalet at the heart of Israel’s doorway confession of oneness anticipates the living “Door” who claims that same oneness in John 10.

The Holy Tongue (Lashon Ha‑qodesh) Chose Echad

In Hebrew, both echad and yachid mean “one,” but they have different typical nuances and are used differently in Jewish thought and in debates about the Shema.

Basic meanings:

Echad (אחד) is the ordinary cardinal “one,” with a broad range: one day, one person, one flock, one stick, or “one flesh” when two become a unified pair. It can describe either a simple “one” or a unity that includes plurality, depending on context. 

Yachid (יחיד) usually means “only, unique, solitary,” as in an only child or someone alone. It stresses exclusivity or “only one of its kind” more than it does the bare number one. 

Echad can describe a unified plurality and argue that this leaves room for multi‑personal oneness in God. 

The Shema uses echad: “YHWH our God, YHWH is one (echad).” Deuteronomy could have used yachid but does not. Jewish interpreters generally read echad here as affirming God’s unique, incomparable oneness—an “absolute” oneness, not merely a “compound unity,” even though echad elsewhere can cover composite unities.

COMPARING AND CONTRASTING ECHAD AND YACHID IN GENESIS 22:

In Genesis 22 God pointedly switches from echad to yachid.  Contrast the Shema’s echad is with Genesis 22 and “your only one”. 

In Genesis 22:2 God tells Abraham: “קַח־נָא אֶת־בִּנְךָ אֶת־יְחִידְךָ יִצְחָק – Take now your son, your yachid, Isaac…,” and repeats “your yachid” in verses 12 and 16. 

Yachid here means “only, unique, one‑of‑a‑kind,” stressing that Isaac is the singular covenant heir, not merely one son among others. 

This is a deliberate contrast with Shema’s “echad.” The Shema confesses “YHWH … is echad,” the more broad, flexible “one.” 

At Moriah, however, the Torah does not call God yachid but reserves yachid for the beloved son placed on the altar, creating a textual pattern where God is echad, while Abraham’s offered son is yachid. 

The Holy Tongue uses echad at the doorway confession (Shema), but yachid at the Akedah, so that when later Scripture speaks of the Father and the Son, the “one” God of the Shema and the “only” Son of Moriah is a carefully differentiated, covenant‑loaded relationship.

John 10:1--“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber. 2 But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. 3 To him the gatekeeper opens. The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. 5 A stranger they will not follow, but they will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers. 6 This figure of speech Jesus used with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them."

John 10:6 strongly supports my sense that the “door” language is deliberately symbolic and tightly bound to Scripture rather than a casual metaphor. Furthermore, that Jesus intentionally was making an association to the Shema.

“Figure of speech” as Deliberate Scriptural Imagery

John 10:6 labels the door/shepherd discourse a paroimia—a veiled, allusive way of speaking that expects the hearer to search out its scriptural resonances, much like a mashal or riddle. Mashal is Hebrew for the words "Proverb" and "Parable." 

This means Jesus is not merely using a picturesque shepherding image; he is compressing into that “figure” Israel’s whole story of God as Shepherd (e.g., Psalm 23; Ezekiel 34) and the guarded threshold of Passover and mezuzah, then centering it on himself as the decisive Door and Shepherd of the flock. 

Why “they did not understand” Matters

The note that “they did not understand what he was saying to them” shows that this imagery demands an interpretive leap: one has to recognize that the familiar door/sheepfold is now being re‑read christologically. 

In that light, the association of John 10’s Door with the Shema at the doorway and the Passover-marked posts is exactly the kind of scriptural cross‑reading this paroimia invites, even if Jesus’ original hearers did not yet perceive how fully those threads were converging in him.

If these thoughts interest you, I invite you to visit my blog post regarding DOOR (DALET)

Epilogue:

Shaddia, the Gaurdian of the Doors of Israel

Shepherding and Psalm 23 - hearing the voice of the good Shepherd. 

PHYSICAL AI

This is Dino, a robot for large-scale vegetable farms. courtesy of Naio Technologies *

Physical AI has an incredible future, not only as technology and an investment opportunity, but also as a means of improving our lives.  To help myself and you better understand what "Physical AI" is, i asked Grok the three following questions and below are the answers: 

1. What is Physical AI? 
2. What are examples? 
3. Who are the leaders.

1. What is Physical AI? Physical AI, also known as embodied AI, refers to artificial intelligence systems that integrate with physical hardware to perceive, reason about, and interact with the real world in real time. Unlike traditional AI, which operates primarily in digital environments, physical AI combines AI models with sensors, actuators, and control systems to enable machines—such as robots—to sense their surroundings, make decisions based on physical dynamics like space, motion, and interactions, and perform actions autonomously. This represents a shift from generative AI (focused on creating content) to systems that "embody" intelligence in machines, allowing them to adapt to complex, unpredictable environments. Popularized by NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang, physical AI is seen as the next major wave of AI innovation, with 2026 marking an inflection point for broader adoption in daily life and industries. Currently, about 58% of industry leaders report using physical AI to some extent, with projections reaching 80% adoption within two years, particularly in Asia-Pacific markets.

2. What are Examples of Physical AI?

Physical AI is already transforming sectors like manufacturing, logistics, healthcare, and transportation. Key examples include:

- **Humanoid robots**: These perform complex tasks like folding laundry, assembling boxes, or preparing coffee in real time, adapting to dynamic environments without predefined programming. Boston Dynamics' Atlas robot, for instance, navigates human spaces and handles physical interactions.

- **Industrial automation robots**: Used in factories for welding, assembly, or quality control, these systems learn from experiences and handle variable tasks, addressing labor shortages and improving efficiency. Collaborative robots (cobots) work alongside humans in workcells.

- **Autonomous vehicles and mobility**: Self-driving cars, robotaxis, drones, and autonomous forklifts use sensors and AI to detect surroundings, make decisions, and operate safely.

- **Service and healthcare robots**: Robots in hospitals for tasks like patient assistance or charging electric vehicles, or in food services for preparation and delivery.

- **Agentic AI systems**: Modular platforms for logistics or personal assistance that act autonomously, handling extended tasks like 20-hour engineering workflows.

These applications are expanding beyond factories into offices, homes, and public spaces, with real-world rollouts accelerating in 2026.

3. Who are the Leaders?

Several companies and organizations are at the forefront, driving innovation through hardware, software, and ecosystem development. Key leaders include:

- **NVIDIA**: A pioneer in popularizing physical AI, providing foundational models like GR00T for humanoid robots and platforms like Cosmos for world modeling. They're collaborating on industrial AI with partners like Dassault Systèmes and powering systems for companies like Figure AI and 1X.

- **Boston Dynamics (Hyundai Motor Group)**: Leading in humanoid robotics with the Atlas robot, focusing on real-world mobility and tasks. They're expanding into charging robots and modular platforms like MobED.

- **Physical Intelligence**: A rising unicorn (valued at $5.6B after a $600M raise in late 2025) building AI software stacks for robots to learn complex tasks like coffee preparation and laundry from demonstrations.

- **Universal Robots**: Specializing in collaborative robots with AI-driven features like vision-guided welding; they're emphasizing predictive math and ecosystem innovation for physical AI.

- **SoftBank and Yaskawa Electric**: Jointly developing physical AI robots for offices, hospitals, and schools, focusing on integration and deployment.

- **Other notable players**: Qualcomm for sensor-based real-time AI, Arm for efficient computing in physical systems, Path Robotics for autonomous welding, and emerging firms like Figure AI and 1X using NVIDIA tech for humanoids. Organizations like the World Economic Forum are also highlighting its industrial impact.

* READ MORE about DINO the weeding robot. 

JONAH AND THE GOD OF SECOND CHANCES

"Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying, 2 “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it the message that I tell you.” 3 So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city,[a] three days' journey in breadth."

Jonah, Jesus, and the God of Second Chances  

by Jonah

When people learn my name is Jonah, they usually smile and make a joke about big fish or running from God. But for me, the Book of Jonah is not a children’s story. It has become a lens through which I see Israel, the nations, Jesus, and even myself. In this essay I want to trace how Jonah—prophet and book—sits at the crossroads of Jewish and Christian faith, repentance, and atonement, and how his story reaches from Nineveh all the way to Yom Kippur and the words of Jesus.

Jonah, The Reluctant Prophet Of Mercy

Jonah didn’t run away out of fear for his life or because he doubted God. He ran because he knew God’s character. And make no mistake, God knew Jonah when God chose him! 

After Nineveh repents, Jonah finally spills the real reason for his flight: “I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster” (Jonah 4:2). He wasn’t afraid that God would fail to judge; he was afraid God would succeed in showing mercy. Jonah understood that the covenant formula from Exodus 34—gracious, merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love—could be applied to Gentiles too, even to Israel’s brutal enemies.

In other words, Jonah knew that if the Ninevites repented, the God of Israel would forgive them.

That knowledge infuriated him. Jonah wanted God for Israel, not for Assyria. He embodies an Israel that is happy to receive covenant mercy, but deeply reluctant to see that mercy poured out on the nations—especially Israel’s enemies.

The Final Question: Jonah And Israel

The Book of Jonah ends on a question and then goes silent:

“Should I not pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left…?”

We never hear Jonah’s response. That silence is intentional. The question is addressed to Jonah’s heart, but it is aimed over his shoulder at Israel. Jonah is a mirror held up to God’s people. The closing question forces Israel—and later, the church—to ask: Do we begrudge God’s mercy to those we count as enemies? Are we offended that God loves those we fear or despise?

The phrase “do not know their right hand from their left” is an image of moral and spiritual ignorance. In Israel’s frame, it is precisely what it means *not* to know Torah, not to know the way of the Lord. Nineveh is pictured as a people without covenant instruction, morally disoriented, and therefore objects of pity rather than mere targets of wrath. Jonah wants them destroyed; God wants them restored.

Asleep In The Ship: Israel Asleep To Its Calling

Before Jonah ever reaches Nineveh, the pattern is staged on a smaller scale in the boat.

The pagan sailors are crying out to their gods while Jonah is “fast asleep” in the hold as they are about to perish. The captain’s rebuke—“What do you mean, sleeper? Arise, call on your God!”—is almost prophetic. Jonah, appointed to be a messenger of the living God, literally sleeps through Gentile distress.

It is not hard to hear the theological message: Jonah’s sleep is Israel’s sleep. Israel, called to be a light to the nations, a kingdom of priests, is spiritually asleep to its vocation. Surrounded by perishing Gentiles, the bearer of revelation is unconscious, uninterested, even when his own disobedience has contributed to their danger.

And yet, God still uses Jonah. The sailors end up fearing YHWH, offering sacrifice, and making vows. This “conversion of the pagan sailors” foreshadows the repentance of Nineveh. The irony is sharp: the Gentiles are responsive; the prophet is resistant. The nations are awake; Israel is asleep.

Jonah In The Fish: Idols, Salvation, And Vows

In the belly of the fish, Jonah’s prayer crystallizes the theology of the book:

“Those who cling to empty folly [worthless idols] forsake their own mercy.  
But I, with the voice of thanksgiving, will sacrifice to you;  
what I have vowed I will pay.  
Salvation belongs to the LORD.”

Here Jonah recognizes that idol‑worship is self‑destruction. To cling to idols is to let go of your own welfare; to hold onto false gods is to abandon the very mercy that could be yours. Praying to idols is not a path to salvation. “Salvation belongs to the LORD” is one of the clearest statements in Scripture that all true deliverance—physical and spiritual—is God’s work alone.

His line, “what I have vowed I will pay,” is modest next to what comes later in the canon, but it still matters. Jonah emerges from symbolic “death” with renewed resolve to fulfill his commission. In that sense, his descent, “death,” deliverance, and return to obedience form a faint, imperfect pattern that will be fulfilled and magnified in the obedience of Jesus.

Dagon, The Fish God, And Jonah’s Sign To Nineveh

Jonah’s story resonates with earlier biblical confrontations between the God of Israel and the gods of the nations—especially Dagon.

In 1 Samuel 5, the Philistines place the ark of God in the temple of Dagon. Twice Dagon falls before the ark; finally, his head and hands are broken off. The message is unmistakable: the idol is powerless before Israel’s God. And yet the Philistines, instead of turning to YHWH, simply send the ark back and cling to Dagon. Confronted with the true God, they choose their god of choice.

Dagon is remembered in tradition as a fish‑associated deity. Assyrian and Mesopotamian iconography includes fish‑man figures, and there is at least a strong symbolic connection between fish imagery and some of the gods venerated around the region of Nineveh. Against that backdrop, the idea that a man vomited out of a great fish would carry particular weight to a fish‑fixated culture is not far‑fetched. To Ninevites surrounded by fish‑god imagery, Jonah’s emergence from the depths in the belly of a great fish would mark him as a man stamped, in their idiom, with divine significance.

In that sense, God takes the cultural “language” of Nineveh—their fish symbol—and uses it against their idolatry. Jonah does not belong to the fish‑god; his story proves that the Lord of heaven and earth commands the sea and its great creatures. Jonah comes out of the fish not as a priest of Dagon, but as a prophet of YHWH. The true God wields the “fish” to assert His supremacy over the fish god.

No wonder the Ninevites listen. Jonah himself becomes a living contradiction of their idolatry and a sign of a greater power.

Samson Between The Pillars: Arms Outstretched

The struggle with Dagon appears again in Samson’s death.

Samson was seduced to give up his Nazarite vow. Blind, betrayed and humiliated, is brought into Dagon’s temple, where the Philistines praise their god for delivering him into their hands. Samson asks to be placed between the two central pillars. With his arms outstretched—right hand on one pillar, left hand on the other—he pushes, the temple collapses, and the house of Dagon falls with its worshipers.

Samson was set apart as a Nazarite from birth. In the Scriptures we see this same pattern of lifelong consecration in two other key figures: Samuel, whose mother vowed that no razor would ever touch his head (echoing the Nazarite law), and John the Baptist, who was set apart from the womb and forbidden wine or strong drink in a way that clearly recalls the Nazarite pattern. Together, these Nazarite—and Nazarite‑like—lives form a line of men specially dedicated from birth whose ministries prepare the way for God’s anointed king, culminating in Jesus Himself.

Judges 16:28—Then Samson prayed to the Lord, “Sovereign Lord, remember me. Please, God, strengthen me just once more, and let me with one blow get revenge on the Philistines for my two eyes.”

We see the silhouette of a figure with arms outstretched, dying among enemies, and in his death overthrowing the powers behind the idols. Samson’s death is deeply flawed and violent, but ultimately Samson brings down the house of false gods. Samson’s posture between the pillars foreshadows the cross, where the greater one with outstretched arms breaks the power of the principalities and powers behind all idols.

When I line up Dagon in 1 Samuel 5, Samson in Dagon’s temple, Jonah from the fish in Nineveh, and Jesus on the cross, I see a consistent theme: the God of Israel humiliates idols and wins Gentiles through self‑giving acts that look like defeat but are actually victory.

Jonah, Yom Kippur, And The Shared Grammar Of Repentance

Jonah is not marginal in Judaism; he stands at the heart of the holiest day of the year.

Every Yom Kippur afternoon, the Book of Jonah is read in synagogues. The story is the liturgical climax to a day devoted to confession, repentance (teshuvah), and atonement. Jonah reminds the congregation that:

- No one is beyond judgment.  

- No one is beyond mercy.  

- Even a violent Gentile city can be given mercy if it turns.  

- Even a reluctant prophet is pursued by God’s grace.

The logic is simple and profound: if God accepted the repentance of the Ninevites, how much more will He accept the repentance of Israel? Jonah becomes a didactic lesson in God’s readiness to forgive, His compassion for those “who do not know their right hand from their left,” and His patience even with His own sullen prophet.

Christians read Jonah through the lens of Jesus, but the grammar is the same: sin, judgment, repentance, forgiveness, and a God who is “gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.” Jonah is a shared text. Jew and Christian may articulate atonement differently—especially in relation to the cross—but we kneel under the same words: “salvation belongs to the LORD.”

Jonah, Jesus, And The Sign

Jesus does not “replace” Jonah; He interprets and fulfills him.

When the religious leaders demand a sign, Jesus replies that no sign will be given except “the sign of the prophet Jonah.” As Jonah was three days and nights in the belly of the great fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and nights in the heart of the earth. Jonah’s descent into the depths and return to the land of the living becomes a prophetic sketch of death and resurrection.

But Jesus presses the comparison further. The men of Nineveh will rise at the judgment and condemn “this generation,” because they repented at Jonah’s preaching, and now One greater than Jonah is here. The contrast is devastating: Gentile Nineveh, steeped in violence and idolatry, hears one reluctant prophet and repents; many of Israel’s leaders, saturated in Torah, hear and see the Messiah Himself and refuse.

Jonah was a sign to Nineveh, to Israel and the nations: the living embodiment of God’s mercy and the crossroads of judgment and grace.

Tradition, Evidence, And Faith

There is a long tradition—Jewish, Christian, and Muslim—that Jonah ended his days in or near Nineveh, in what is today Mosul. A shrine on the ancient mound has been venerated for centuries as his tomb. Archaeology has uncovered an Assyrian palace under that site, situating the tradition in authentic Assyrian soil.

Can I prove, historically, that Jonah stayed there and continued teaching Torah to the Assyrians? No. The text of Scripture is silent after the book ends, and archaeology can’t yet trace the prophet’s last steps.

Perhaps that is precisely where faith enters—not as blind belief in any pious legend, but as trust that the God who really spoke through Jonah, really turned Nineveh, and really raised Jesus has woven more into His story than I can document. Jonah himself becomes a sign at this point: a man whose narrative ends with an open question, inviting me to respond in my own life rather than demanding a tidy epilogue to *his*.

My Name Is Jonah

All of this lands a little differently when your own name is Jonah.

I hear God’s question—“Should I not have compassion on Nineveh?”—as addressed to me. Do I want God to be generous only to people like me, or am I willing for Him to lavish mercy on those I might secretly prefer He judge? Am I asleep in the hold while the world around me is in a storm, clinging to idols that cannot save? Am I clinging to my own “empty follies,” forfeiting the mercy that could be mine? Do I really believe that “salvation belongs to the LORD,” or am I still trying to manage who gets it?

The ancient prophet Jonah stands at the intersection of Judaism and Christianity, of Israel and the nations, of idols and the living God, of death and resurrection. His story confronts me with all my reluctance and resentment, but it also comforts me with the same truth he finally confessed from the depths:

"Those who cling to empty folly forsake their own welfare. Salvation (Yeshua) belongs to the LORD."

Epilogue:

Did you know that in the fish jonah prayed the psalms?

FULLY REAL AND FULLY SUPERNATURAL

On the Shroud of Turin, the bodily image is created in a different way than the blood stains. The cloth presents two distinct “layers” of data: natural blood evidence and a non-natural image, yet the two are in perfect anatomical registration. The human forensics pair to the supernatural image. 

The forensics testify to the man's crucifixion and death. The image testifies to the identity and ressurection. The fact that the two are in perfect alignment is an out-and-out miracle. 

Blood vs. Image: One Artifact; Two Different “Events”

- Forensic and chemical studies show the blood on the cloth is real human blood (type AB), with hemoglobin, serum albumin, bilirubin, and UV-visible serum “halos” around many wounds, consistent with fresh traumatized blood from scourging, crucifixion, and a post-mortem spear wound.

- Those same investigations conclude the body image is not paint, dye, or stain: no pigment particles bound to the fibers, no brush strokes, no binder, no cracking over fold lines, and color confined only to the top fibrils of the linen.

- Critically, the blood was on the cloth before the body image, because the image “stops” at the edges of blood clots and never appears underneath them, which is nearly impossible to reproduce as an artistic forgery.

So the blood corresponds to an actual wounds on the corpse in contact with the linen, while the image corresponds to some later, non-contact (distance-coded) process when the body left the linen it was wrapped in.

Wounds that “Pair” with the Image:

- The blood flows line up point-for-point with the body image of a scourged, crucified man: over 100 scourge marks, scalp bleeding from a cap-like crown of thorns, wrist and foot nail wounds, and a lance wound between the ribs with separated blood and clear fluid consistent with pleural effusion after death.

- The directions of blood flow correspond to a body first upright on a cross, then horizontal in burial, matching classical crucifixion posture and movement.

- Modern forensic reviews emphasize that the presence, placement, and morphology of the bloodstains certify that a real, wounded human body lay in the cloth, while the ventral and dorsal images encode body–cloth distance information instead of simple contact transfer.

In other words, the forensic data (blood chemistry, flows, wound placement) say “real crucified corpse,” while the optical/physical data of the image say “not produced by any known artistic or physical mechanism.”

The Forensics Pair to the Supernatural:

Scientific teams have been able to describe what is there—real blood, anatomically and physiologically precise wound patterns, and a superficial, non-pigment image with 3D distance properties—but have not been able to reproduce how such an image could form under known natural processes.

That is why some researchers speak of a natural sequence (death, bleeding, burial) followed by an image-forming event that behaves as if it were a brief, vertically directed, non-contact radiation or energy burst from the body, something for which there is no established physical analogue.

Separate and Apart: 

The Sudarium is the face cloth (handkerchief) that was put over the crucified victim's head & face as he was taken down from the cross. It would have been removed and placed to the side while the body was prepared for burial. In other words, while they are both in contact with the same body, they were not stained at the exact same moments and they have never been directly on the body at the same time.

Furthermore, the Sudarium was NOT on the body at the time of the formation of the image of the individual was created. This explains why the Sudarium ONLY has forensics data. There is no image! 

Factoring in the Sudarium which has the blood stains without the image, strengthens the case beyond the shadow of any possible basis for doubt.

Together for the First Time

John 20 and the subsequent history line up exactly: two distinct cloths, separated in the tomb and then separated across centuries and geography.

The Shroud and Sudarium were separate in the tomb and for the last 2000 years have been stored in different locations.

Modern data collection, digital and scientific technology have made it possible for our generation (those alive in this modern age) to overlay the Shroud and the Sudarium for the first time.  

Bringing the Sudarium (Oviedo face cloth) into view with the Shroud exactly reinforces the pattern I'm pointing to: natural, coherent blood forensics that dovetail with a non-natural image event.

What the Sudarium Adds:

- The Sudarium is a smaller linen cloth (about 84 × 53 cm) kept in Oviedo, used only on the face and head and bearing no image at all, only complex blood and serum stains.

- Its stains are consistent with a man who died upright of asphyxiation with pleural edema fluid exiting nose and mouth—precisely the expected pattern in crucifixion, including vertical and later horizontal body positions.

- Blood on the Sudarium is type AB, matching tests reported for the Shroud’s blood.

So here again, we have purely natural forensic data (blood, fluid, gravity, posture) without any image phenomenon.

Congruence with the Shroud’s face

- Detailed overlay and geometric studies find multiple congruences between the Sudarium’s facial stains and the Shroud’s face: matching nose length (~8 cm), alignment of beard/chin region, and thorn-related puncture stains at the nape of the neck.

- Comparative catalogues list dozens of distinct correspondences in anatomy, trauma patterns, and fluid flow between the two cloths, arguing they were in contact with the same head at different moments (on the cross and during/just after removal, then later burial).

- The Sudarium, used earlier and bearing only blood, naturally precedes the Shroud’s later, distance-coded image; its stains help reconstruct a continuous timeline of death, removal, and burial with consistent forensics across two independent artifacts.

The Cumulative Structure:

- Sudarium: blood and fluid only, no image, early application to the crucified head.  

- Shroud: extensive blood PLUS a non-contact, 3D-encoded body image that forms after the blood has already transferred.

Together, They Make the Case: 

Two separate linens, converging in the same AB blood type, same facial geometry, same crown-of-thorns and nape wounds, the same crucifixion physiology—yet only one cloth carries an inexplicable image. The more the forensics line up, the more the “normal” blood evidence seems to be framing a single, extraordinary, image-forming event.

One more thing—The Xylon.

Conclusion

The odds of so much forensic data matching with an unexplainably formed image are numerically beyond astounding.

The cloth’s forensics anchor us in a real, tortured, crucified man, while the mode and timing of the image formation point beyond ordinary causality. The wounds and blood “lock” the image to history, and the image’s physics press the mind toward a miraculous, one of a kind explanation.

The Shroud is the Sign of Jonah: Fully Real and Fully Supernatural. 

‐--------------------------

Consider these other thoughts concerning the Shroud of Turin. 

JONAH PRAYED THE PSALMS

Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God
from the belly of the fish

Below are verses from Sefer Jonah, chapter 2.

I have spent many meditative moments in the Book of Jonah. In a sense, I have put myself in Jonah's shoes. I have been in the fish. Below are the verses from Jonah when he was in the gadol dawg (the great fish):

Jonah 2 NIV

2 He said:
“In my distress I called to the Lord,
    and he answered me.

From deep in the realm of the dead I called for help,
    and you listened to my cry.

3 You hurled me into the depths,
    into the very heart of the seas,
    and the currents swirled about me;
all your waves and breakers
    swept over me.

4 I said, ‘I have been banished
    from your sight;
yet I will look again
    toward your holy temple.’

5 The engulfing waters threatened me,
    the deep surrounded me;
    seaweed was wrapped around my head.

6 To the roots of the mountains I sank down;
    the earth beneath barred me in forever.
But you, Lord my God,
    brought my life up from the pit.

7 “When my life was ebbing away,
    I remembered you, Lord,
and my prayer rose to you,
    to your holy temple.

8 “Those who cling to worthless idols
    turn away from God’s love for them.
9 But I, with shouts of grateful praise,
    will sacrifice to you.

What I have vowed I will make good.
    I will say, ‘Salvation comes from the Lord.’”

Jonah Prays Psalms In the Fish

Jonah’s prayer in Jonah 2 is deliberately “psalm‑shaped”: almost every line echoes language, theology, and imagery from the Psalms of lament and thanksgiving, as if Jonah is praying from inside the Psalter.

Verse‑by‑verse Links

- Jonah 2:2 – “In my distress I called to the Lord, and he answered me… from deep in the realm of the dead I called for help, and you listened to my cry.”  

  This matches the laments where the psalmist cries out from “distress,” “Sheol,” and “the depths,” and God hears from his temple: see Psalm 18:4–6; 116:3–4; 120:1; 130:1–2.[1][2][3]

  Example: “In my distress I called upon the Lord… from his temple he heard my voice” (Psalm 18:6), and “The cords of death encompassed me… then I called on the name of the Lord” (Psalm 116:3–4).[1][2]

- Jonah 2:3 – “You hurled me into the depths… all your waves and breakers swept over me.”  

  This closely echoes Psalm 42:7, “all your breakers and your waves have gone over me,” and similar sea‑judgment imagery in Psalm 69:1–2, 14–15.[3][4]

- Jonah 2:4 – “I have been banished from your sight; yet I will look again toward your holy temple.”  

  Parallels the sense of being cut off from God and yet looking toward his sanctuary: Psalm 31:22 (“I am cut off from before your eyes”) and many prayers focused on the temple as the place of heard prayer (e.g., Psalm 18:6; 28:2).[2][3]

- Jonah 2:5–6a – “The engulfing waters threatened me, the deep surrounded me… To the roots of the mountains I sank down; the earth beneath barred me in forever.”  

  Water as chaos, threat, and near‑death is classic lament language: Psalm 69:1–2, 14–15 (“I sink in deep mire… let not the deep swallow me up”); Psalm 88:6–7 (“you have put me in the depths of the pit… your waves have overwhelmed me”).[5][2][3]

- Jonah 2:6b–7 – “But you, Lord my God, brought my life up from the pit… my prayer rose to you, to your holy temple.”  

  “Pit” and “Sheol” language, with God lifting up the life of the suppliant, echoes Psalms like 30:3, 40:1–2, and again 18:4–6.[1][2] Jonah’s “my prayer came to you, into your holy temple” is almost a prose paraphrase of Psalm 18:6.[2]

- Jonah 2:8 – “Those who cling to worthless idols turn away from God’s love for them.”  

  This line resonates with anti‑idolatry statements and contrasts between idol‑worshipers and those who trust the Lord: e.g., Psalms 31:6; 115:4–11; 16:4.[2][3]

- Jonah 2:9 – “But I, with shouts of grateful praise, will sacrifice to you… Salvation comes from the Lord.”  

  The vow‑paying, sacrificial thanksgiving, and doxology are thoroughly psalmic: compare Psalm 3:8 “Salvation belongs to the Lord,” and the frequent “I will offer sacrifices… I will pay my vows” (Psalms 50:14–15; 66:13–14; 116:17–18).[2][3] One study notes explicitly that Jonah 2:9 stands in verbal parallel to Psalm 3:8.[2]

Overall pattern with the Psalter

Scholars have laid out Jonah 2 side‑by‑side with many psalms and shown sustained allusion: Jonah 2 uses phrases and motifs found in Psalms 3, 18, 30–31, 42, 69, 88, 120, 130, and others.[1][6][3][7] It is not usually a verbatim quotation but a dense mosaic, the way a worshiper steeped in Israel’s songbook would naturally pray.

Several implications of this pattern are often highlighted:

- Jonah’s prayer is structurally a thanksgiving psalm (like Psalm 30 or 116): it moves from distress, to cry, to deliverance, to vowed praise.[2][3]

- By praying in the language of the Psalms, Jonah places his personal crisis inside Israel’s larger story of crying from the depths and being heard.[1][8][9]

- Some interpreters argue that the heavy use of psalm‑language may even expose Jonah’s heart: he can “pray like David,” yet the narrative will show his compassion does not match the psalms’ concern for all nations turning to the Lord.[10][2][11]

Read Jonah 2 alongside Psalms 18, 42, 69, 88, 116, and 130; the repeated vocabulary of depths, Sheol, waves, temple, vows, and “salvation belongs to the Lord” makes the interconnection unmistakable.[1][2][3]

Citations:

[1] Psalms in Jonah 2 – PeterGoeman.com https://petergoeman.com/psalms-jonah-2/

[2] 2. The Psalm of the Prodigal Prophet (Jonah 2:1-10) - Bible.org https://bible.org/seriespage/psalm-prodigal-prophet-jonah-21-10

[3] Jonah's prayer (2) https://sb.rfpa.org/jonahs-prayer-2/

[4] Jonah 2:3 | Psalm 42:7 https://intertextual.bible/text/jonah-2.3-psalms-42.7

[5] Jonah and the Psalm | Christianity 201 - WordPress.com https://christianity201.wordpress.com/2020/04/19/jonah-and-the-psalm/

[6] Jonah 2 - Coffman's Commentaries on the Bible - StudyLight.org https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/eng/bcc/jonah-2.html

[7] Jonah's prayer life and the Psalms | - Communion Church https://communionchurch.org/2021/04/26/jonahs-prayer-life-and-the-psalms/

[8] Patterns of Allusive Poetry in Jonah's Psalm: Intertexts ... https://scholarlypublishingcollective.org/sblpress/jbl/article/144/1/85/399524/Patterns-of-Allusive-Poetry-in-Jonah-s-Psalm

[9] recursion and variation in the "prophecy" of https://digitalcommons.andrews.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2342&context=auss

[10] An Evidence of Repentance or Hypocrisy: Why Does Jonah 2 Cite ... https://davidschrock.com/2018/04/03/an-evidence-of-repentance-or-hypocrisy-why-does-jonah-2-cite-so-many-psalms/

[11] Jonah and the Art of Being Broken - The Gospel Coalition https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/jonah-art-of-being-broken/

[12] Jonah 2 NRSVA - A Psalm of Thanksgiving - Bible Gateway https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Jonah+2&version=NRSVA

[13] Jonah 2 Parallel Chapters - Bible Hub https://biblehub.com/nas-esv/jonah/2.htm

[14] A Prayer Inside A Whale - Jonah 2 (Prayers Of The Bible) https://derekcharlesjohnson.com/blogs/latest-news/posts/5608670/a-prayer-inside-a-whale-jonah-2-prayers-of-the-bible

[15] Jonah's Prayer - She Reads Truth https://shereadstruth.com/jonahs-prayer-2/

SEDUCTION: The Power and Peril that Frames the Bible’s Story

Delilah's Seduction of Samson the Nazirite

Lamentations 3:22-23—Steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

The Scriptures open with a seduction in a garden and close with a seduction in a global city. Between those bookends, story after story shows how seduction targets even “good” people—and why adultery stands as such a high commandment. At the center of it all is covenant love. 

The First Fall: Eden as Spiritual Adultery

In Eden, humanity begins in covenant intimacy with God. Adam and Chavah (Eve) walk with Him, receive His word, and live under His generous boundaries. Their loyalty is meant to be exclusive: one God, one voice, one source of wisdom and life.

The serpent does not attack with open violence but with a whisper. He questions God’s word: “Did God really say…?” He hints that God is withholding something: “You will be like God, knowing good and evil.” The fruit appears good for food, pleasant to the eyes, and desirable to make one wise. Desire is awakened, and the boundary suddenly feels narrow.

This is more than disobedience; it is spiritual adultery. Instead of trusting the covenant Partner, they give their ears, eyes, and desires to another voice. They reach for a rival lover—a different source of truth and life. The pattern is set: seduction reframes rebellion as enlightenment and paints the forbidden as beautiful.

In the biblical sense, God is fiercely protective of an exclusive covenant love, not petty or insecure. When Adam and Chavah cross that line, it is not a small technical violation.

Seen in that light, being “kicked out” of Eden and having the way barred by cherubim and a flaming sword is exactly what a jealous Lover‑God does.

Seduction in the Lives of “Good” People

From Genesis onward, Scripture shows how this Eden pattern plays out in human stories, especially around sexual and spiritual unfaithfulness.

Joseph and Potiphar’s wife (Genesis 39)

Joseph and Potiphars Wife

Joseph is a righteous young Hebrew serving in an Egyptian household. Potiphar’s wife sees his attractiveness and repeatedly says, “Lie with me.” Her strategy is persistence and proximity. She catches him by his garment; he flees and leaves the garment in her hand.

Here seduction is direct and physical, but Joseph names it accurately: “How could I do this great evil and sin against God?” He sees adultery not only as a betrayal of Potiphar, but as a covenant offense against the Holy One. Seduction is resisted by a greater awareness of God’s presence and claims.

Samson and Delilah (Judges 16)

Samson is set apart as a Nazirite from birth, empowered by the Spirit for Israel’s deliverance. Yet his weakness is his heart for women who do not share his calling. Delilah presses him “day after day” to reveal the source of his strength. She uses tears, questions of love, and emotional pressure. Eventually he “tells her all his heart.”

Seduction here is patient and relational. It does not simply promise pleasure; it trades on Samson’s longing to be understood and loved. The result is catastrophic: his hair is cut, his strength departs, his eyes are gouged out, and he is bound. The strongest man in Israel falls not to armies, but to a persistent seduction that separated his heart from his God‑given consecration.

David and Bathsheba (2 Samuel 11–12)

David is called a man after God’s own heart, yet one evening he walks on the roof, sees a woman bathing, and sends for her. Whether Bathsheba is more victim, pressured participant, or complicit is debated, but the text is clear about David: he uses his power to take what his eyes desire.

The seduction here is partly self‑seduction: David allows beauty, opportunity, and power to override covenant loyalty—to God, to his wives, and to Uriah. The ripple effects are severe: deception, murder, family collapse, national consequences. Adultery is revealed as a seed that grows into a forest of sorrow.

Israel at Baal‑Peor (Numbers 25)

Israelite men begin to sleep with Moabite women, who invite them to the sacrifices of their gods. What begins as sexual compromise becomes spiritual compromise. They eat and bow down to the Baals; the covenant people are seduced into idolatry through the gateway of physical intimacy.

Here the link between sexual and spiritual adultery is explicit. The body’s unfaithfulness opens the door for the heart’s idolatry. Seduction operates on two levels at once.

The “adulteress” in Proverbs (Proverbs 5–7)

Proverbs personifies sexual seduction in the figure of the forbidden woman. She uses flattery, charm, perfume, and an atmosphere carefully prepared: “I have perfumed my bed…come, let us take our fill of love.” The simple young man follows her “like an ox to the slaughter.”

This is the pedagogy of seduction: it is sensory, urgent, and it always downplays consequences. The wise father warns his son not because desire is evil, but because misdirected desire destroys. Fidelity—sexual and spiritual—is a path to life, not deprivation.

The High Commandment: Adultery as the Shape of Apostasy

Why is “You shall not commit adultery” placed so high among the Ten Words?

1. Marriage is a covenant icon.

   From Genesis 2 onward, marriage is a one‑flesh, exclusive covenant. It is not just about companionship; it is a living parable of God’s own covenant with His people. When a husband and wife pledge exclusive faithfulness, they act out in miniature the drama of God and Israel, and later, Yeshua and His Bride.

2. Adultery is covenant perjury. 

   To commit adultery is not only to seek pleasure in the wrong place; it is to break sworn loyalty, to welcome a third party into a two‑person covenant. That mirrors what happens when the people of God introduce idols, rival trusts, and competing loves into the covenant with Him.

3. The prophets call sin “adultery.”

   Ezekiel, Jeremiah, and Hosea all describe Israel as a wife who “plays the harlot,” chasing other gods as lovers. Sin is narrated not mainly as lawbreaking, but as marital betrayal.

Because of this, the command against adultery stands as a guard around the most powerful metaphor God uses for His relationship with His people. To treat adultery lightly is to treat the covenant lightly.

The Last Seduction: Babylon the Great Prostitute

Without "the Harlot" at the end of the bible, the story is not complete. The seduction of Eden returns in grand, global form.

Harlot of Babylon on the Dragon

Revelation pictures “Babylon the Great” as a richly adorned prostitute, drunk with the blood of the saints. She seduces kings and nations with her luxuries, her power, and her pleasures. Merchants grow rich from her trade; the nations drink the wine of her immorality.

Here seduction is cultural and systemic. Babylon is not just a person; she is a world‑order, a way of life that invites humanity to give its allegiance, fear, and desire to her instead of to God. She promises abundance and glory—but at the price of spiritual adultery.

The language deliberately echoes the prophets: fornication, idolatry, harlotry. Humanity, meant to be the pure Bride, is intoxicated by the world’s charms. The temptation of Eden (be like God, define good and evil for yourself) becomes the full‑blown religion of Babylon, where human achievement and wealth replace worship of the Holy One.

Yeshua: the Faithful Bridegroom in a Seductive World

1 John 4:10—10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

Into this web of seductions steps Yeshua of Natzeret. He Himself faces a concentrated assault of temptation in the wilderness. Yeshua resists every offer by cleaving to the Father’s word and will. Where Adam and Israel yielded, He stands.

Yeshua also teaches on adultery in a way that reveals its depth. He insists that lustful looking is already adultery in the heart, because seduction begins with the gaze and the imagination. He calls Himself the Bridegroom and speaks of a coming wedding feast. His mission is not only to forgive individual failures, but to cleanse and restore an unfaithful Bride.

The Power and Danger of Seduction, and the Path of Faithfulness

Seen through this lens, seduction is not a side theme; it is the main strategy of the enemy throughout Scripture.

- It beautifies rebellion, making it look wise, liberating, and desirable.  

- It questions God’s goodness before it openly rejects God’s commands.  

- It targets the heart’s loyalties, not just outward behavior.  

- It echoes the pattern of adultery: leaving a true covenant Partner for a rival who promises more.

And adultery is such a high commandment because it is the bodily, visible enactment of that spiritual pattern. It is the sin that most clearly shows what all sin is: turning from a faithful Beloved to a tempting stranger.

The way forward is not fear alone, but a deeper love. The more the heart is captivated by the beauty, faithfulness, and tenderness of a loving God, the less persuasive the serpent’s whispers and Babylon’s glitter become. Fidelity—both in marriage and in the secret places of the heart—becomes an act of worship, a prophetic sign that in a world of seduction there is still a people who can say, with simplicity and joy:

“I am my Beloved’s, and my Beloved is mine.” 

Samson, Dagon, and the Final Fall of the Dragon  

In Samson’s last act, a blinded Nazirite is brought into the temple of Dagon as entertainment for his enemies. Leaning against the pillars, he calls on the God of Israel one more time. With his death, the pillars collapse, the temple falls, and the worshipers of Dagon die under the weight of their own god’s house. The scene is stark: a humiliated servant of YHWH, standing between two columns, becomes the instrument by which a false god and his revelers are brought down.

Revelation’s closing visions echo this pattern on a cosmic scale. The great harlot, Babylon, intoxicates kings and nations in her own kind of temple—an order of wealth, power, and idolatry. The dragon empowers the beast and shares in the world’s worship. For a time, the Lamb’s witnesses seem defeated; the powers of the age mock and triumph. But in the end, the harlot is stripped and burned, the city falls, and the dragon is cast down. The very system that exalted itself against God collapses under judgment.

Samson’s death under the ruins of Dagon’s house is a miniature of this larger drama. In both scenes, a world that trusts in a false power structure—a Philistine temple, a Babylonian world‑system—finds that its own “house” becomes the site of its undoing. A seemingly defeated servant of God (Samson in chains, the slain Lamb in Revelation’s earlier visions) is, in fact, the hinge of the story. The toppled temple of Dagon anticipates the toppled city of Babylon; the shamed Nazirite pulling down pillars foreshadows the final downfall of the harlot and the dragon when every rival object of worship is brought to the ground.

Deuteronomy 7:9—Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations,