Issued: 8/4/23

PLEASE NOTE:  Because Bible versions sometimes differ from each other in crucial ways, the version quoted here will be the one that best clarifies the point being made.  For a quick comparison between versions, please go to: http://www.biblehub.com.

   All bracketed material may be authorial comments, attempts at proper syntax, or minimal rewordings of Scripture for the sake of clarity and continuity.  These emendations will not be italicized.

   The “/” will be used to signify “and/or.”  The symbol “↔” is used to connect verses corroborating each other and so establishing doctrinal truths (Matthew 18:16↔2Corinthians 13:1).

   In differentiating between Yahweh of hosts [later Jesus] and Yahweh the Most High God, lower case letters have been used when discussing the former; upper case letters are reserved for the One and Most High God.  Since Jesus was at pains to differentiate himself from God the Father, we have followed his lead here.

   The term neo-Christians will be used to differentiate between false Christians and Jesus’ true followers.

Divine Templates, Earthly Forms

   In Scripture every earthly thing—living or non-living—is correlated with some aspect of God’s ‘hidden wisdom’; and by ‘hidden’ we do not mean fanciful theories about numeric codes embedded in the Bible or esoteric teachings understood by a select few.  ‘Hidden,’ as Jesus explained in Mark 4:11-12 and Paul corroborated in 1Corinthians 2:7-12↔Deuteronomy 29:29, means being unable to be understood by the faithless, not because they lack intellectual capabilities, but because God Himself enables Satan to blind them to the truth (1Corinthians 1:18-20↔2Thessalonians 2:11-13).  Since faith is revealed from faith to faith (Romans 1:17), the faithless—by their own choice—are cut off God’s loop (Job 5:13; Isaiah 28:13, 29:11-12; 1Corinthians 2:14).

   Thus we see that animals (Psalms 22:16; Proverbs 26:11; Isaiah 59:4-5; Jeremiah 15:3; Ezekiel 2:6, 13:4, 17:3-10, 29:3-5, 34:20↔Matthew 25:31-33; Matthew 7:6; 1Corinthians 9:9-10; Philippians 3:2; 2Peter 2:22; Revelation 22:15); plants (Isaiah 5:7, 10:17-20,33-34, 61:3; Jeremiah 24:3-6; Ezekiel 31:3-14,16; Mark 8:24); and natural geographic features (Psalms 97:5; Isaiah 40:4, 55:12; Jeremiah 46:7-10, 51:25↔Isaiah 14:20; Amos 9:13; Revelation 13:1, 17:17) have been so designed to convey—albeit symbolically—some spiritual message vital to us.  And so is the case with forms of government, church, and family, which is the one that concern us here.

   As we have discussed before, Genesis 2:23-24 is shadow to the substance of Jesus’ relationship with his bride, the Church (Ephesians 5:23-24,30-31).  As if to drive the point home, Paul stressed the “profound mystery” of Christ’s spiritual union only in relation to the Church (Ephesians 5:32), making Genesis 2:23-24 the earthly form of a divine template to be fully realized in a new order of things (Revelation 19:9, 21:2,9).  To achieve such a union man had to break away from parents, which Jesus did by leaving Father in Heaven and human ‘parents’ on earth; and not only that, man and woman had to share the same flesh, which would not be the case until after the resurrection of the righteous.  Since flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of Heaven (1Corinthians 15:50), and Jesus’ flesh had become immortal post-resurrection (1Corinthians 15:51-53; Colossians 1:18), he would sustain his Church from Heaven until the flesh of all her constituents became as immortal as his at his coming (Job 19:26-27↔Psalms 17:15; 1John 3:2)—at which point the substance of Genesis 2:23-24 would be fulfilled.

   Implicit here was the command to prioritize spiritual objectives over family ones.  In order for Abraham to obtain his promise, he was told to leave country and father’s household for land unknown (Genesis 12:1), which is essentially what Jesus asked of his followers (Matthew 10:37), and what Paul chose to do for love of Christ (Philippians 3:8).  The same notion is explicit in Psalms 45:10-11:  “Bride of the King, listen carefully to me.  Forget your own people and your father’s family; and the King will greatly desire your beauty.  Because he is your Lord, you should bow in respect before him.”  We need hardly belabor the obvious:  Bride = Church (Luke 5:34-35; Ephesians 5:22-4; Revelation 21:2,9); King/Lord = Jesus (Revelation 19:16).

   When Jesus stated his so-called ‘hard sayings’ prioritizing himself over family members (Luke 14:26), he was basically arguing no family member measured up to what he had done:  Divesting himself of divine privileges (Philippians 2:6-8) and dying on the cross to offer what no human counterpart could match—i.e., new faith relatives on earth (Matthew 19:29) to grow innumerable and immortal in due time (Matthew 19:29; Revelation 7:9↔Genesis 15:5); sharing his inheritance (Romans 8:17); and a kingdom without suffering, poverty, diseases, and wars (Isaiah 2:4; Revelation 21:4).  Unlike kinfolk who only prioritize their loved ones, Jesus’ prioritized the whole of faithful humanity; thus honoring a Father Who rejected men’s clannish tendencies (Luke 6:32; Acts 10:34-35).

   But all this talk of ‘hating’ relatives should not be taken at face value, for both God and Jesus are about love, not hate.  What we are being told is to assess how deserving our relatives are of unconditional devotion when they fail us in so many material, moral, and spiritual ways.  Micah 7:5-6 speaks of being wary about wives; should husbands blindly trust them?   Should the parents of sons who dishonor them honor such sons?  Should the mother whose daughter rises against her prioritize that daughter?  Brain-washed as we are by societal norms, we might say yes; but not if we retain a modicum of common sense, for such wives, sons and daughters do not care if they are undoing us to get their ways.

Divide but Ponder Why

   If we begin with Matthew 10:35, “I came to set a man at odds against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law,” by no stretch of the imagination can be conclude Jesus championed family unity.  It gets worse, “One’s enemies will be members of one’s own household” (Matthew 10:36).¹ That word, “enemy,” also denotes Satan [Hebrew hasatan = the adversary (Ephesians 2:2; 1Peter 5:8; Revelation 12:9,12-13,17)], who himself is ‘father’ of all unbelievers (John 8:44); thus some of his ‘children’ may be found amongst family members.  They do not need to be possessed like those Hollywood grotesqueries, but merely not to share the conviction of faithful relatives—faith being the discriminating factor (Galatians 3:11; Hebrews 11:6); hence the divisions Jesus mentions in Matthew 10:35.   While those divisions may lead to painful outcomes (Luke 17:34-36), there are Biblical precedents, as explained in Part I, whereby one family member’s faith in action saved other relatives—only when God was prioritized.

   We could spend hours citing news items which illustrate the physical, psychological, moral, intellectual and spiritual damage family members inflict on each other.  But Scriptural interpretation is limited to what the Bible talks about; and here we must follow Moses’ (Deuteronomy 4:2), Solomon’s (Ecclesiastes 3:14), and Paul’s (Acts 26:22) leads.

   The notion that family members pose spiritual threats did not begin with Micah:  Most of Genesis is a dissertation on them.   Eve was instrumental in Adam’s transgression; Cain murdered Abel.  Noah got drunk and passed out naked inside his tent; son Cam saw him and told his brothers, in the process damning all his Canaanite descendants (Genesis 9:21-25, 10:6,15-18).  With his survivalist shenanigans, Abraham put Sarah at risk of being made a sex toy by powerful men (Genesis 12:11-15, 20:2); while infertile Sarah prevailed on Abraham to mate with Agar, engendering Ishmael, father of Arabs perpetually at war with Jews (Genesis 16:1-4, 21:18).

   Lot was plied with wine by daughters rationalizing lust with duty, thereby engendering two of Scriptures’ reviled tribes:  Moabites and Ammonites (Genesis 19:31-38).  Esau and Jacob were the second case of sibling rivalry, not unusual in a family where Isaac favored Esau and Rebecca loved Jacob (Genesis 25: 28)—let alone Rebecca setting in motion a chain of events that damned her eldest son (Genesis 27:6-38↔Romans 9:13; Hebrews 12:16-17).  As if Jacob had not learned from his own experience, he loved Joseph better than all his other sons, which made them want to kill Joseph [a third case of sibling rivalry], but ultimately sold him as a slave to itinerant Ishmaelites (Genesis 37:3-4,20-28).  And Judah’s parenting skills left a lot to be desired, for his two eldest sons were killed for behaving immorally (Genesis 38:7-10).

   These examples illustrate some of the dynamics that support Matthew 10:36:  Kinfolk will or fail to do things that adversely impact other family members.  Eve and Sarah prevailed on their husbands to sideline God, opening the door for Satan to put their descendants at risk:  Faithful people like Abel would be killed by unrighteous people like Cain (Luke 11:49-51; Jude 1:11; 1John 3:12); heirs of the promise like Isaac would be persecuted by those denied inheritance like Ishmael (Galatians 4:21-29).  Noah, who perhaps could have gotten drunk dressed so that no one chanced upon his nakedness, cursed Cam for his own faux pas; though there is no Scriptural evidence telling us whether Cam or any of his brothers was in the habit of walking in announced into Noah’s tent; or whether the spectacle of a drunken father was a shock Cam relayed to his brothers without any hint of ridicule or irreverence.  Nonetheless there seems to have been an oral tradition against seeing parental nakedness;² and Noah seems to have been a stickler for the letter of the law rather than owning up to his lack of decorum; so in anger he damned Cam’s descendants—by the way, most of the tribes inhabiting Canaan.

   The Lot-daughters’ affair was a case of incest; but Scripture twice makes the point that Lot was unaware of what he was doing (Genesis 19:33,35).  Isaac, Rebecca and Jacob were guilty of preferential treatment amongst their respective broods, which resulted in feelings of hostility between Esau and Isaac and amongst Joseph and his brothers.  And if Judah had raised his children responsibly (Proverbs 13:24, 22:6), perhaps eldest son Er would not have done evil in the sight of God, and irreverent Onan would have complied with his religious obligation (Genesis 38:7-10)—though given Genesis 38:9, we do not know if Onan harbored any animosity towards Er in his unwillingness to raise up offspring for his dead brother.

   While the Bible is not primarily a manual of behavioral disorders in families,³ those listed above as well as Amnon’s rape of stepsister Tamar (2Samuel 13:10-19), which led Absalom to kill stepbrother Amnon (2Samuel 13:28-29), exemplify ‘sins’ happening within families to this very day—‘sins’ meaning failure to comply with God’s norms.  Eve and Sarah ‘sinned’ because they interfered in matters between God and their husbands they had no business in.  Noah and Lot ‘sinned’ because they drank too much wine; and though after the horrors both men had seen perhaps excuses their need to escape reality, the message here is intemperance leading to adverse and unforeseen consequences for self or others.⁴   Isaac, Rebecca and Jacob ‘sinned’ by playing favorites amongst sons—something God Himself did not do with Jesus (Deuteronomy 10:17; Isaiah 53:10; John 18:11; Acts 10:34-35; Romans 2:11).  And unlike God’s disciplining wayward children (Jeremiah 46:28; Hebrews 12:5-7,10; Revelation 3:19), not for Judah curbing Er’s and Onan’s excesses, so that it can be said his parental failures contributed to their untimely deaths. 

   Upon hearing of Tamar’s rape, father David became “very angry” (2Samuel 13:21) but neither reproved firstborn Amnon nor solaced daughter Tamar; and even more to David’s discredit, after mourning over Amnon for 3 years, David yearned to see fugitive Absalom (2Samuel 13:34,38-39).  Readers will note that this ‘macho’ scenario leaves out the trauma of victim Tamar, which in a way reflects parallel attitudes in family rapes where secrecy rather than succoring victims is the standard MO.

   Thus when Matthew 10:36 calls family members “enemies,” it is in the specific sense that not all relatives obey God the same way, or have the desire to please Him as is His wont, or fail to understand that His way benefits all equally.  In times of plenty such discordance runs the gamut from inconsequential to extreme; but in those unprecedented times we are heading for when personal safety/survival will be at stake and the social order will become repressive, family ties will be severed:  “A brother will betray his brother to death, a father will betray his own child, and children will rebel against their parents and cause them to be killed” (Matthew 10:21).  Forewarned is forearmed (Matthew 24:25).

   Perhaps because family is so engrained in human nature, every warning against its possible traps is addressed indirectly rather than head-on; as for example in Matthew 10:21; or Jesus’ ‘eunuch’ argument (Matthew 19:12); or his comments on end-times’ mentality mirroring that of peoples forewarned of catastrophe (Luke 17:26-30); or his commiserating with mothers either pregnant or nursing babies during the Great Tribulation (Matthew 24:19).  His exhortations to do God’s work before ‘night’ came (John 9:4); to be vigilant lest caught unprepared (Luke 21:34-36); and to be alert when his prophecies became manifest (Luke 21:28), were all red flags signaling the same message:  There is nothing wrong with family pursuits, but take into account unpredictable and inescapable doom for self and for loved ones when failing to prioritize God’s concerns.

   Paul followed suit with his comments on marriage (1Corinthians 7:1-40), though he gave personal suggestions as to how best deal with possible ‘threats’ to spirituality in terms of sex (v.7:1), celibacy (v.8,39-40), marital dynamics (v.32-34), and giving daughters in marriage (v.36-38).  But because raising families had always been praised, Paul knew his message would be resisted unless toned down:  “I am saying this for your own good, not to restrict you, but that you may live in a right way in undivided devotion to the Lord” (v.35).  Thus like Jesus, Paul left choices and decisions up to individuals.

   Not in his advice to Timothy when there was a lot at stake:  “No soldier on duty entangles himself in the affairs of life, that he may please him who enrolled him as a soldier” (2Timothy 2:4); meaning that to serve under Jesus, the Commander of God’s army, there was no room for double duties juggling self-interests and God’s:  It was his way or none at all.  Still Paul taught that even though assisting the family of faith always came first, converts had familial obligations to their own kin (Galatians 6:10; 1Timothy 5:8).  But James was more radical:   “Adulterers!  Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?  Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God” (James 4:4); meaning following human objectives and mindsets opposed to God’s—the gist of Isaiah 55:8-9.

   Hence Jesus’ demands to break away from human ties to stake a claim in God’s Kingdom, which sounds a lot like Yahweh asking Abraham to leave the security of home for parts unknown and unseen.  But you get the point, readers?  What is at play here is a test of faith bundling up our conviction that God exists with the certainty He is powerful and trustworthy enough to fulfill promises we might not see in our lifetimes (Romans 8:24; Hebrews 6:13-19, 11:1,6,39).  And by harboring this hope giving further proof of our belief in His power to raise us back from the dead, which is the mindset Abraham had on his way to sacrifice Isaac (Hebrews 11:18-19).  And now we see why Abraham is called the father of Judeo-Christian believers (Galatians 3:7): not in terms of genetics (John 8:39), but because like him we believe God’s promises sight unseen, and because he was willing to sacrifice his son knowing Isaac to be the progenitor of peoples as yet unborn (Genesis 15:4-5, 21:12↔Romans 9:6-7; Galatians 3:16,29), in which case Isaac somehow had to remain alive.

The Double Meaning of Procreation

   If human families are not God’s objective, why then Genesis 1:22, which sounds like a command to procreate?  Given the corrosive effects of normal sex upon spirituality, there is a symbolic interpretation to this question, which we discussed in Sex and Gender Identity.  Genesis 1:22 presents sex as shadow to the substance of Jesus’ spiritual interaction with his Church, yet focusing strictly on animal life forms.  But Genesis 1:28, by contrast, is human-specific:  Adam and Eve populated the world as we know it while Jesus and his Church (Ephesians 5:29-32) populate the world to be.  Whereas the human race is propagated through sex, the Church ‘consorts’ with Jesus to engender the meek [read ‘obedient’] inheritors of God’s Kingdom (Matthew 5:5)—as opposed to Satan’s ‘predators’ who run this world.

   Furthermore Genesis 1:31, “And God saw all the things that he had made…were very good,” by default is not applicable to past and current earthly things which are very bad; otherwise there would not be a need to incinerate all things and make new heavens and earth from scratch (Isaiah 65:17; Matthew 24:35; 2Peter 3:10-13; Revelation 21:1).  And it is not as if the Most High God had uttered the command to procreate:  The God alluded to in Genesis 1:22,28 is Yahweh of hosts, the pre-existent Jesus,⁵ through whom and by whom all things on heaven and earth were created by wielding the Most High’s power (John 1:3; Colossians 1:16; Hebrews 1:2).⁶

   Procreation as men practice it propagates the human species; but it is powerless to confer salvation, since faith is not passed through parental genes.  Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God (Romans 10:17); the word of God comes through the Holy Spirit Jesus imparts (John 15:26, 16:13↔1John 2:27); which harks back to the symbolism of Jesus sowing the seed of faith (Matthew 13:37; Luke 8:11) in the soil from which Adam was formed—i.e., ‘fertilizing’ human hearts.  From this perspective we again see that human procreation is shadow to sexless, spiritual engendering—as Paul understood and accomplished through preaching (Galatians 4:19; Philemon 1:10).

   Note too Jesus’ answer to the question of marriage in the afterlife:  As is the case with mortal men, the redeemed need not marry for they will be sexless like God’s angels (Luke 20:30-36).  Just as Mosaic Law mentored men from infancy to spiritual adulthood in Jesus (Galatians 3:24-26), sex was permitted as a concession to defuse the demands of the flesh while pursing spiritual objectives (1Corinthians 7:5-7); but since sex could only be had while married, marriage itself was not the calling:  Self-control over carnal lusts was (Proverbs 16:32; Romans 6:12-13). Old

   Furthermore, since progeny is ‘holy’ as long as original partners remain married (1Corinthians 7:10-14), Genesis 1:22,28 as applied to human procreation has its limitations:  Following Paul’s argument, people born of unmarried couples are ‘unclean’, which is to say illegitimate or bastards when measured against divine standards—though the same hold true for men.  On the substance side of this ‘procreation-equation’, the same applies to God’s own ‘begetting’ dynamics:  “God disciplines you as sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline?  But if you are without discipline of which all have become partakers, you are illegitimate children and not sons…He disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness” (Hebrews 12:7-10).  Needless to say, those resisting God’s discipline remain ‘unclean’ and bastards. 

The Human Dilemma

   For a variety of reasons, some noble-minded, some pragmatic, some self-serving, emotionally, psychologically, and in many cases rooted in religious beliefs, family is indispensable to most of us.  Families ostensibly offer stability, security, assistance, companionship, financial/emotional support in troubled times, meaning and purpose to our lives; but whether they do deliver on any, some, or none of these is another matter.  Ecclesiastes 4:6-12 addresses some of these realities but only in human terms; when God enters the picture, family conflict is inevitable (Psalms 22:6; Jeremiah 15:10; Ezekiel 2:6-7; John 15:18-21; 2 Timothy 3:12).

  The media is constantly bombarding us with family shenanigans from the powers that be to lowest citizens.  Bearing out Solomon’s argument in Ecclesiastes 3:18, documentaries, newscasts, and TV programs show us that parents will do anything to protect their offspring.  Which is, be it said in passing, the way species in nature mirror our own behaviors, or rather, the way God gives us perspective by comparing the behaviors of irrational animals with irrational behaviors by rational beings. When closing ranks around family, the worst excesses inflicted on others is deemed inconsequential as long as kin is protected, which is both a betrayal of Jesus’ second greatest commandment (Mark 12:30-31) and a rejection of God’s way (Matthew 5:46-48).

   Scripture does not tell us how Adam or Eve felt towards Cain after killing Abel; but we do know that David continued to love Absalom after murdering David’s firstborn.  It is a truism that emotional bonds need not be rational or deserved:  Many loves and loyalties are invested on people who are definitely unworthy of them.  Samuel, for example, never got over Yahweh’s rejection of Saul, whom Samuel loved, though Samuel knew Saul would kill him if he could (1Samuel 15:35, 16:1-2).⁷  Yahweh of hosts may come across as heartless; but his point was there was no use crying over spilled milk:  He had made a mistake choosing Saul to lead his people (1Samuel 9:17), but Saul had failed to follow rules and had to be replaced with a better choice (1Samuel 16:7,12-13).⁸   

   The mindset that emotional bonds trump everything other consideration cuts no mustard with God:  The gist of Jesus’ ‘hard sayings’ regarding family members is that he is worthier than they are because what he does, teaches, and demands of us makes us ‘perfect’ as he is (Luke 6:40; 1John 4:17) without hurting or betraying anyone or any moral principle.  And part of the example he left us to imitate was recognizing that people who obeyed God were more his family than Mary and his brothers (Matthew 12:46-50).  Why?  Because everybody shared the same belief (Ephesians 4:1-6); went through the same ordeals (1Peter 5:8-9); took care of one another (1Corinthians 12:24-27); and was willing to put earthly life on hold to aspire for citizenship into a better afterlife (Hebrews 11:13-16).  To be family with Jesus one had to meet all of God’s criteria, from prioritizing Him to submitting to the discipline which conferred spiritual legitimacy (Hebrews 12:6,8)—in essence, severing earthly ties to join a heavenly community.

   The real problem, however, is not family but sex:  We have inverted their order of importance in divine affairs.  Family is a consequence of sex; yet we have bundled up both into centerpieces of human existence.  Both provide gratification; sex is definitely addictive and enjoyable; family is gratifying and meaningful; yet both will be non-issues in God’s Kingdom. As in Matthew 7:24-27, we prioritize things of no enduring value.

   The basic human dilemma lies in our sense of loneliness and disconnectedness, which we attempt to fill with never satisfying, short term ‘fixes’ like sexual trysts or family bonding.  If we were but honest with ourselves, we would admit that neither we nor any human being is in a position to cure this ever-gnawing malaise.  We marry in love; things cool off with the years.  We are thrilled with children, but when they come of age, they move on to other pastures or stick parents in nursing homes when they become obstacles to life’s enjoyment.  We make do with grandchildren or nephew/nieces to fill emotional voids; but these ‘fixes’ are short-lived and makes us ‘junkies’ craving for more.  These are the ‘normal’ aspects of family life, without even considering the hellish experience dysfunctional relatives are capable of inflicting upon each other.

   Perhaps God relied on family dynamics to show us that just as we mate and deprioritize Him, so will our children mate and demote us in their affect scales, so that we may experience first-hand how emotionally painful it is. Perhaps Biblical exemplars were hip to these truths, and their desire for an everlasting ‘fix’ was more appealing than temporary ones; so that they were willing to hedge their bets on God rather than on relatives’ shifting loyalties. If Paul’s Hebrews 11’s list of witnesses is anything to go by, their bets cost each of them dearly; yet the alternative was a roller coaster of hits and misses, of joys and disappointments, of celebrations and bereavements, or loyalties and betrayals that made life not worth living.   And just perhaps, like Solomon having sampled the best life had to offer, they came to his conclusion that God had stacked the cards against men:  “In the day of prosperity be joyful, and in the day of adversity consider: God has made the one as well as the other, so that man may not find out anything after Him” (Ecclesiastes 7:14).

It is what it is

   At the risk of sounding pessimistic, nothing is going to change:  We are being swept along until going over the precipice.  Old Testament end-times predictions; Jesus’ Great Tribulation woes (Matthew 24:21-22; Luke 21:25-26); Paul’s assessment of men’s character in latter days (2Timothy 3:1-5); men’s spiritual pollution in the midst of Revelation’s plagues (Revelation 9:20-21); and catastrophes to come (Matthew 24:21; 1Thessalonians 5:3; Revelation 16:18-21) do not speak of solutions but of more pain.  Climate change is not helping things:  Entire ecosystems are disappearing; the livelihoods of millions of people are being affected; pathogens are proliferating; and natural resources are becoming exhausted.  Something has got to give; and when that moment comes, family bonds will be sorely tested.

   If we go by Luke 17:26-29, people will keep on marrying and staking claims in a world to be destroyed, which says a lot about their rejection of God’s Kingdom; not to mention the partying God professed never to forgive (Isaiah 22:12-14).  But why is this?  Because in a Gospel that calls for loving others like ourselves, it should be unthinkable for us to celebrate anything while the world is awash in suffering, anymore than we throw parties in times of family bereavement.  Loving Satan’s realm (John 14:30; 2Corinthians 4:4; Hebrews 2:14↔Revelation 6:8) is admitting to God we are OK with things as they are as long as we and those we love fare well; but when things turn sour, there is some better place waiting for us—or so we pipe dream.

Like Aladdin with his genie, we pray to God to come to our aid as a last resort; but once we are over the hump, we send Him back into His camp.

   We will conclude in Part III.

¹ In Part I we argued that ‘household’ not only refers to family, but includes any institution people are part of yet at odds with in matters of faith.

² Later codified into Mosaic Law (Leviticus 18:7).

³ Leviticus gives us a more comprehensive listing, though like most prohibitions in Mosaic Law, there may be higher, spiritual meanings to some of them.

⁴ A pitch against the dangers of unrestrained drinking?  At least Noah had the consolation of a new world being repopulated by his children; but how did Lot deal with the knowledge he had impregnated his own daughters?

⁵ Easily discernible from Genesis 1:27:  Yahweh of hosts created man in his image [which he shares with the Most High (Genesis 1:26↔Daniel 7:9; Revelation 1:13-15)]; in the image of [the Most High] created he [Yahweh of hosts] man and woman.

⁶ For which reason Jesus identified himself as Lord of the seventh-day Sabbath (Matthew 12:8), his last creative act (Genesis 2:3) which corresponds to the Millennium of Revelation 20:6; and the specific sign that linked him to his followers (Exodus 31:13,17; Ezekiel 20:12,20).  Which by extension begs the question that if not Jesus, who is being honored on first-day Sunday (Luke 24:1; John 20:1).

⁷ Another clue to Jesus’ divinity.  Precisely because of repenting, we know this Yahweh to have been the pre-existent Jesus.  Why?  Because the Most High Yahweh never changes once He has decided on a course of action (Job 23:13; Numbers 23:19; 1Samuel 15:29; Isaiah 40:8: Malachi 3:6; James 1:17); whereas Yahweh of hosts repeatedly does (Genesis 6:6-8; 1Chronicles 21:15; Jonas 3:2,10).

⁸ Yet another clue to Jesus’ divinity.  Pay attention to detail:  Here we have Yahweh of hosts speaking about a Yahweh Who outranks him.  We see evidence of this hierarchy in Genesis 22:11-12 [Angel = Yahweh of hosts; God = Most High]; most pointedly in Genesis 22:15-16↔refer to Paul’s identification of Most High as issuer of promise (Hebrews 16:13-14); in Exodus 34:5-7↔Exodus 20:5-6, Yahweh of hosts exalting the Most High Yahweh; the clincher in Isaiah 44:6, where both Yahwehs are named; and in Jesus’ own testimony of his ranking in relation to God’s (John 14:28).

   There is only one true God, the Most High, and one appointed God, Yahweh of hosts, acting in His stead until returning power to Him (1Corinthians 15:24-28); just as there was one Pharaoh with Joseph as his proxy ruler (Genesis 41:40,44,55)  So that John 10:30 is not an admission that Jesus and Most High God are the same person, as is incorrectly interpreted, but that in his absolute obedience to Most High, Jesus is an extension of His mind—One in purpose and action.  And this absolute identification with/imitation of Most High is evident in Isaiah 44:6 and Revelation 22:13,16.