Raphael Honeyman - Christ's Timeless Journey to the Tree of Life – New Numerological Interpretations of the Book of Revelations

“ He will tether his donkey to a vine,

his colt to the choicest branch;

he will wash his garments in wine,

his robes in the blood of grapes."

(Genesis 49, 11)

The donkey has been connected with the kingship of Israel from the beginning. The time of the reign of the Judges ended as Saul was chosen by the prophet Samuel to be the first King of Israel, on the order of God, when Saul sought the donkeys of his father (1. Samuel 9, 3-20):

“Now the donkeys of Kish, Saul’s father, had strayed. So Kish said to his son Saul, ’ Take one of the boys with you; go and look for the donkeys. ’ He passed through the hill country of Ephraim and passed through the land of Shalishah, but they did not find them. And they passed through the land of Shaalim, but they were not there. Then he passed through the land of Benjamin, but they did not find them. When they came to the land of Zuph, Saul said to the boy who was with him, ’ Let us turn back, or my father will stop worrying about the donkeys and worry about us. ’ But he said to him, ’ There is a man of God in this town; he is a man held in honor. Whatever he says always comes true. Let us go there now; perhaps he will tell us about the journey on which we have set out. ’ Then Saul replied to the boy, ’ But if we go, what can we bring the man? For the bread in our sacks is gone, and there is no present to bring to the man of God. What have we? ’ - The boy answered Saul again, ’ Here, I have with me a quarter shekel of silver; I will give it to the man of God, to tell us our way. ’ (Formerly in Israel, anyone who went to inquire of God would say, “Come, let us go to the seer”; for the one who is now called a prophet was formerly called a seer.) Saul said to the boy, ’ Good; come, let us go. ’ - So they went to the town where the man of God was. As they went up the hill to the town, they met some girls coming out to draw water, and said to them, ’ Is the seer here? ’ - They answered, ’ Yes, there he is just ahead of you. Hurry; he has come just now to the town, because the people have a sacrifice today at the shrine. As soon as you enter the town, you will find him, before he goes up to the shrine to eat. For the people will not eat until he comes, since he must bless the sacrifice; afterward those eat who are invited. Now go up, for you will meet him immediately. ’ So they went up to the town. As they were entering the town, they saw Samuel coming out toward them on his way up to the shrine. Now the day before Saul came, the Lord had revealed to Samuel: ’ Tomorrow about this time I will send to you a man from the land of Benjamin, and you shall anoint him to be ruler over my people Israel. He shall save my people from the hand of the Philistines; for I have seen the suffering of my people, because their outcry has come to me. ’ - When Samuel saw Saul, the Lord told him, ’ Here is the man of whom I spoke to you. He it is who shall rule over my people. ’ Then Saul approached Samuel inside the gate, and said, ’ Tell me, please, where is the house of the seer? ’ Samuel answered Saul, ’ I am the seer; go up before me to the shrine, for today you shall eat with me, and in the morning I will let you go and will tell you all that is on your mind. As for your donkeys that were lost three days ago, give no further thought to them, for they have been found. And on whom is all Israel’s desire fixed, if not on you and on all your ancestral house? ’ (1. Samuel 9, 3-20). […] Samuel said to all the people, ’ Do you see the one whom the Lord has chosen? There is no one like him among all the people. ’ And all the people shouted, ’ Long live the king! ’“ (1. Samuel 10, 24).

“ The ox knows its master,

the donkey its owner’s manger,

but Israel does not know,

my people do not understand.” (Isaiah 1, 3)

The only non-biblical description of the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt was made by the Roman historian Tacitus in a report on Judaism. According to this account, donkeys helped the Israelites to survive in the desert by leading them to hidden water sources (Tacitus Histories 5, 3):

“[…]. Others again find a famous ancestry for the Jews in the Solymi who are mentioned with respect in the epics of Homer; this tribe is supposed to have founded Jerusalem and named it after themselves. Most authorities, however, agree on the following account. The whole of Egypt was once plagued by a wasting disease which caused bodily disfigurement. So pharaoh Bocchoris went to the oracle of Hammon to ask for a cure, and was told to purify his kingdom by expelling the victims to other lands, as they lay under a divine curse. Thus a multitude of sufferers was rounded up, herded together, and abandoned in the wilderness. Here the exiles tearfully resigned themselves to their fate. But one of them, who was called Moses, urged his companions not to wait passively for help from God or man, for both had deserted them: they should trust to their own initiative and to whatever guidance first helped them to extricate themselves from their present plight. They agreed, and started off at random into the unknown. But exhaustion set in, chiefly through lack of water, and the level plain was already strewn with the bodies of those who had collapsed and were at their last gasp when a herd of wild assesleft their pasture and made for the spade of a wooded crag. Moses followed them and was able to bring to light a number of abundant channels of waterwhose presence he had deduced from a grassy patch of ground. This relieved their thirst. They traveled on for six days without a break, and on the seventh they expelled the previous inhabitants of Canaan, took over their lands and in them built a holy city and temple“ (Tacitus, Histories 5, 2-3).

Out of gratitude for the help of the donkeys, the Jews worshiped the ass according to Tacitus in their temple: “[…] In the innermost part of the Temple, they consecrated an image of the animal which had delivered them from their wandering and thirst […]“ (Tacitus, Histories 5, 4).

The worshipping of the donkey by the Israelites is apparently (else the account of Tacitus would be inconsistent) not to be equated with an idol worship such as for a Golden Calf, as Tacitus continues to write that: “[…] The Egyptians worship a variety of animals and half-human, half-bestial forms, whereas the Jewish religion is a purely spiritual monotheism. They hold it to be impious to make idols of perishable materials in the likeness of man: for them, the Most High and Eternal cannot be portrayed by human hands and will never pass away. For this reason they erect no images in their cities, still less in their temples.“ (Tacitus, Histories 5, 5).

“You set a boundary to the waters

that they may not cross over,

so they may not return to cover the earth.

You make springs gush into the valleys.

They run between the mountains.

They give drink to all the beasts of the field—

the wild donkeys quench their thirst.“

(Psalms 104, 9-11 ((Tree of Life Bible Version)))

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