I just discovered something interesting in my morning Bible study. It may be only that (i.e., ‘interesting’). I suspect it may be more. I’m not trying to prove anything. God and time will do that for each of us. Investigate, pray and discern for yourself.

The Hebrew word נשף (Strong’s H5399, pronounced: neh’·shef) means ‘twilight’. It’s used most often to refer to evening twilight; only occasionally to morning twilight (e.g., Psalm 119:147, where the Psalmist is rising before dawn to cry for help). Its first use in scripture (important to establishing nuance and subsequent meaning) comes in 1st Samuel 30:17, which the ESV renders:

16 And when he had taken him down, behold, they were spread abroad over all the land, eating and drinking and dancing, because of all the great spoil they had taken from the land of the Philistines and from the land of Judah. 17 And David struck them down from twilight until the evening of the next day, and not a man of them escaped, except four hundred young men, who mounted camels and fled.

Tough stuff! The preceding verses tell us that a young man of Egypt, servant to an Amalekite had been left behind by his master because he’d fallen sick three days prior. This young man agrees to lead David and his men down to the Egyptian camp, which they proceed to completely wipe out. In addition to establishing the throne on which Christ will reign in the Millennial Kingdom which, in the Lord’s prayer, we pray will come, David is also a ‘type’ for Jesus.

Within Isaiah, which I’ve been plowing through slowly the past few weeks after being ‘nudged’ to do so, the word נשף shows up three times (in 5:10, 21:4 and 59:10, which I’ll explore in more detail below). It also appears in 2nd Kings 7:5&7, Job 3:9 and 24:15, Proverbs 7:9 and Ezekiel 12:6,7&12. You’d think a word like ‘twilight’ would be fairly innocuous, perhaps referring, at least sometimes, to pastoral scenes of flocks coming home, family meals, tucking kiddies in bed… that kind of thing.

Yet every time the word נשף is used (across seven books of the Bible), the context is one of deceit (especially as regards prostitution), utter destruction, abandonment and/or punishment for rebellion and/or total despair as the result of same (e.g., Job cursing the day he was born).

Isaiah 5:8-13 (ESV):

8 Woe to those who join house to house, who add field to field, until there is no more room, and you are made to dwell alone in the midst of the land. 9 The Lord of hosts has sworn in my hearing: “Surely many houses shall be desolate, large and beautiful houses, without inhabitant. 10 For ten acres of vineyard shall yield but one bath, and a homer of seed shall yield but an ephah. 11 Woe to those who rise early in the morning, that they may run after strong drink, who tarry late into the evening as wine inflames them! 12 They have lyre and harp, tambourine and flute and wine at their feasts, but they do not regard the deeds of the Lord, or see the work of his hands. 13 Therefore my people go into exile for lack of knowledge; their honored men go hungry, and their multitude is parched with thirst.

I couldn’t help reading verses eight and nine without thinking of big pink houses… of McMansions and suburban sprawl, of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, of fantasy no-credit-check mortgages and the real estate ‘crisis’ in general. Verse ten spoke to me of once-and-future inflation, food shortages (partly as a result of global cooling which is quietly devastating crops this summer across the entire globe) and of commodity price spikes which are surely coming as a result of both that and of the way our government is borrowing and printing money like drunken sailors on shore leave.

Verses eleven through thirteen, translated into a modern context, evoke what I’ve observed working in New York City: a 400-year system of enslavement brought to these shores alongside and in competition with God’s purposes… a system that, in the NYC metro area alone, has millions of people rising early for long commutes, struggling (or lusting) for salvation via career and money, yet all the while drifting further and further from God; of music and merriment and exotic drinks readily available late into the night…

I don’t mean to pick on New York (or New Yorkers). There are many fine, righteous people there, caught in a system. One could just as well pick on Vegas or LA or parts of my hometown, Boston, or the ‘City’ of London for that matter. But Manhattan seems very near to being the global archetype and pinnacle of global imagination for what Isaiah describes and, as a locus of American culture, also its bellwether.

Isaiah 21:1-4 (ESV):

1 The oracle concerning the wilderness of the sea. As whirlwinds in the Negeb sweep on, it comes from the wilderness, from a terrible land. 2 A stern vision is told to me; the traitor betrays, and the destroyer destroys. Go up, O Elam; lay siege, O Media; all the sighing she has caused I bring to an end. 3 Therefore my loins are filled with anguish; pangs have seized me, like the pangs of a woman in labor; I am bowed down so that I cannot hear; I am dismayed so that I cannot see. 4 My heart staggers; horror has appalled me; the twilight I longed for has been turned for me into trembling.

This one is absolutely fascinating. Walid Shoebat makes a compelling case for why the ‘wilderness of the sea’ refers to Saudi and, further, to Al Jazeera (which means, in Arabic, ‘island in the desert of the sea’). (He also makes the larger case that islam is the antichrist and why, therefore, the antichrist will come out of islam, if he has not already.)

The Negeb (aka, ‘Negev’) is merely the desert in Israel with which Isaiah’s readers would have been familiar–a reference point for the majority who would never have been down to the Arabian peninsula. Walid Shoebat also suggests that the ‘wilderness, from a terrible land’ may refer to Saudi Arabia (in both a spiritual and physical sense, a desert of deserts). Note that Saudi has been an ‘ally’ of the U.S. (more or less)… yet in a kind of betrayal, it was the source for the 9-11 hijackers.

Elam and Media both refer to areas in what is now western Iran.

So, here’s something to think about: What combines, 1) something Iran has been building and which it desperately wants to do (don’t forget that Israel is merely the little Satan; we are big Satan in their eyes), 2) something Saudi has already shown that it is capable of doing (and in a place they have already taken terrorism to a new level: NYC), and, 3) is the kind of event that might render someone suddenly deaf and blind at a distance and gripped with indescribable horror all at once.

You with me? Yeah, it makes me sick to think of it too…

Isaiah 59:1-19 (ESV):

Evil and Oppression

1 Behold, the LORD’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save,
or his ear dull, that it cannot hear;
2 but your iniquities have made a separation
between you and your God,
and your sins have hidden his face from you
so that he does not hear.
3 For your hands are defiled with blood
and your fingers with iniquity;
your lips have spoken lies;
your tongue mutters wickedness.
4 No one enters suit justly;
no one goes to law honestly;
they rely on empty pleas, they speak lies,
they conceive mischief and give birth to iniquity.
5 They hatch adders’ eggs;
they weave the spider’s web;
he who eats their eggs dies,
and from one that is crushed a viper is hatched.
6 Their webs will not serve as clothing;
men will not cover themselves with what they make.
Their works are works of iniquity,
and deeds of violence are in their hands.
7 Their feet run to evil,
and they are swift to shed innocent blood;
their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity;
desolation and destruction are in their highways.
8 The way of peace they do not know,
and there is no justice in their paths;
they have made their roads crooked;
no one who treads on them knows peace.

9 Therefore justice is far from us,
and righteousness does not overtake us;
we hope for light, and behold, darkness,
and for brightness, but we walk in gloom.
10 We grope for the wall like the blind;
we grope like those who have no eyes;
we stumble at noon as in the twilight,
among those in full vigor we are like dead men.
11 We all growl like bears;
we moan and moan like doves;
we hope for justice, but there is none;
for salvation, but it is far from us.
12 For our transgressions are multiplied before you,
and our sins testify against us;
for our transgressions are with us,
and we know our iniquities:
13 transgressing, and denying the LORD,
and turning back from following our God,
speaking oppression and revolt,
conceiving and uttering from the heart lying words.
14 Justice is turned back,
and righteousness stands far away;
for truth has stumbled in the public squares,
and uprightness cannot enter.
15 Truth is lacking,
and he who departs from evil makes himself a prey.

Judgment and Redemption

The LORD saw it, and it displeased him
that there was no justice.
16 He saw that there was no man,
and wondered that there was no one to intercede;
then his own arm brought him salvation,
and his righteousness upheld him.
17 He put on righteousness as a breastplate,
and a helmet of salvation on his head;
he put on garments of vengeance for clothing,
and wrapped himself in zeal as a cloak.
18 According to their deeds, so will he repay,
wrath to his adversaries, repayment to his enemies;
to the coastlands he will render repayment.
19 So they shall fear the name of the LORD from the west,
and his glory from the rising of the sun;
for he will come like a rushing stream
which the wind of the LORD drives.

There’s a lot in this last one, so I’ll only touch on a couple of points. The overall context sounds a lot like God’s other indictments of ‘mystery’ Babylon which is ‘fallen, fallen’ (e.g., in Revelation 17 & 18 — the ‘great prostitute’ which ’sits on many waters’). Either John cribbed from Isaiah on Patmos or (though John would surely have been well-versed in Isaiah) they both ‘cribbed’ from God Himself. I choose to believe the latter.

‘Growl like bears’ (v11) sounds like what I’m hearing constantly these days: people bemoaning the declining (i.e., bear) market. Further in v11, ‘moan like doves’ evokes all those folks with ‘peace’ bumper stickers and T-shirts who reject or do not understand the inner, transcendent peace from Christ which surpasses all understanding — the only route to true peace on earth. And of course v10 (the focus here) speaks of both a spiritual blindness as well as the physical kind… which one would expect after a nuclear explosion.

A bridge too far, Art? Perhaps. I’m not a prophet. I’m not even clergy. Heck, I’ve only been a Christian seven years and a little bit. As I’ve said before, I’m just a guy with a blog. So please: caveat emptor. If any of this proves a stumbling block to you in your walk towards / with Christ, then please click elsewhere. I’m just sharing what has come to me. It may be wrong.

(Interestingly, the 7th book of the New Testament (First Corinthians), 8th chapter, 9th verse (i.e., 7-8-9) reads “But take care that this right [liberty, knowledge] of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak.”)

One quick coda. On Saturday, driving to an athletic event with Springy and a friend (as both of them slept), a car passed me with the license plate 789-BRR. I thought, is this like one of those warmer-colder games? Is God telling me I’m on a cold trail with the July 8th, 2009 and seven sevens from 9-11-01 thing? Nukes surely aren’t cold. Cold-hearted perhaps?

I was not unaware that all of this might be the ravings of a lunatic mind attempting to make sense out of nonsense and coincidence… always a possibility. As I’ve remarked before, these personal insights tend to translate poorly. I offer them up. I do not thrust them upon you, or insist that you accept them.

Still wondering what ‘BRR’ could mean, I embarked on this study this morning, discovering that the full definition for H5399 (‘nesheph’ or נשף) is : “The evening twilight, when a colder wind blows.”

9-11-01 at 9:00AM,
plus 7 years, 7 months, 7 weeks, 7 days and 777 hours is…
…July 8th, 2009 at 6:00PM.

In other words, twilight. Blueletter Bible makes an additional reference from this to Genesis 3:8, which (for reasons unbeknownst to me at the time) I had cause to read the other day after being led by the Holy Spirit to focus on another license plate (A38 83A) just ahead of me 0n my way back from Bible study — the letter ‘A’ evoking the first book of the Bible. (Funny thing with me and cars.) That verse (Genesis 3:8) comes just before Adam and Eve attempt to cover up and justify their rebellion before God. Genesis 8:3 talks about the waters receding after the flood. Symmetry around judgment? Alpha and Omega? Maybe.

Pray, pray, pray… and draw your own conclusions with the Holy Spirit’s help. For my own part, I am thanking God this morning that my wife’s business trip to NYC got moved off from these dates to the following week (and with no action on my part except fervent prayer). God listens. He really does.

UPDATE I: Forgot to mention something else that occurred to me in reading Isaiah 59:18b-19:

“…to the coastlands he will render repayment. So they shall fear the name of the LORD from the west, and his glory from the rising of the sun; for he will come like a rushing stream which the wind of the LORD drives.”

According to one of my concordances, ‘rushing stream’ can also be rendered ‘narrow river’. A narrow river of wind sounds an awful like the contrail of an airplane or missile.

And why coastlands? There were certainly coastal cities in Biblical times but, to my knowledge, no naval battles or amphibious assaults are described in scripture. If this is (at least in part) about the United States coming under judgment are we talking libertine blue states vs. faithful ‘flyover’ heartland? Maybe. I suspect that’s far too simple. Or perhaps, thinking in terms of local geography, coastlands would be the natural target for nukes launched from, or detonated within a container ship. Hmm…

UPDATE II: One reader points out how I missed the obvious: the recent popularity of a series of books and a film (‘Twilight’) which glamorize demonic beings (vampires) in the form of attractive young men and women who (unlike real demons) manage to keep their relentlessly sinful impulses mostly under control.