The Red Thread: Part 2
Estimated reading time: 16 minutes
The Promised Seed: The Unique One
Isaac is Abraham’s unique son, foreshadowing Jesus Christ as the only begotten Son of God.
There’s something powerful about hearts being knit together in love and having a unity of purpose.
Seed
Genesis 3:15 KJV:
And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.
“Seed” is a figure of speech, metonymy, where you have a change in the noun; it represents something else. It is not referring to something you plant in the ground that sprouts. It also represents children, offspring, or descendants.
God uses figures of speech to get our attention so we will notice something.
When you see it used as a figure of speech, you should substitute its meaning (not its literal definition), and that meaning is emphasized. Later, Jesus Christ refers to himself as a seed, the promised seed.
John 12:23–24 KJV:
23 And Jesus answered them, saying, The hour is come, that the Son of man should be glorified. 24 Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.
When a seed sprouts, it breaks apart or disintegrates, it ceases to exist as a seed—it dies.
In Genesis God said he would put enmity between the seed of the serpent and her (the woman’s) seed.
The time period between the fall all the way up to the time of Isaac can be considered the second administration. The number two indicates division or dividing. From the time of Adam through the time of Abraham there was a dividing of the generations. There would be one that God would pick and not another. As the generations unfolded, there was a division between who believed and who didn’t.
For example, when Eve had her first son, Cain, she said, “I’ve gotten a man from the Lord.” In Hebrew, “Cain” means obtained or gotten. She thought she had gotten the seed. Instead, he was the first murderer. Then you get to Seth, which means appointed one.
From Seth, it goes down the generations to people like Enoch, who had Methuselah. Methuselah’s name means “he shall die when it shall come” or “it will come when he dies.” It was a prophecy about the flood. The year Methuselah died was the year of the flood.
Methuselah was the grandfather of Noah. After the flood, you have Noah’s three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Which one of them was in the line through which the promised seed would come? It was Shem. All the nations of the earth have come through those three sons of Noah. You can find studies showing the table of nations descending from Noah’s three sons.
The sons of Shem and Ham somewhat intermingled in the Euphrates valley. Abraham lived in Uz in Babylonia, where there were many descendants of Ham and Shem. You get the word “Semitic” from Shem. Semitic people are descended from Shem. That includes Assyrians, Babylonians, and Persians—they were all Semitic.
There was a continual dividing of the generations. And it was not always the firstborn that was “chosen” or part of the chosen line. For example, Shem’s third son, Arphaxad, was chosen and became part of the Christ line.
God was looking for faith or believing, and that’s why the line went through particular sons. And that’s what brings us to Abraham.
Abraham’s father, Terah, took part of his family from Babylonia into the land of Aram (Arameans were also descendants of Shem).
Genesis 11:31 KJV:
And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran his son’s son, and Sarai his daughter in law, his son Abram’s wife; and they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan; and they came unto Haran, and dwelt there.
Abraham (then Abram) stayed with his father in Haran until his father died.
Genesis 12:1–3 KJV:
1 Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee: 2 And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: 3 And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.
One of the main reasons God told Abram to get out of his father’s house was because Terah had brought gods (idols) with him from the land of Babylonia. Terah, Abram’s father, never fully trusted only in the one true God. But Abram did!
Abraham is later called “the friend of God” (James 2:23). Abraham trusted God in such a way that he is later called “the father of believing” (Romans 4:11).
Abram had to separate himself out from the idolatry in his own family and in the culture around him.
Genesis 12:4 KJV:
So Abram departed, as the LORD had spoken unto him; and Lot went with him: and Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran.
Abram was 75 when he left Haran but didn’t conceive Isaac until he was 99. It was 25 years before his promised son.
Hebrews 11:8–9 KJV:
8 By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went. 9 By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise:
There were two parts to the promise:
- The land (which has not yet fully come to pass).
- Through Abraham, all the families of the earth would be blessed.
You get to the seed, Jesus Christ. The seed died, was resurrected, and bore all this fruit that ended up blessing all the nations of the world. The second part of the promise has already come to pass.
The prophecy about the promised seed was first written in the Stars before it was spoken to Adam and Eve. The constellation Virgo tells this part of the story.
Frances Rolleston was the first one before Joseph Seiss and E. W. Bullinger, who outlined the meaning of each of the star names. Writers after Rolleston based their work on his.
In Hebrew, the word for “virgin” is bethulah (or betulah), in Aramaic btolta. It just means a “maiden.”
Isaiah 7:14 KJV:
Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin [maiden] shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.
The Constellation Virgo is known as “the virgin” or “the maiden.”
I don’t know the meaning of all 17 named stars in Virgo, but here are four interesting ones.
The star Spica (Latin for seed) comes from the Hebrew tzemak (or semah), “the branch.” The image is of the woman lying down holding a sheaf of wheat, and the wheat is the seed or the branch.
Jeremiah 23:5 KJV:
Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch [semah], and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth.
Another star in Virgo is Vindemiatrix. Its Arabic name means “come down and have dominion.”
Jeremiah 33:15 KJV:
In those days, and at that time, will I cause the Branch of righteousness to grow up unto David; and he shall execute judgment and righteousness in the land.
Zechariah 6:12–13 KJV:
12 And speak unto him, saying, Thus speaketh the LORD of hosts, saying, Behold the man whose name is The BRANCH; and he shall grow up out of his place, and he shall build the temple of the LORD: 13 Even he shall build the temple of the LORD; and he shall bear the glory, and shall sit and rule upon his throne; and he shall be a priest upon his throne: and the counsel of peace shall be between them both.
The King James Version is not clear here, but this prophecy says that he will be both king and priest. In the Old Testament, the priest and king were two different people from two different tribes.
Another star in Virgo is called Zavijava. It means glory or glorious, like the word glory in Zechariah 6:13.
Another star, Zaniah, has an Arabic name that means “appointed.”
Remember when we talked about the split or division in the early generations? The promise or prophecy written in the stars from the beginning was that this particular seed was going to be the appointed one. The division of the generations pointed to how we got to the one that was appointed.
The summary of Virgo is that it’s a story about the maiden who would bear a child who is called the branch or the sprout. He would be glorious, the appointed one who would rule and have dominion (and would be both a king and a priest).
It may be that Virgo and Coma are tied together. It’s hard to know because the common name for Coma today comes from mythology. What we do know is something interesting about the brightest star in Coma, Diadem.
Diadem
The brightest star in the constellation, Coma, has an ancient Arabic name that means “the only son.”
Genesis 22:1– KJV:
1 And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he said, Behold, here I am. 2 And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son [Hebrew yahid] Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.
The Hebrew and Aramaic word comes from the word “one,” and it means “the unique one.”
Isaac was born to Abraham and Sarah when Sarah was well past childbearing age. Their miraculous child was very unique. Isaac was “the one” through whom the Christ line would come.
When Abraham took Isaac to sacrifice him, Isaac was between 17 and 30 years old; he was not a little boy. When God told Abraham to do this, Abraham did not ask questions.
Genesis 22:3–4 KJV:
3 And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and saddled his ass, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son, and clave the wood for the burnt offering, and rose up, and went unto the place of which God had told him. 4 Then on the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw the place afar off.
Isaac is a type of Jesus Christ. It took three days. Mount Moriah, where Abraham brought Isaac, is the exact place where the Temple was later built in Jerusalem— the same mount where Jesus was crucified.
Genesis 22:5–7 KJV:
5 And Abraham said unto his young men, Abide ye here with the ass; and I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you. 6 And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering, and laid it upon Isaac his son [reminiscent of wood of the cross on Jesus’s back]; and he took the fire in his hand, and a knife; and they went both of them together. 7 And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said, My father: and he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?
Abraham went to extremes here. A burnt offering could be something that was dedicated, such as with the record of Jephtha dedicating his daughter as a burnt offering (Judges 11:30–40). Abraham was willing to make Isaac a literal burnt offering to God. Remember, Isaac was old enough to be well capable of overpowering Abraham and refusing to be sacrificed. But you see in Isaac an element of willing obedience to his father, Abraham. This is another way that Isaac was a type of Jesus.
Isaac knew the story of his miraculous birth. Abraham and Sarah (and the neighbors) would have told him all about it. Isaac knew that he was “the one.” He knew that through his descendants would come blessings to the whole world. Isaac must have believed it in order to be willing to obey.
Genesis 22:8–12 KJV:
8 And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together. 9 And they came to the place which God had told him of [God chose the place]; and Abraham built an altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood [Isaac allowed this to happen, as Jesus did later]. 10 And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son.
11 And the angel of the LORD called unto him out of heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham: and he said, Here am I. 12 And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad [“lad” is where we get the mistaken tradition that Isaac was a young child, but the Hebrew term could apply all the way up to age 30], neither do thou any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son [the unique one] from me..
All of Abraham’s hope for the future was in Isaac, yet he was willing to sacrifice him.
Hebrews 11:17–19 KJV:
17 By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac: and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son
“Only begotten son” in Hebrews is the same word as in “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son [the unique one]” (John 3:16).
Hebrews 11:18–19 KJV:
18 Of whom it was said, That in Isaac shall thy seed be called: 19 Accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead; from whence also he received him in a figure [a type].
Abraham believed that God was able to raise Isaac from the dead, and so Abraham received him back symbolically, as a picture.
Genesis 22:12–14 KJV:
12 And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me. 13 And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns: and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son. 14 And Abraham called the name of that place Jehovah jireh: as it is said to this day, In the mount of the LORD [the same place Jesus would later die] it shall be seen.
Here we see the principle of substitution. “It shall be seen” literally means “Yahweh (God) provides”. In that mountain, Mount Moriah, in that place, God would provide.
Parallels between Isaac and Jesus
- Both had a miraculous birth.
- Isaac spent three days traveling to the mountain; Jesus spent three days in the heart of the earth before being raised.
- Both occurred on Mount Moriah.
- Each son had to willingly obey his father.
- The blessing of the Father would be on all the nations, and they would possess the gates of their enemies.
The promised seed was prophesied or promised in the stars. The Arabic name for the brightest star in Coma, the constellation above Virgo, means “the only son.”
Psalm 19:1 KJV:
The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.
There are other constellations that tell parts of the story. The Constellation Boötes tells the story of the Shepherd. All the star names in Boötes are about the shepherd. The brightest star in Boötes points directly to the Big Dipper.
Boötes looks directly at the Big Dipper and the Little Dipper, which represent the sheepfolds. All the star names in the Big Dipper and the Little Dipper are about the sheepfold.
God is so amazing, and there is so much that we don’t even know (yet). That’s why, even before there was the written Word, there was no excuse. The story was foretold in the stars.
Abraham believed it. He wasn’t seeking power like many of the sons of Ham and Japheth. Many of the other nations descending from Noah’s sons went completely into idolatry. Abraham, the father of believing, didn’t—and all the nations of the earth are blessed in him.
John 1:14–18 KJV:
And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten [the unique one] of the Father,) full of grace and truth.
15 John bare witness of him, and cried, saying, This was he of whom I spake, He that cometh after me is preferred before me: for he was before me. 16 And of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace. 17 For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. 18 No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.
Not only did Jesus declare God while He was on earth, He is now risen from the dead (and we were raised with him). We should also be declaring the Father. We should be declaring the gospel.
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