If you spend time reading the Bible you will see that God is very concerned with His reputation. When He acts, He acts for the sake of His name and for His glory. Now, if he were a person, this would be arrogant, but because He is genuinely God, and genuinely good, it is the best and most selfless thing He could do. Because he is love, every thing he does and doesn’t do is motivated by love. Because He is the very definition of love, His defense of His reputation is, at the core, a fight for love. God is not a contractual God that we can buy His services, attention, or affection with gifts and money. He is a covenant God who marries Himself to people. He is all in. A relationship with Him is participation in the divine nature through a mutual lifetime commitment. He does not delight in sacrifices, but in love. He does not delight in slavery to men or demons, but desires our freedom, so we can love (worship) Him willingly in Spirit and Truth. This comes into sharp focus when we view scripture as a story of God versus “other gods.” He will go to great lengths to show us who He is, but also who he is not!
Jehovah vs. the Nephilim
The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God (angels) went in to the daughters of humans, who bore children to them. These were the heroes that were of old, warriors of renown. Genesis 6:4
During the flood of Noah, God wiped out the Nephilim and the wickedness of men that was brought by the angels interacting with humans, even to the point of conceiving children. These half-angels/half-humans were called the “heroes of old.” If the Bible is true, which we believe, then the stories of these “heroes of old” would have survived only through the oral retelling of Noah’s children. From these stories likely come the ancient myths, including those of the Mesopotamian, the Egyptians, and the Greeks who worshipped these heroes as gods. This would not be tolerated by the Lord. The entire Biblical narrative can be understood as God gaining victory over other deities so as to be understood as the One true God by His people and all the peoples of the earth. For this is His intention:
All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations will bow down before him, for dominion belongs to the Lord and he rules over the nations. Psalm 22:27-28
Jehovah vs. the Mesopotamian Deities
When Abraham was asked to sacrifice Isaac, Abraham took him to Mt. Moriah, the territory of Molech (also called Baal “God of God’s” or “My Master” ), a god who demanded child sacrifices as a substitute for the sins of their parents.
When God provided the lamb in the thicket, he was telling Abraham that He is not bloodthirsty like the demonic “gods” worshipped in the area. God, Himself, provided the sacrifice of the ram in the thicket so that Isaac did not have to die, but live. God loves our children and desires their blessing, not their sacrifice. He is for us and our families. One day, He would send His own son to die as an atonement for sin, a “Lamb of God” to take away the sins of the world. After their freedom from Egypt, they would build a golden calf bearing the image of Molech himself! Later the Israelites would return to Canaan and prostitute themselves by worshiping Molech and the other Canaanite deities.
They did not destroy the peoples as the Lord had commanded them, but they mingled with the nations and adopted their customs. They worshiped their idols, which became a snare to them. They sacrificed their sons and their daughters to false gods. They shed innocent blood, the blood of their sons and daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan, and the land was desecrated by their blood. They defiled themselves by what they did; by their deeds they prostituted themselves. Psalm 106:34-39
Jehovah vs. the Egyptian Pantheon
While we do not need to know for sure that the Egyptian Gods correlate to the plagues, there seems to be reasonable evidence based on this scripture: “On that same night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn—both men and animals—and I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt” (Ex. 12:12). The following is a list from Zondervan:
| Nile to blood | Hapi (also called Apis), the bull god, god of the Nile; Isis, goddess of the Nile; Khnum, ram god, guardian of the Nile; others |
| Frogs | Heqet, goddess of birth, with a frog head |
| Gnats | Set, god of the desert storms |
| Flies | Re, a sun god; Uatchit, possibly represented by the fly |
| Death of livestock | Hathor, goddess with a cow head; Apis, the bull god, symbol of fertility |
| Boils | Sekhmet, goddess with power over disease; Sunu, the pestilence god; Isis, healing goddess |
| Hail | Nut, the sky goddess; Osiris, god of the crops and fertility; Set, god of the desert storms |
| Locusts | Nut, the sky goddess; Osiris, god of the crops and fertility |
| Darkness | Re, the sun god; Horus, a sun god; Nut, a sky goddess; Hathor, a sky goddess |
| Death of firstborn | Min, god of reproduction; Heqet, goddess who attended women at childbirth; Isis, goddess who protected children; Pharaoh’s firstborn son considered a god |
There were also threshold deities that presided over the threshold altars to consider. In Mesopotamia, the family threshold was a blood altar to these deities over which the father of the family presided. At the establishment of the home, invocations and prayers would have been spoken over the four corners. Whenever a new visitor would come, a lamb would be sacrificed and the person would come in and become a member of their household, as close as family. This tradition continued in Egypt and Syria until at least the 1890s.
“In Syria and in Egypt, at the present time, when a guest who is worthy of special honor is to be welcomed to a home, the blood of a slaughtered, or a “sacrificed,” animal is shed on the threshold of that home, as a means of adopting the new-comer into the family, or of making a covenant union with him. And every such primitive covenant in blood includes an appeal to the protecting Deity to ratify it as between the two parties and himself. While the guest is still outside, the host takes a lamb, or a goat, and, tying its feet together, lays it upon the threshold of his door. Resting his left knee upon the bound victim, the host holds its head by his left hand, while with his right he cuts its throat. He retains his position until all the blood has flowed from the body upon the threshold. Then the victim is removed, and the guest steps over the blood, across the threshold; and in this act he becomes, as it were, a member of the family by the Threshold Covenant.” (Trumbull, the Threshold Covenant)
Sometimes salt was substituted for blood. This is referenced in scripture. “Surely you know that the God of Israel gave David kingship over Israel forever—to him and his sons—by a covenant of salt.” (2 Chron. 13:5)
It seems that Passover, therefore, was not just about keeping the angel of death out, it was about inviting Jehovah in.
It seems that Passover, therefore, was not just about keeping the angel of death out, it was about inviting Jehovah in.
But he will not dwell with other gods. Why? Because they are the way to death, not life.
Jehovah vs. the Greek and Roman Pantheon
Look later, when Moses holds up the stick with one snake on it and you will see the snake of Mercury/Hermes, one of the many threshold dieties of the ancient world, in keeping with the legends of the “heroes of old.”
God is not like them. He is only One. He is the one snake that ate the two snakes in Pharoahs court and the one snake on the pole, the only source of healing for the poison of rebellion. And He would be the one sacrifice on the pole of Calvary, taking the poison of death for us so we could live forever with Him.
When Yeshua healed, it was not in the manner of Asclepius, the Greek god who was mortal then divine, who only healed the pure in heart. Yeshua came for sinners and the sick in need of the doctor.
When he preached at Caesaria, he was standing at Caesarea Philippi, the place at the foot of Mt. Hermon thought to be the very gates of Hades and happened to proclaim in that very place:
And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” Matthew 16:18-19
The one who was over the threshold was the one who had the keys of death and life. In fact, it is how he introduces himself in the book of Revelation.
When I saw him, I fell at his feet as if I were dead. But he laid his right hand on me and said, “Don’t be afraid! I am the First and the Last. I am the living one. I died, but look—I am alive forever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and the grave.” (Revelation 1:17-18)
We serve the One living and true God. He is the God of the Jewish people and His name is HOLY. He loves us and has made a covenant with us in ways that we could understand throughout the centuries. He will prove Himself victorious over any competing god for who could stand in His presence! But we get direct access to the Father through the blood of Yeshua! What an amazing God we serve. He is our Father. We have been brought close, not to worship in terror for fear of our lives, but to worship in joy with all of our lives. Dancing, singing, feasting at His table in the presence of our enemies, until every enemy has been put under His feet forever! Yeshua we love you! We worship you as King over Zion. We know that “All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations will bow down before him, or dominion belongs to the Lord and he rules over the nations.” Psalm 22:27-28
