The Whirlwind

Having now, for the first time, a new and deeper understanding of the one hundred forty-four thousand, we must take a new look at the meaning of the whirlwind, for inherent in both terms we see the spiral of the fire ether.

The prophetic signs in the Old Testament can be found in those passages that utilize words composed of the Hebrew letters (consonants) gll or glgl. The Hebrew letters g and l, gimel and lamed, are the third and twelfth letters in the Hebrew alphabet. Both three and twelve are readily recognized as prevalent and meaningful in scripture. Moreover, these letters are often interpreted according to their number in the alphabet. In this light, the potential significance of the juxtaposition of two twelfth letters becomes immediately apparent, as in l x l or twelve times twelve giving us the number one hundred forty-four (and this even though the lamed is also used as numeral thirty). So frequently do these appear in Old Testament passages that we cannot list them all. But the names by which they appear become familiar, as in Gilgal (Deut 11,30; Josh 4,19,20; 5,9,10; 9,6; 10,6,7,9,15,43; 14,6; 15,7; Judg 2,1; 3,19; 1 Sam 7,16; 10,8; 11,14,15; 13,4,7,8,12,15; 15,12,21,33; 2 Sam 19,15,40; 2 K 2,1; 4,38; Hos 4,15; 9,15; 12,11; Amos 4,4; 5,5; Mic 6,5), Geliloth (Josh 18,17) and especially Galilee (see 2 ABD 879; also Is 9,1; Mt 26,69; 28,7,10,16; Mk 16,7; Jn 2,1-11; 21); probably also cognate in Gilead (Gen 31,21,23,25; Num 26,29,30; 32,1,26,29,39,40; et al.), Galeed (Gen 31,47,48) and in the significant epic of Gilgamish.

To appreciate the meaning of ancient names, we need also to consider the meaning of the letters they comprise; in these cases, as indicated, g and l. This was of greater significance in the older Hebrew than the later Greek, but the latter still reflects it somewhat. We've noted these letters' placement third and twelfth in the Hebrew alphabet; and the same in the Greek (when it is seen that originally lambda, now the eleventh letter, was also twelfth (GEL, p. 1021). In both languages the first letter, aleph (Heb) and alpha (Gk), stands for the original unity. One can hardly fail to see such terms as our "all" and the Allah of Islam as carrying this concept even into our own time. And we use the term "alpha" to designate the beginning of anything or the brightest star in a constellation. Again, the second letter, beth (Heb) and beta (Gk), indicates that one has a position in a place. It has usually been interpreted as "house," and this is not wrong, but is merely an application of the more overriding concept that finds expression even today in our use of the term "beta." It indicates that there is no longer unity, but the first step away from it, implying duality by the preposition in. Then we come to the third letter, gimel (Heb) and gamma (Gk), which means three. We see it also in our prefix "gamo-" relating to marriage and reproduction of a third, also in our term "gamete" relating to cells that can combine to make a new individual. This "gam" can also be seen as a matter of emphasis in the term "Gilgamish." That mythical epic has been compared closely with the Mosaic myth in Genesis, and it points toward the evolving consciousness of the human soul (see 2 ABD 1024; also The Burning Bush, pp. 544, fn 4, 237, and 239, fn 7). This "ish" then means, as in our language, "pertaining to" (WNWCD indicates that either Gilgamish or Gilgamesh is correct).

When we come to the twelfth letter, lambda (now the eleventh in Gk) and lamed (Heb), we are dealing with something that points in a direction, one might even say a "sign": a preposition indicating "toward" but not denoting motion (see HEL 510). Yet when, as in gll, they are found together they indicate something in a curvature as we see below. But one must surely contemplate that there is a relationship between this letter twelve and the similarly sounding Lamb, the zodiacal Aries, or the Lamb of God. In this connection, see the tabulation in I-18. This contemplation is then enriched when we remember, as Isaiah foretold (Is 9,1; Mt 4,14-15), that he was to come from GaLiLee and be known as a "GaLiLean."

The oldest manuscripts available to our scholars are dated many centuries after the originals from which they were copied, and even the originals were first written, in most of these passages, centuries after the events that had come down to them by oral transmission of tradition. As critical scholarship has often suggested, and Steiner certainly confirms, faithfulness to the original meaning is compromised in these instances by the "fading splendor" phenomenon, the dimming spiritual consciousness of the later scribes causing them to give vulgar or mundane meanings to the pictorial metaphors (Imaginations) of the traditions handed down as all ancient myths were.

If one examines these words in a Hebrew dictionary (e.g., HEL), it can be seen that they not only embody the concept of "circle," as our modern translators have given them to us (e.g., Josh 5,9, where "rolled" becomes the basis for the name "Gilgal" and suggests that the twelve stones in Josh 4 were placed in a heap or "circle"; see 2 ABD 1022), but also the concept of "waves" (Job 38,11; Is 51,15; Jer 5,22 et al.) and "whirlwinds" (Ps 77,18; see the note on this verse [there called vs 19] at 17 AB 232). The note at 17 AB 232 just cited in reference to Ps 77,18 is highly informative on our point. It indicates that the galgal there translated "dome of heaven" is usually translated "whirlwind." Steiner often said that the human brain (see the gnomonic figure of the Ram and human brain above in the section "Phi, the Gnomon and the Spiral"), with its twelve pairs of nerves, reflected the firmament or "dome of heaven." The note in question goes on to say that the Hebrew gulgolet (and the Akkadian gulgullu), obviously related to Golgotha, means "skull, a container shaped like a human skull." Here we ponder, realizing that it can fairly be stated that the central mission of Rudolf Steiner was to bring to humanity a deeper understanding of what he termed "the mystery of Golgotha."

The Bible student will immediately think of the whirlwind that carried Elijah and his fiery chariot into heaven (2 K 2,1,11). Actually the gll/glgl term is not used there, the KJV having selected "whirlwind" undoubtedly because the event took place at "Gilgal" (2 K 2,1); see 11 AB 31. But many other Old Testament passages do translate the term as "whirlwind(s)" (Is 5,28), or "hurricane" (Ps 83,15), or "whirling dust" (Is 17,13).

In the text enumeration above of examples where the golden mean (phi) manifests, we saw all of these in the form of ocean waves, galaxies, hurricanes and the human brain. And we now see in the text above that this phi reaches a culmination with the number twelve in its square, the apocalyptic one hundred forty-four.

Now it was at Gilgal that Joshua commanded that twelve men be selected, one from each tribe, to "take twelve stones … out of the midst of the Jordan" (Josh 4) and the interpreters agree that they must have been placed in a "circle" because of the term Gilgal (see 2 ABD 1022), which can also mean spiral (as in the case of the whirlwind). And then twice the question is asked, "What do these stones mean?" (Josh 4,6,21), for the commandment itself was given "that this may be a sign among you" (Josh 4,6).

And just as the sign, the phenomenon, manifested in the disappearance of heat is missed by our scientists, so also do our theologians miss the significance of the spiral of stones in Josh 4 that comes to fruition in St. John's Apocalypse in the meaning of the one hundred forty-four thousand of the redeemed and the one hundred forty-four as the dimension of the Holy City. At the time of Joshua, the spiral in the parabola of human evolution was still downward, toward the "right time" of Christ's Incarnation. Perhaps this densification is indicated here by twelve "stones," as compared with the twelve precious stones in Rev 21,19-20 and the twelve pearls in vs 21. Meaning can then be seen in the creative sevens (Prov 9,1) associated with bringing down the walls of Jericho immediately thereafter (Josh 6), especially as it involved repeated circles (seven times seven) and the imagery of trumpets so visible in the reascent in Rev 8-11 and the "last trumpet" of 1 Cor 15,52 (also 1 Th 4,16). That archaeology has cast substantial doubt on the physical destruction depicted in Josh 6 and 8 having taken place at Jericho and Ai strongly suggests the higher prophetic meaning of these passages (see Archaeology of the Land of the Bible, ABRL, p. 331; 3 ABD 736-737 and 2 NIB 615-616).

This understanding seems further strengthened by the meaning of the name Jericho, namely, City of Palm Trees. Its identification as such in the last chapter of Deuteronomy (Deut 34,3; see also 1 ABD 1052) is given at the very time that Moses, from the summits of Mounts Nebo and Pisgah, was shown Jericho and the promised land and told he could not lead the people over there. And then Joshua is handed the leadership (Deut 34,9), and it is said that no prophet like Moses has arisen since, "whom the Lord knew face to face" (vss 10-12). There Deuteronomy ends, and the book of Joshua begins, and we come to the passages about the stones and the walls of Jericho.

Just as Moses killed the Egyptian to start the exodus (Ex 2,12), now Joshua brings down the walls of Jericho to start the conquest of the promised land. The meaning of Moses' killing the Egyptian is that he was to kill the capacity in his people that characterized the ancient clairvoyance of the Egyptians. They were to transform that into the hardening of the human brain for intellectual thinking (the two tablets of stone being the two mineralized sides of the human brain with its twelve pairs of cranial nerves).⁸⁷ Moses was the last to carry this ability of "seeing God face to face." That quality could not be carried over into the earthly promised land.

And now we see the same pattern emerging at the outset of Joshua's campaign with the bringing down of the walls of Jericho. We've seen above that the palm tree was essentially involved with the phoenix myth, the ancient symbol of reincarnation. Now we see that Joshua was to bring the walls of this knowledge (the City of Palms) down. Human consciousness of this spiritual reality was to be darkened until the time was right for it to reemerge in the fifth Cultural Era of the Consciousness Soul (i.e., the "five thousand"), the 2,160-year era of the fishes (Pisces) that commenced with the Renaissance (ca. A.D. 1414; see I-19 and I-25). But evolution of consciousness is gradual. What started with the Gilgal experience of Joshua might be said to have been brought to a conclusion in the Gilgal experience of Elijah and the whirlwind. We then soon have Isaiah being instructed by the Lord to tell the people they would no longer see, hear or understand (in the spiritual realm) for a long period of time (Is 6,9-13). But the later prophets consoled them with the assurance that they would again someday regain higher vision (e.g., Jer 31,31-34). The Christ had to incarnate at the "right time," in the midst of a people "who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death" (Lk 1,79; Is 9,2). What came to pass slowly before Christ had then to reverse itself slowly thereafter.

There is probably no more fitting point upon which to close our consideration of the whirlwind than we find in the book of Job. The story of Job is the story of the evolution of the human soul, the "I Am," the "burning bush" (see "Three Bodies" in The Burning Bush, pp. 423-429). We must not miss the relationship between Cain and Job, for both reflect the soul of every human being exposed to the "original sin" metaphorically described in Gen 3. It is said of each of them that they cannot die (Gen 4,12-15; Job 2,6). If Gen 4 is to be more deeply understood, it must be seen as positing in each human soul the Cain element, as more fully shown in "Appendix to 'Three Bodies'" in The Burning Bush (pp. 459-473). The book of Job, including both its prose prologue and epilogue as well as its lengthy poem, is an elaboration of the soul's journey imposed upon its Cain element.

Within the full gamut of prevailing theology, there does not yet seem to be any recognition of this. But what is widely recognized is the point at which Job first becomes aware of the Lord's response, the whirlwind (Job 38,1; and then 40,6). And what theologians have noted is that there is wide diversity of judgment as to how the Lord's cosmic response is to be understood (see Brueggemann's The Theology of the Old Testament (TOT), pp. 390-391; 4 NIB 595; INTPN, Job, p. 225). This is a normal result where meaning is hidden and deeper understanding is lacking. But what we then notice is how consistently the prophets speak of the whirlwind as the place where we meet the Lord (see Is 29,6; Jer 4,13; Ezek 10,2,6,13 ["whirling wheels"]; Dan 11,40; Amos 1,14; Nah 1,3; Zech 9,14). Is 29,6 says, "you will be visited by the Lord … with whirlwind … and the flame of a devouring fire." Ezek 10,6 speaks of taking "fire from between the whirling wheels, from between the cherubim" (cf. Gen 3,24 with its cherubim and flaming sword guarding the way to the tree of life). In Amos 1,14 the Lord says "I will kindle a fire … in the day of the whirlwind." Nah 1,3 says that the way of the Lord is in the whirlwind. Zech 9,14 reads (emphasis mine), "Then the Lord will appear over them, and his arrow go forth like lightning; the Lord God will sound the trumpet, and march forth in the whirlwinds of the south."

So we see that when the Bible speaks of trumpets, one hundred forty-four, or a whirlwind, it is talking about the point that joins heaven and Earth, the point where we pass from the material sphere into the etheric, the point of fire and fire ether, the New Jerusalem. However, during Earth evolution (the Earth Condition of Consciousness, see I-1), it is the point the elevated soul attains where it perceives in the etheric world, and there meets the risen Christ in the second coming. It is in our present Cultural Age that this long awaited event begins (see "Second Coming" in The Burning Bush).

Conclusion

"I came to cast fire upon the earth." What lurking power implied! Are we, in this day of exploding discovery, to be denied new insights? Must we not aspire to move beyond the long "seeing but see not, hearing but hear not" (Is 6,10) age, veiled with matter, to apprehend higher meanings than the simplistic ones of the past? We have taken a long walk through territory new to and uncharted by prevailing orthodoxy. But what magnificent new vision it affords! Let us not fail to seize it through lack of diligence and courage. For only those who enter into that etheric fire while on Earth will ever see the Christ in the Earth, he who waits for us there even now.⁸⁸ The way is neither short nor easy. But he who waits there has bidden us take it.⁸⁹