Further image pair polarity with relation to prophetic cycle

A Further base pair relations

"Do they provoke me to anger? saith the Lord: do they not provoke themselves to the confusion of their own faces?" The sin in question is "anger", and the error of the sin is "provoke themselves to the confusion of their own faces".

This one is Jeremiah 43:2: "Then spake Azariah the son of Hoshaiah, and Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the proud men, saying unto Jeremiah, Thou speakest falsely: the LORD our God hath not sent thee to say, Go not into Egypt to sojourn there:" The sin in question is "proud", and the error of the sin is "Thou speakest falsely" etc (since Jeremiah, of course, actually speaks truly).

Matthew 27:41-2: "Likewise also the chief priests mocking him, with the scribes and elders, said, He saved others; himself he cannot save. If he be the King of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe him". The sin in question is "mocking", and the error of the sin is "himself he cannot save"; for He raised that temple in 3 days.

Revelation 13:16: "And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads". The sin in question in "in their right hand", and the error of the sin is "in their foreheads".

B Base Pairs and Prophetic Cycle

Matthew 24:37-38: "But as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark". The sin in question is "eating" and the error of the sin in question is "drinking".

Now, you may well quibble about some of these base pairs, as with this last imputation of sin and error to what may otherwise be construed as mere eating and drinking of the neutral variety. That is perfectly understandable, and exactly the kind of consideration one would encourage someone to do. In this case one would in passing note that there is no point in telling us that the pre-flood people ate and drank, if there were no meaning to it that fits the usual pattern; which would involve the pre-flood people eating specifically bread of wickedness and drinking specifically wine of violence, which is the Biblical version, so to speak, of the popular culture image the upside-down cross. One does not mean to imply that the Bible has upside down crosses in it, but to emphasise that it has images which come to as much.

Another interesting base pair in this same passage is something to look out for throughout the Bible but especially in the prophetic books: marrying and giving in marriage. The usual way in which prophecy refers to this base pair is "the voice of the bride and the voice of the bridegroom sounding joyous nuptials" and "the voice of the bride and the bridegroom heard no longer". One has paraphrased these particular ones. This particular base pair tends to show up with "the sound of the millstone grinding" and "the sound of the millstone heard no more". When the Church is eating bread and drinking wine, the voice of the bride and bridegroom sounds joyously and the sound of the millstone is heard. But when the Church is eating bread of iniquity and wine of violence, the voice of the bride and the bridegroom sounds no longer, and the sound of the millstone is not heard.

C Two Verses

"Good is set against evil, and life against death: so is the godly against the sinner, and the sinner against the godly. So look upon all the works of the most High; and there are two and two, one against another." -- Ecclesiasticus 33:14-15 "Let reason go before every enterprise, and counsel before every action." -- Ecclesiasticus 37:16 (mainly appended to reassure people there is a there there: the base pairs of righteousness and understanding, sin and error, word and deed, hand and forehead, platter and cup, are deliberately deployed in all manner of forms discretely and in interrelation with the prophetic cycle in inexhaustible profusion and more than decorative utility to hearing the Word and doing it, ascending and descending on the Son of Man.

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