Noah Primeval (Chronicles of the Nephilim) (34 page)

When the sons of Korah are swallowed up by the earth for their rebellion against God, Numbers chapter 16 says that “
they
went down alive into Sheol
, and the earth closed over them, and they perished from the midst of the assembly (v. 33).” People would not “fall alive” into death or the grave and then perish if Sheol was not a location. But they would die after they fall down into a location (Sheol) and the earth closes over them in that order.

The divine being (
elohim
), known as the departed spirit of Samuel, “came up out of the earth” for the witch of Endor’s necromancy with Saul (1Sam. 28:13). This was not a reference to a body coming out of a grave, but a spirit of the dead coming from the underworld beneath the earth.

When Isaiah writes about Sheol in Isaiah 14, he combines the notion of the physical location of the dead body in the earth (v. 11) with the location beneath the earth of the spirits of the dead (v. 9). It’s really a both/and proposition.

Here is a list of some verses that speak of Sheol geographically as a spiritual underworld in contrast with heaven as a spiritual overworld.

Amos 9:2

“If they
dig into Sheol
, from there shall my hand take them; if they climb
up to heaven
, from there I will bring them down.

Job 11:8

It is
higher than heaven
—what can you do?
Deeper than Sheol
—what can you know?

Psa. 16:10

For you will not abandon
my soul
to Sheol, or let your holy one
see corruption
.

Psa. 139:8

If I
ascend to heaven
, you are there! If I make my
bed in Sheol
, you are there!

Isa. 7:11

“Ask a sign of the LORD your God; let it be
deep as Sheol
or
high as heaven
.”

These are not mere references to the body in the grave, but to locations of the spiritual soul as well. Sheol is a combined term that describes both the grave for the body and the underworld location of the departed souls of the dead.

In the New Testament, the word
Hades
is used for the underworld, which was the Greek equivalent of Sheol.
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Jesus himself used the term Hades as the location of damned spirits in contrast with heaven as the location of redeemed spirits when he talked of Capernaum rejecting miracles, “And you, Capernaum, will you be
exalted to heaven
? You will be
brought down to Hades”
(Matt. 11:23). Hades was also the location of departed spirits in his parable of Lazarus and the rich man in Hades (Luke 16:19-31).

In Greek mythology, Tartarus was another term for a location beneath the “roots of the earth” and beneath the waters where the
warring giants called “Titans” were bound in chains because of their rebellion against the gods.
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Peter uses a derivative of that very Greek word Tartarus to describe a similar location and scenario of angels being bound during the time of Noah and the warring Titans called “Nephilim.”
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2Pet. 2:4
-5

For if God did not spare
angels
when they sinned, but
cast them into hell [
tartaroo
] and committed them to chains
of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment; if he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah.

The Watery Abyss

In Mesopotamian cosmography, the Abyss (
Apsu
in Akkadian) was a cosmic subterranean lake or body of water that was between the earth and the underworld (Sheol), and was the source of the waters above such as oceans, rivers, and springs or fountains.
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In
The Epic of Gilgamesh
, Utnapishtim, the Babylonian Noah, tells his fellow citizens that he is building his boat and will abandon the earth of Enlil to join Ea in the waters of the Abyss that would soon fill the land.
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Even bitumen pools used to make pitch were thought to rise up from the “underground waters,” or the Abyss.
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Similarly, in the Bible the earth also rests on the seas or “the deep” (
tehom
) that produces the springs and waters from its subterranean waters below the earth.

Psa. 24:1-2

The world, and those who dwell therein, for he has
founded it upon the seas
, and established it upon the rivers.

Psa. 136:6

To him who spread out the earth
above the waters
.

Gen. 49: 25

The Almighty who will bless you with blessings of heaven above, Blessings of
the deep that crouches beneath.

Ex. 20:4

You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is
in the water under the earth
.

Leviathan is even said to dwell in the Abyss in Job 41:24 (LXX)
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. When God brings the flood, part of the waters are from “the fountains of the great deep” bursting open (Gen. 7:11; 8:2).

The Firmament

If we move upward in the registers of cosmography, we find another ancient paradigm of the heavens covering the earth like a solid dome or vault with the sun, moon, and stars embedded in the firmament yet still somehow able to go around the earth. Reformed scholar Paul Seely has done key research on this notion.
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Gen. 1:6-8

And God said, “Let there be an
expanse
[firmament] in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” And God made the
expanse
[firmament] and separated the waters that were under the
expanse
[firmament] from the waters that were above the
expanse
[firmament]. And it was so. And God called the
expanse
[firmament] Heaven.

I used to think, what is that all about? Waters below separated from waters above by the sky? Some try to explain those waters above as a water canopy above the earth that came down at Noah’s flood. But that doesn’t make sense Biblically because birds are said to “fly over the
face
of the firmament” (Gen. 1:20) with the same Hebrew grammar as God’s Spirit hovering “over the
face
of the waters” (Gen. 1:2). But the firmament cannot be the “water canopy” because the firmament is not the waters,
but the object that is separating and holding back the waters
. If the firmament is an “expanse” or the sky itself, then the birds would be flying
within
the firmament, not
over the face of
the firmament as the text states. So the firmament cannot be a water canopy and it cannot be the sky itself.

The T.K.O. of the canopy theory is the fact that according to the Bible those “waters above” and the firmament that holds them back were still considered in place during the time of King David long after the flood:

Psa. 104:2
-3

S
tretching out
the heavens
like a tent. He lays the
beams of his chambers on the waters
;

Psa. 148:4

Praise him, you
highest heavens
, and you
waters above the heavens
!

Seely shows how the modern scientific bias has guided the translators to render the word for “firmament” (
raqia
) as “expanse.”
Raqia
in the Bible consistently means a solid material such as a metal that is hammered out by a craftsman (Ex. 39:3; Isa. 40:19). And when
raqia
is used elsewhere in the Bible for the heavens, it clearly refers to a solid material, sometimes even metal!

Job 37:18

Can you, like him,
spread out
[
raqia
] the skies,
hard as a cast metal mirror
?

Ex. 24:10

And they saw the God of Israel. There was under his feet as it were a
pavement [
raqia
] of sapphire stone, like the very heaven
for clearness.

Ezek. 1:22-23

Over the heads of the living creatures there was the likeness of an
expanse [
raqia
], shining like awe-inspiring crystal, spread out above
their heads. And
under the expanse [
raqia
]
their wings were stretched out straight.

Prov. 8:27-28

When he
established
the heavens
… when he
made firm the skies above
.

Job 22:14

He walks on
the vault of heaven
.

Amos 9:6

[God] builds
his
upper chambers in the heavens
and founds his
vault upon the earth
.

Not only did the ancient translators of the Septuagint (LXX) translate
raqia
into the Latin equivalent for a hard firm solid surface (
firmamentum
), but also the Jews of the Second Temple period consistently understood the word
raqia
to mean a solid surface that covered the earth like a dome.

3Bar. 3:6-8

And the Lord appeared to them and confused their speech, when they had built the tower… And they took a gimlet, and sought to
pierce the heaven
, saying,
Let us see (whether) the heaven is made of clay, or of brass, or of iron
.

2Apoc. Bar. 21:4

‘O you that have made the earth, hear me, that have
fixed the firmament
by the word, and have
made firm the height of the heaven.

Josephus,
Antiquities
1:30 (1.1.1.30)

O
n the second day, he placed the heaven over the whole world... He also placed
a crystalline [firmament] round it.

The Talmud describes rabbis debating over which remains fixed and which revolves, the constellations or the solid sky (Pesachim 94b),
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as well as how to calculate the thickness of the firmament scientifically (Pesab. 49a) and Biblically (Genesis Rabbah 4.5.2).
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While the Talmud is not the definitive interpretation of the Bible, it certainly illustrates how ancient Jews of that time period understood the term, which can be helpful in learning the Hebrew cultural context.

When the Scriptures talk poetically of this vault of heaven it uses the same terminology of stretching out the solid surface of the heavens over the earth
as it does of stretching out an ANE desert tent over the flat ground
(Isa. 54:2; Jer. 10:20)—not like an expanding Einsteinian time-space atmosphere.

Psa. 19:4

He has
set
a tent
for the sun.

Psa. 104:2

S
tretching out
the heavens like a tent
.

Isa. 45:12

It was my hands that
stretched out the heavens
,

Isa. 51:13

The LORD... who
stretched out the heavens
and
laid the foundations of the earth
.

Jer. 10:12

It is he who
established the world
by his wisdom, and by his understanding
stretched out the heavens
.

Jer. 51:15

“It is he who
established the world
by his wisdom, and by his understanding
stretched out the heavens
.

Keeping this tent-like vault over the earth in mind, when God prophesies about the physical destruction he will bring upon a nation, he uses the symbolism of rolling up that firmament like the tent he originally stretched out (or a scroll), along with the shaking of the pillars of the earth and the pillars of heaven which results in the stars falling from the heavens because they were embedded within it.