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© 2017 John D. Brey.

The Hebrew word tiferet תפארת is often translated "splendor" or "glory." -----Its root is “par” פאר, which means "ornament.". . The addition of two tav ת, on either side of the word "ornament" פאר, creates a word meaning a splendid, glorious, ornament ת–פאר–ת. -----The root of all "glory" the "ornament" par -excellent, is the image found between two crosses (two ktav ivri tav). It's the most splendid ornament the world has ever known. It's the most universally recognized ornament that has or ever will be.

It's not an exaggeration in the least to say this one word (tiferet) is the interpretive key to understanding the whole book of Isaiah in all its allusions and symbols. And since Isaiah is the key to the entire Tanakh, what could possibly be more important than to untangle and un-mangle the word central to all we hold near and dear to our hearts? Rabbi Joseph Gikatilla, interprets Isaiah 44:13 in an interesting way:

The TifereT [glory] of a man is to dwell in a Shrine.

Sha'are Orah, p. 225.​

Properly interpreted the entire chapter of Isaiah chapter 44 is a retroactive stigmata. It's perhaps the most fundamental link between the Tanakh and the Gospels found throughout all scripture. It's no exaggeration to suggest that properly interpreted it's more kerygmatic, more powerfully Christological, than even Isaiah chapter 53. There may well be no chapter in all the Tanakh so powerfully Christological as Isaiah chapter 44.

The priestly color intimately associated with the glory of tiferet is “techelet.” “Techelet” is spelled ת–כל–ת. -----It's kaf-lamed כל sandwiched between two tav תת. ----Lamed ל is spelled lamed-mem-dalet למד. The word “lamed” means an ox goad, shepherd's rod, or perhaps a commander's staff. Perhaps even Nehushtan. . . And since the kaf כ represents a "hand," the word sandwiched between two tav is a hieroglyph of a "staff" or "commander's rod" ל in a hand כ. Something like the brass-serpent-ornamented commander's rod in Moses’ hand: Nehushtan.

Rabbi Hirsch and Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan both say that the whole point of the tallith (the prayer-garment ornamented with the techelet colored tzitzit) is the existence of the tzitzit. And the whole purposes of the tzitzit, to the demise of those who realize the tragedy of the non-existence of the recipe for making the color techelet, is the existence of the color purple found on the tzitzit.

This purple color on the tzitzit---techelet--- is directly associated with a direct and unmediated vision, with the natural eyes (and not some strictly spiritual perception), of the very God head. -----Rabbi Hirsch points out that the word "tzitzit" means "to appear in visible form" (Horeb. p. 181). . . He tells us the word "techelet" --- "means `end,' or 'limit" (Ibid. p. 183), so that combined they mean the visible manifestation of divinity that's visible to the naked eye on the symbol representing the "end," "finality," the final letter in the Hebrew alef-bet, the tav, which, being constructed of a dalet and a nun, spells out "judgment," which, since it's the final letter (and a "cross") in the ancient script, means the final judgment associated with a "cross."

God will be manifest, visibly, to the naked eye, tzitzit, in the "end" (techelet), when the final judgment (dalet-nun) takes place on the ancient tav (a cross) at the end of the realm writ large throughout the Tanakh. This realm writ large throughout the Tanakh is symbolized by the letters alef-tav, the alef being the beginning, alpha, and the cross being the omega, the end, of the realm circumscribed by those Hebrew letters.

This "end" ---- on a Hebrew cross, the ancient tav, can be considered the "It is Finished" moment of ancient history, since never again from that time forward will the holy canon be written in that ancient script again. Henceforth the revelation comes through a Gentile script, the Aramaic, or Greek; the Gospels and Apostolic Writing.

Those who saw purple (techelet) robing a Jewish man being robbed of his high destiny as he was hoisted up on the final symbol of the alef-tav, a man whose final words were "It is finished," were seeing the visible manifestation of the Godhead robed in the techelet that's supposed to robe, and not rob, every Jew, of their relationship to this very end and this newest of all beginnings.

The Lord will lay bare his holy arm in the sight of all the nations and all the ends of the earth will see the Yeshua of our God.

Isaiah 52:10.

Even though tzitzit is supposed to represent a revelation of the Godhead that meets the naked eye it’s difficult not to underestimate the relationships that make this truth evident. The very word used to describe the last or final testament of the Jew as he hung on the last letter of the alef-beit, the tav/cross, were "tetelestai" translated, "It is finished." Which means this is the "end."

When the Greek "tetelestai" is cross-referenced (so to say) with its Hebrew counterpart, almost unbelievably, the word that comes up is kaf-lamed. -----The heart and soul of "te--kol--et" (which is the kaf-lamed situated between two crosses, two tav) ת–כל–ת. -----The letters that are the heart and soul of the word "techelet" kaf-lamed, are not only found situated between two crosses, two tav, and not only represent the Greek word "tetelestia" --- "It is Finished" (God's plan is "complete" kol, kaf-lamed, כל), but more than that, as pointed out previously, the letters kaf-lamed כל are pictograms, or hieroglyphs, of an ox-goad, or a shepherds rod, a commander's staff, i.e., the lamed ל, such that pictographically this staff is in a shepherd’s hand kaf כ, symbolizing the most famous staff-in-the hand in the Tanakh: Nehushtan.

Then his people recalled the days of old, the days of Moses and his people.---Where is he who brought them through the sea, with the shepherd of his flock? Where is he who set his Holy Spirit among them, who sent his glorious arm of power to be at Moses' right hand . . ..

Isaiah 63:11-12.

Isaiah 63:11-12 is clearly referencing Nehushtan. Moses is the "shepherd" and his shepherd's staff is Nehushtan. . . But the plot thickens when we realize that Moses' shepherd's staff is called the "glorious arm." ----The word "glorious" is the Hebrew "tiferet." ----Moses' shepherd's staff, Nehushtan, is being called "glorious." ---- But why? What's so glorious about Moses' shepherd's staff? What's so glorious about Nehushtan?

According to Isaiah 63:11, God sends his Holy Spirit with Moses. The passage claims the Holy Spirit is in Moses' right hand, as his shepherd's staff? This shepherd's staff, Nehushtan, is being called the Lord's "arm." ----Isaiah 53:1-2 asks the question concerning to whom the "arm" of the Lord will be revealed? And here, the "arm" of the Lord, his Holy Spirit, is a dry Branch, a wooden rod?

Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? . . . A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a branch will bear fruit. The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him . . ..

Isaiah 53:1; 11:1-2.

The arm of the Lord, where the Holy Spirit rests, will be a dry Branch that will bear fruit. ---- Numbers 17:8 claims that not only does Moses' shepherd's staff bud, but it bears fruit, it has offspring. -----Nehushtan is the shepherd's staff of Moses, which Isaiah is comparing to the "arm" of the Lord spoken of in Isaiah 53, a "Branch," which Isaiah 11 claims is the place where the Holy Spirit of God resides. It seems apparent that Moses' staff, his shepherd's rod, is being treated as an incarnation of God himself, the place God's very Spirit dwells?

This Branch, this staff, this lamed ל, is in the hand of Moses. Moses holding the Branch in his hand represents a theophany of God, kaf-lamed כל. The very letters situated between two crosses in the word "techelet" (which Rabbi Hirsch tells us means "end" or "the end") pictures Nehushtan, the visible incarnation Jews looked at, with their naked eyes, to incur the cure for the venomous bite of the serpent.

More than one sage has wondered out loud about this salvation based on a vision of Moses holding his serpent/rod (Nehushtan) high in his hand. Just looking at this vision of the serpent/rod in Moses hand procures the cure for the bite of the serpent. Nachmanides goes so far as to say that looking up at the serpent symbolizes looking up to the invisible God. . . Which is precisely the language Rabbi Hirsch uses to speak of the techelet colored tzitzit: 

The purpose [of tzitzit]: To remind the eye, which perceives that which is present and visible, that those things which are invisible and past and which exist beyond the ken of what is visible and present also have reality. . . The basic color of the Sanctuary was blue-violet [techelet]. For the Law of God originated neither from the light that is contained in earthly matter, nor from the Divine spark that is innate in man. It was handed to us from beyond the limits of physically visible matter . . . It was handed to us by God Himself. If we obey it, the heavens will incline toward us. The color reflecting the splendor [tiferet] of heaven will then enrich man and all things human . . . and the glory of God will dwell in our midst.

Horeb, p. 181; Collected Writings, p. 127.

Rabbi Hirsch is clearly stating that techelet, whose heart is a hieroglyph of Nehushtan כל, a staff-in-the-hand (kaf-lamed), is the splendor (tiferet) of heaven on earth. It represents God's Presence in a visible form, just like Nehustan represented God's salvific Presence in a visible form כל.

Part and parcel of Nehushtan's claim to fame is the fact that though it stood on dry ground as a root out of dry ground (a dried branch), it nevertheless "sprouted" and “blossomed” (Num. 17:8). This "sprouting" associated with Nehushtan, and thus techelet, which has Nehushtan in its very heart, the kaf-lamed between the two tavs ת–כל–ת, isn't as remarkable as it might seem:

Thus, "make yourselves tsitsith on your garments" means: Place branches and blossoming sprouts, as it were, upon your garments; cause "sprouts" to emerge from your garments. . . Hence, ציץ, [are] the parts of a plant--twig, leaf, blossom --- that have sprouted, that have "broken through."

Collected Writings, p. 122-123.

Rabbi Hirsch points out that the root from which "tzitzit" grows, ציץ, speaks of a "sprout"; which segues to Isaiah speaking of a root sprouting out of dry ground, and a Branch growing out of a dead stump (11:1). And since these "sprouts," the tzitzit, are purple, we know they represent divinity; they’re divine "sprouts" sprouting, as it were, out of dry ground, even a dead stump.

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: 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.

Zechariah 6:12-13.

The prophet Zechariah speaks of a "Branch" that will sprout up out of its place. This sprout, this Branch, growing out of dry ground, and a dead stump, will not only build the temple, as Jesus swore he would, but he will be both a king and a priest. He shall bring peace to both vocations.

On these verses Rashi points out that many say they refer to Messiah. But Rashi wonders out loud about the fact of how they could refer to Messiah since they're dealing with the time of the second temple. . . Maybe no one was brave enough to vet the feted Rashi by telling him Jesus of Nazareth sprouted out of a dry womb, no salubrious visit from the watering serpent (etymologically "satan"), and that he was there at the It is Finished moment of the second temple. 

But there's a more important aspect of this prophesy that's salubrious to what’s being said.

Zechariah says this Branch will sprout out of its "place." And the Hebrew word for "place" has at its very heart the eighth letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Rabbi Hirsch and Rabbi Kaplan both relate this eighth letter to circumcision, and the eight strings twisted and knotted in the tzitzit. This eighth letter (chet ח) signifying circumcision, and the eight strings of the tzitzit, is not only found at the heart of the "place" where the "Branch" will sprout, but this "place" where the Branch will sprout is surrounded by, get this, two tav, two crosses in the ancient script.

This is to say that the same two crosses, tav, that are on either end of the hieroglyph of Nehushtan ת–כל–ת, are on either side of the eighth letter, chet, representing the eight strings of the tzitzit ת–ה–ת. The word for the "place" from whence the "Branch" will grow is the word תחת. The letter eight, ח is found precisely where the Branch will grow out of dry ground, smack dab between two crosses/tav.

The messianic Branch found growing out of dry ground in Isaiah 11:1 and 53:2 is the eight strings of the tzitzit found between two tav such that the very "place" תחת from whence they sprout is the "place" directly between two crosses (the ancient tav).

This is a remarkable hieroglyph and it's just scratching the surface of what the text has going on:

ת–כל–ת

ת–ח–ת

The top image is the "staff-in-the-hand," i.e., Nehushtan (the Branch where Isaiah says the Holy Spirit dwells) between two crosses (the two ancient tav). --- The image beneath is where Zechariah says this Branch will sprout, the "place" where it will sprout: and a chet ח (eight strings, the tzitzit) is found behind the same two crosses (the two ancient tav). The eight stringed tzitzit, colored תכלת, sprouts from between two crosses, just like Jesus of Nazareth was found between two crosses when he exclaimed,  "It is Finished" tetelestai, Hebrew kol כל.

And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.

John 3:14-15.

If someone had read this far and not got the connections being made (not an impossibility), they might scratch their head at John connecting the crucifixion, and more importantly the crucifix, with Moses lifting up Nehushtan? And yet the Talmud, as read by Rabbi Ellie Munk, asks how a copper snake on a staff could control life and death, which power the same Talmud makes clear belongs to God and God alone (Rosh Hashanah 29a). To quote Rabbi Munk, "The answer given is that when the Israelites raised their eyes to Hashem they were healed. . . when the people looked at the serpent at the top of the pole and held the thought that Hashem alone could cause a wound or its healing, then the healing soon followed."

The wording is interesting in that Rabbi Munk, speaking for the Talmud, seems to echo John 3:14-15 quoted above. -----The Israelites were raising their eyes to Hashem when they peered at the serpent atop the pole. The Talmud is suggesting the serpent on the pole was designed to get the Israelites to cast their gaze toward Hashem. They’re healed by gazing up at Hashem.

Ok. ------So Nehushstan does have a relationship to the crucifix (John 3:14-15)? -----But does it have a direct relationship to Hashem, the God of the Israel, other than the loose suggestion that Moses lifting it in the desert to heal Israel is theophanic?

 

At the burning bush theophany Moses expresses concern that Israel won’t believe Hashem has literally, visibly, "appeared" to him. Moses seems to think he needs proof that God has appeared in order to establish the shepherd-like authority he needs to lead Israel out of bondage. He needs a shepherd's staff as the first staff-member, the second in command, a staff officer, when he leads Israel out of bondage.

God's response to Moses is a direct answer to Moses' concern that Israel will not believe that He's "appeared" to him. . . And since God is responding specifically to Moses' complaint that Israel won't believe Hashem has "appeared" to him, it stands to reason that what follows is God giving Moses a "sign" or "emblem" of the theophany (an emblem or banner signifying what Moses saw when he saw God). Moses will establish his authority over Israel by proving that "Hashem," the God of Israel, has "appeared" to him in a tangible, visible, physical way.

Moses is going to prove that Hashem has appeared to him by revealing a "miraculous sign" (Rashi) or "emblem" (Heb. nes), showing in some tangible manner how God appeared to him in tangible form. Proof of this idea is given when right after Moses states that Israel will not believe God has "appeared" to him (Israel won't believe Moses has received a theophany), God says, "What’s that," referring to the branch in Moses hand?

Rashi explains that two Hebrew words which are not normally combined, are combined in the statement "what’s that"; and according to Rashi, the combining of the words means "from this [rod]," rather than "what’s that."

If Rashi is correct about this exegetical nuance, then God is saying to Moses, "from this rod" you will prove that I have appeared to you. He has Moses cast it to the ground and it turns into a serpent. Viola! We have Nehustan, the serpent-rod, of which the looking up at signifies a salvific-theophany of God in his tangible form.

Who, after having pondered the significance of tzitzith, cannot apprehend the meaning of the pronouncement of our Sages: "He who observes the duty of tzitzith well will reach to behold the face of the Omnipresent God (Orach Chaim, ch. 24).

Horeb, p.186.

It's clear that everything in the passage (Ex. 4:1-3) concerns Moses' fear that Israel will not believe he’s "seen" God with his own eyes, God has literally "appeared" to Moses. Moses clearly thinks that if Israel is aware that he’s seen God, they’ll trust in him. So God gives Moses a miraculous "sign" of his appearance: the rod of God, which, when cast to the ground, becomes a serpent-rod: Nehushtan.

The serpent-rod is thus a miraculous theophany. The serpent-rod is thus Moses' shepherd's staff, his second in command (more on this irony later). The serpent-rod is lamed ל. The serpent-rod is kol (kaf-lamed), which is the lamed or shepherd's staff in a kaf כ, a "hand." Which is to say that kol (kaf-lamed----"staff-in-hand") is the hieroglyph of Nehushtan, which is embedded in the word "techelet" ת–כל–ת , which is twisted into the tzitzit thread that represents the visible emblem of the invisible God woven into the divine cloth wrapping up the man of God in God himself.

Nehushtan is thus established as a "crucifix-like" emblem of the visible visitation of the invisible God, Hashem. ----Moses exclaims that only a god could free Israel from their gross bondage such that God gives him one as his right hand man: Nehushtan, the serpent-rod, manifesting a god clothed in serpentine skin: shatnez (which the sages say glimmered like the sheen coming off a snake's skin).

Moses asks for an emblem of his visible visitation from the invisible God and God gives him the crucifix-like staff which, truth-be-known, the prophet Isaiah was the last writer of the Tanakh to have seen with his own eyes.

Historians and theologians who revel with legitimate fear and trembling at Isaiah's preternatural abilities to presage the Gospel writers (hundreds of years before the Gospels were written) should know that Isaiah was the last scripture writer to have seen Nehushtan with his own eyes, and thus the last writer of scripture to have seen God himself in the visible manifestation that is Nehushtan.

Furthermore, the prophet Isaiah witnessed the crucifixion of Nehustan. He saw the destruction of Nehustan.

Some of the best exegetes and historians of the Tanakh have remarked on the supernatural abilities of Isaiah to seemingly presage the spirit of the Gospels so many years before its direct manifestation. The pathos of this almost Delphic ability to channel the future, an ability verging on the pathological, is the fact that Isaiah is the only prophet allowed to witness the crucifixion of Nehushtan at the hands of the sacrilegious and religion fevered rulers over Israel.

Since Nehushtan was a visible manifestation of the invisible God, the destruction of Nehushtan was the crucifixion of the visible manifestation of the invisible God.

Ironically, the same cast of characters found in the Gospel account of the crucifixion of the visible manifestation of the invisible God, the sanctimonious and sacrilegious rulers of Israel, destroy Nehushtan, the ancient crucifix, precisely as their latter day offspring mimic them at the crucifixion of the living manifestation of Nehushtan. -----Isaiah is the only writer in the Tanakh to witness the crucifixion of the visible manifestation of God, the portable theophany in Moses’ hand. Isaiah was privileged not only to witness this preemptive strike against the Branch, but also to provide an eye-witness account --- an oracular prophesy--- of an event that wouldn’t occur for many hundreds of years.

Deutero-Isaiah is drenched in the blood of Nehushtan such that only through a conspiracy concocted by the same people who destroyed Nehushtan could any person possibly ignore the fact that Isaiah saw, in the destruction of Nehushtan, which he personally witnessed, the death of the One Nehushtan only symbolized.

I have long thought that it is the Second Isaiah who holds the key to our understanding of the Old Testament. So much is crammed into these chapters, so many layers are apparent, so many images fused and re-fused that the mind behind them must have been a religious genius. Unfortunately, such genius is as disturbing as it is liberating, and the needs of ordinary mortals, and of the religious institutions which offer them order and security, can only be met by less exotic stuff.

Margret Barker, The Older Testament, p. 161.

Naturally, it sounds blasphemous to speak of a god in Moses' right hand as his second in command; his staff officer. But only if we ignore the entire edifice upon which Deutero-Isaiah is based. Which is the idea that the Gospel account of a visible manifestation of the Godhead begins when Moses spies God, in visible form, on the mountain, and thereafter receives a theophanic emblem of the God who can be seen with the naked eyes as surely as the tzitzit can be seen in full Techelet color.

The second that Moses takes this visible manifestation of God in his hand he becomes the fleshly emblem of the first in command: God the Father. A mosaic of Moses as God the Father (with Nehustan at his right hand) colors the entire narrative of the exodus. He holds in his right hand his weapon, his commander's staff, his inheritor and Son, who is near and dear to his heart, and who will shortly be held tightly, in bereavement, in his "bosom."

And Moses answered and said, But, behold, they will not believe me, nor hearken unto my voice: for they will say, The LORD hath not appeared unto thee. 2 And the LORD said unto him, What is that in thine hand? And he said, A rod. 3 And he said, Cast it on the ground. And he cast it on the ground, and it became a serpent; and Moses fled from before it. 4 And the LORD said unto Moses, Put forth thine hand, and take it by the tail. And he put forth his hand, and caught it, and it became a rod in his hand: 5 That they may believe that the LORD God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath appeared unto thee.

No exegete of any level of sophistication, from the lowest low, to the highest high, can deny the passage above is presenting the genesis of Nehustan: the visible emblem of God; a hand-held theophany; a visualization of the visitation of God during the exodus that speaks of Israel's salvific journey out of slavery. -------The subsequent statement is more nuanced. Isaiah seems to be one of a small number of prophets who had the perspective to make sense of the second statement recorded during Moses' encounter with God in association with the creation of Nehushtan. -----Isaiah realizes that though the letters don't include it, the spirit reveals that when Moses places his hand in his bosom he's still holding Nehushtan:

6 And the LORD said furthermore unto him, Put now thine hand [holding the serpent/rod] into thy bosom. And he put his hand into his bosom: and when he took it out, behold, his hand was leprous as snow. 7 And he said, Put thine hand into thy bosom again. And he put his hand into his bosom again; and plucked it out of his bosom, and, behold, it was turned again as his other flesh. 8 And it shall come to pass, if they will not believe thee, neither hearken to the voice of the first sign, that they will believe the voice of the latter sign.

Moses places Nehushtan in his bosom and this visible manifestation of God becomes the Leper-Messiah between Moses’ breast (tiferet on the sefirotic tree). ----Israel isn't impressed.

But God states that if they don't believe the Leper-Messiah is a manifestation of God, they will absolutely believe when the Leper-Messiah, the yid in the shad, the yod (hand) in the shad (breast), comes out of the breast (shad) of God (where he's lain in repose,  bereavement), transformed, utterly whole, and surrounded by those he sired during his sacerdotal bereavement:

For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgressions of my people he was stricken. . . And who can speak of his descendants? . . ."Who bore me these? I was bereaved while still barren? I was exiled to death and rejected [while still barren]?  Who raised these up? I was left all alone, but these, from where have they come."

Isaiah 53:8, 49:20.

The Lord answers the Leper-Messiah:

I beckoned to the Gentiles, I lifted my banner [Nehushtan] to the peoples; they will bring your sons and daughters [born during your bereavement and repose between the breasts of God] in their arms and on their shoulders [as Israel carried the unleavened dough on their shoulders on their way to the Promised land].

Isaiah 49:22.

Consistent with the idea that it's the Gentiles who will accept the Leper-Messiah, the broken Branch in repose, in the bosom of God, we have Isaiah chapter 11:10:

In that day the Root of Jesse will stand as a banner [Nehushtan] for the peoples; the Gentiles will rally to him, and his place of bereavement [between the breast, the crucifix] will become glorious. In that day the Lord will reach out his hand a second time to reclaim the remnant that is left of his people [Israel] . . ..

Isaiah 11:10 segues perfectly with Exodus chapter 4 where God implies that Israel won't accept the first sign, the first visible manifestation of his glory, the Leper-Messiah lying in repose as a broken Branch in his bosom (the crucifix). It's the Gentiles who come running to Jerusalem to glory in that emblem of the broken Branch. It's the second time that Moses, acting as God the Father, reaches into his bosom, to reveal the restored Nehushtan, cured from his status as the Leper of Israel, the serpent/rod that the builders rejected, that the remnant of the nation is reclaimed to join the Gentiles in worshiping the restored manifestation of God who was formerly resting as a broken Branch, between the breast of God (the yid in the shad ----also known as "Shaddai").

Concerning this yid, found in the shad of God, the prophet says:

A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit. The spirit of the Lord will rest on him . . . In that day the Branch of the Lord will be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the land will be the pride and glory ["tiferet"] of the survivors in Israel (11:1, 4:2).

The broken Branch of the Lord, the leperous-Nehushtan, hidden from Israel in the bosom of God, will, at a given day of the Lord's choosing, be restored to its original beauty. The leprosy will be healed. The dry broken Branch will "sprout" (Hebrew "tzitz") and produce fruit, and this fruit will be the "glory" (Hebrew "tiferet") of the survivors in Israel.

This is what the Lord Almighty says: "Here is the man whose name is the Branch, and he will sprout out from his place and build the temple of the Lord, and he will be clothed with majesty and will sit and rule on his throne. And he will be a priest on his throne. And there will be harmony between the two [vocations: king/priest]" (Zech. 6:12).

Nehushtan is a rod, draped by a copper fore-skene. The first thing visible when Nehushtan is being spied is the shiny-one, the seraphim, the copper serpent. -----Nehushtan is a portable emblem of the divine Branch; a portable theophany of God. -----So why is it destroyed by Hezekiah? And why is its destruction celebrated in the Tanakh?

The text where Nehustan is destroyed points out that it was made by Moses. It's known that it was what God told him to manufacture so that Israel would have a portable theophany of the Sinai visitation they could take with them to the holy land. . . So how do they justify destroying (and the Hebrew says they hit it with hammers crushing the nails Moses used right through the flesh of the copper) . . . how do you destroy the very theophanic-salvific emblem ---  the Branch ---made by Moses at the behest of God?

How does Nehushtan go from being a legitimate tree, or Branch, of life, to being an object of cult-like derision? How is Nehushtan one minute a Branch representing Yahweh (yod-heh-vav-heh was engraved into Moses' rod), a theophany of God one moment, and an idol representing Thanatos, the god of the phallic cult, the next?

The undercurrent of this book is the recognition of the codependency of religion and idolatry. Contrary to what is commonly held to be the theological import of monotheism and the greatest contribution of ancient Israel and later Judaism to the history of religion, the turning toward God is not a turning away from Idol images.

Giving Beyond the Gift, Professor Elliot R. Wolfson, Judge Abraham Lieberman Professor of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at New York University.

The messianic passages of Deutero-Isaiah trip over themselves to picture Messiah as a Sprout or a Branch, springing up out of a dead stump. But from a strictly Jewish framework what's the meaning of this Branch, or Sprout? What does it mean that Messiah is a Sprout or a Branch?  Why are there so many places in the Tanakh where the Messianic arm of the Lord is a sprout growing out of either dry ground or a dead stump?

A shoot--- This is symbolic of the royal scepter [Rashi]. The shoot alludes to the King Messiah, as Jonathan paraphrases. He will spring forth from the stem, or stump, of Jesse. When a tree is cut down, only the stump remains, and twigs spring up around it [Redak].

Rashi says the Shoot is the royal scepter (and he calls it Messiah elsewhere).----- Redak says it's a basal-shoot such as those that sprout up (break through the soil) when a sexually reproducing tree is cut down to the stump such that sexual reproduction is no longer possible. ----Then, "twigs" (basal-shoots) must sprout from the root beneath the stump, as clonal facsimiles (genetic clones) mem-bers of a genet, rather than as products of the sexual tree which is no longer able to reproduce in the sexual way.

The previous verses (Isaiah 10:33-34) tell us why there's a stump in the first place: 

Behold, the Lord, the LORD of hosts, shall lop off the tree to the stump with force [Psalm 2:12]: and the high ones of stature shall be hewn down, and the haughty shall be humbled. 34 And he shall cut down the thickets of the forest with iron, and Lebanon shall fall by a mighty one.

The Sages know "Lebanon" refers to the holy temple. So the last statement in Isaiah chapter 10 is part and parcel of Rashi's not wanting to make the "Sprout" in Zechariah 6:12 speak of Messiah, though he concedes the context suggests it, and most Sages demand it. -----Why doesn't Rashi want "Sprout" (found at Zech. 6:12) to speak of Messiah? ---- Because, as he correctly points out, the context is the time of the second temple. How can the "Sprout" be messianic, be Messiah, when the second temple (Lebanon) is going to fall down at the hands of the mighty ones, the Romans?

Confounding Rashi's dilemma, Isaiah 11:1 tells us, and just a verse after Lebanon is cut down to a stump, that a basal-Shoot will indeed come up after the tree is cut down to the stump. Zechariah's "Sprout" is Messiah? Which means Messiah must come during the second temple, when, as best any Jew can tell, that didn't happen?

The first time Nehustan goes into the bosom of Moses, who symbolizes God, this Leper-messiah is rejected by Israel, who can't conscience a dead Messiah. But later in Isaiah chapter 11 we're told that the Gentiles, who have no haughty tree, no great and holy Lebanon, will come running to the scepter of a dead Messiah and that only when the hand, the second time (11:11), is removed from the bosom, when Messiah is healed, will the remnant of Israel be gathered to the glory of Messiah.

Redak is clear that what grows up out of the stump of the messianic tree is an asexual basal-shoot; growth which is all, every part, a genetic clone of the root.

These asexually producing shoots form a genet, a clonal colony, which the Jewish sages of the Zohar call "scions of faith." The Jewish sages state that the offspring of the messianic root grow not through sexual reproduction, but through faith, and they’re "scions," such that the Hebrew the sages use speaks of a clonal-colony of asexual shoots growing like a giant forest out of the original root.

The Gentiles speak of the same "scions of faith" as the "Body of Christ." Messiah produces a family, a Body, a genet, while he lies in bereavement in the bosom of God as Tiferet. When he returns he exclaims, and in the very Prophet in the cross-hairs of the discussion, "Who bore me these?" "I was bereaved and forsaken, a leper among the dead." "How could this be?"

But his offspring didn't require his phallus. They weren't conceived in the genital way. They didn't require sex (as the intact tree does). Just faith. They sprouted out of the marrow of his bones, from his blood, as he sprouted out of the marrow of Adam's prelapse bones, from Adam’s blood, creating the greatest community of believers the world will ever know. This family isn’t confined to the homeland of the Lebanon. They spread out, through underground roots, grass-root evangelism, to encompass the entire globe, from one end of the world to the next. To the ends of the earth ----as Deutero-Isaiah points out. One symbol saved them. One idol pushed them on against all odds. One guidion guided them: the very scepter spoken of in the Prophets. Tiferet, the dry leprous Branch. Nehushtan. The shepherd's staff Moses lifted as Israel's sacerdotal, salvific, stigmatic, thaumaturgical, emblem, par-(so to say)-excellent.