Probational Numbers. Birds, Raven, Dove. Olive Leaf and Tree
The flood descended for forty days, which number indicates the period of probation: the nation of Israel was tested forty days, during the giving of the law, and forty years altogether in the wilderness: the Lord was tempted forty days: Canaan was spied forty days: Jonah's warning call to Nineveh forty days. It is composed thus—five is the human number (five fingers, toes, senses, &c.); therefore the number representing human responsibility must be twice five: thus there are two tables of law, and ten commandments; one set of duties to God and another to man. Well, let these ten responsibilities be universally tested (that is, multiply by 4), and the result is forty. But then divine forbearance sometimes prolongs the period of probation in which case it is again multiplied by three, the divine number, bringing us to 120: this is therefore the period through which the long-suffering of God waited during the preaching of Noah. Observe that this testing of things, while it destroys all else, bares up the ark on its face. Judgment vindicates and exalts Christ and all who are connected with Him.
On the expiry of this time Noah sends out first the raven and then the dove. The distinction between unclean and clean is many sided in meaning, but the broad general feature is that the unclean feeds on dead flesh, whereas the clean does not touch that, but, being herbivorous or graminivorous, eats what has been dead but is now alive in resurrection—grass or grain. Birds, dwelling in the air—the heavenly places, are symbolic of spiritual natures either good or bad—clean or unclean.
The raven is representative of the latter; the nature “earthly, sensual and devilish.” “The ghastly, grim, ungainly, gaunt and ominous bird of yore,” haunting the “night's Plutonian shore “; delighting in carrion; its sable wing poised ever above the weak and sickly of the covey, and its iron beak plunging first at its victim's eyes—is so expressive a symbol as to need no explanation. Being released from the ark it gladly departs; it is much more at home on the floating carrion than in the ark; and then it is lost sight of for a time. Something similar takes place at the beginning of the millennial age which is here typified. The fowls of the air are afforded a great feast (at the end of Rev. 19), the flesh of the overthrown opponents of Almighty God. Then follows on the new epoch wherein Satan and Satanic elements are out of sight—for a season.
But the dove finds no rest in such contemplations: she returns to the ark till judgment have completed its work. The wisdom that is from above, the divine nature, is first pure and then peaceable, gentle and easy to be entreated. It is remarkable that so little attention has ever been directed to the form in which the Holy Ghost descended on Christ. Still it has not altogether escaped attention: Longfellow quotes “Old Fuller's saying wise and sweet, 'Not beasts, slow bellies, did not lead Paul to despair; but as a vulture, but a dove, The Holy Ghost came from above;'“ and Francis Bacon, who anticipated many men in most things, anticipated Fuller in this saying. The form this assumed was expressive of the character of the mission of the Son, then inaugurated—glory to God (which could only be by the way of Purity) and on earth peace.
Now on the first flight the dove having nowhere to rest, returns: the Holy Ghost can only rest where the work of judgment has been accomplished: the oil is put on after the water and blood. The dove returns to Noah but afterward goes out from him and returns no more. And this is how, I think, John 7:3939(But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.) (John 7:39) is to be understood: there have been, in Old Testament times, many visitations of the sacred Spirit to the earth, but not, until the ascension of Christ gave witness to the perfected efficacy of atonement, could the Holy Ghost be yet given; and He is then given as a witness of peace having been made with God. Thus it is that the dove, when the floods are overpast, bears witness of the fact by approaching the ark with an olive leaf in her mouth: and then, a fresh epoch having elapsed, can fold her silver wings in repose under the evergreen branches of the stately cedars in the radiance of a new heaven and earth. Witness—spiritual sight—is always given by the agency of the Spirit, and so the blind man goes to the pool of Siloam ("sent"); and those who are blind are, in Rev. 3:1818I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see. (Revelation 3:18), exhorted to have their eyes anointed with eyesalve: they would then have doves' eyes (Cant. 1:15)—seeing as the Spirit sees.
That it is an olive leaf which the dove brings is expressive. A leaf is emblematic of profession or testimony. In Eden and in the case of the barren fig tree it was mere empty profession and was accursed; but quite otherwise in the first Psalm, “his leaf shall not wither.” The leaves contain the mouths and lungs of plants, and surround it like so many tongues to make known what tree it is and what fruit is (or should be) thereon. Here the testimony borne is of Righteousness, and Peace and Joy in the Holy Ghost. The olive tree is, in Scripture, a very important symbol of the position of favor and responsibility occupied by those who are in the place of witness for God. Rom. 11 explains it. The tree is a very remarkable one; its chief feature being the oil,—that is the vessel of testimony is chiefly characterized by its containing the Holy Ghost as the source of light. There are many other suggestive features: it is fruitful, the egg-shaped fruit, disagreeable at first to the natural taste, is afterward greatly relished, wholesome and medicinal; the bark is bitter, the wood is beautiful, the blossom is cruciform. It is evergreen, and will grow in the most barren and stony soil, yet Egypt cannot produce it. It was on the Mount of Olives that the Lord spent many of His most sacred hours. There Gethsemane was situated, the meaning of which name (oil-press) can hardly be without a solemn significancy.
The plants which have their blossoms shaped like a cross such as the olive (though the olive does not belong to the order cruciferae, but has an order of its own) are, generally speaking, humble-looking but wholesome and medicinal. They are very extensively used in diet—the radish, turnip, cabbage, &c. belonging to this order. It is the unfailing test of a true and wholesome religion, that, though it be ever so humble, it shall bear not only the crown, but also the cross manifestly stamped upon it.
Wherever we look, whether down upon the lowly cress, obscured by surrounding weeds, or up into the midnight sky—where the flaming splendor of the Southern Cross is answered by the glittering radiance of the Northern Crown—we see impressed on the universe the two great events of eternal history—the sufferings of Christ and the glories that follow.