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#10. Psychic
phenomena and Ecclesiastes 10:20
... (most recent post 19 October 2001)
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From:
"Eddie Miller"
Date:
Tue, 24 Apr 2001 09:37:42 +0100
Dear
Discussion,
From
the outset may I emphasize that I do not believe in experimenting
with spiritual matters such as psychic phenomena (see Leviticus 19:31).
However,
some time ago Eccl 10:20 caught my eye and remembering a discourse
on the ability of prayer to reduce the ability of psychics to
'transmit' and some other conversations, I have some questions, but
first let me say what I discovered about Eccl 10:20:
The
King James states:"Curse
not the king, no not in thy thought; and curse not the rich in thy
bedchamber:for a bird of the air shall carry the voice, and that
which hath wings shall tell the matter."
On
looking in Matthew Henry's commentary I found that they had an
interpretation not involving the supernatural - the king gets to hear
via spies, for instance.
However
might it not appear a little odd that in the King James version it
talks of a 'bird of the air' carrying the voice? Why not just say 'a
bird' and omit the 'air' part?
My
concordance has 20 places where a bird is mentioned under
"bird", but only at Eccl 10:20 is a bird connected with 'air'.
(There
are however places where the plural 'birds' is connected with 'air'
as in 'birds of the air').
The
use of 'bird of the air' therefore causes me to wonder whether 'air'
does not have a special meaning.
On
looking in my Bible dictionary I found this:"the prince of the
power of the air" is the devil, the prince of the demons that
fill the realm of the air.
Sometimes the Bible uses "voice" in a supernatural way as
in the case where thunder is called the voice of God.
Wouldn't a psychic interpretation fit in quite well with the way
Eccl 10:20 is stated in the King James version?
My
questions:
-
Could
it not be that God would use a voice to protect or comfort people
and that evil forces could use voices for bad purposes?
-
Could
it be that the 'carrying of a voice' was a commonly experienced phenomena?
-
I
have heard various people in churches talk of having a sort of
psychic experience where they have heard or seen things, but what is
the significance of this?
May
God bless any insight people may have on this matter and I'm hoping
somebody will comment.
Thank
you
Eddie
Miller
From: "Ron
Johnson" <rgjkathab@onetel.net.uk>
Date: Sun, 30
Sep 2001 16:43:09 +0100
Dear brother in Christ
Please advise your
correspondent Eddie Miller that there is no "deeper meaning"
to the Hebrew expression "The Birds of the Air". It is a
typical Hebrew expression not normally found in English. It would be
similar in expression to "The fish of the Sea". The English
translation of Hebrew is full of such peculiarities. The expression
"Truly, truly" used by our Lord Jesus is a translation of
"Amen, amen" which He used for emphasis, and is typically a
Jewish term. Sometimes the translations from Greek to English of a
typically Aramaic/Hebrew expression can suffer greatly in meaning in
the Scriptures.
I have found that
a study of some of the books available of Biblical Hebrew written by
Messianic Jews lend wonderfully fuller meaning to the total glory of
the word of God!
Yours in Yeshua's name
Ron Johnson,
Oxford, UK
From:
"Eddie Miller" <med@isat.co.za>
Date: Fri, 19
Oct 2001
Dear Discussion,
Following comments
from Christian ministers to my questions on Ecclesiastes 10:20, I
decided to approach A Jewish organisation and received the following
information from Rabbi Eldad Zamir:
Among Jewish
commentators there are two main schools of thought on Eccl 10:20
1) The verse is
talking about God rather than an earthly king.
2) The verse is
talking about an earthly king.
With regard to
"that which hath wings shall tell the matter" it refers
either to:
1) a bird
2) a saraf (kind
of angel)
3) fortune tellers
using birds to predict the future.
The most common
interpretation however is that one should not say wrong things even
in hidden places because it will eventually be heard.
Thanks
Eddie Miller
From: "Amos
Copp" <acopp@tampabay.rr.com>
Date: Fri, 15
Nov 2002
Dear "Eddie Miller",
I am inclined to
agree with your original thoughts regarding Ecclesiastes chapter 10
verse 20. I know witches and wizards use familiar spirits to
ascertain information about someone or something. This is nothing
more than sending out evil spirits to eavesdrop on people's
conversations or spy on their activities and reporting their findings
back to the medium. There is also a practice called "Astral
Projection" or "Out of Body Experience" where the
mediums own spirit does the reconnaissance work.
Could these
spirits be referred to as "birds of the air"? I think the
idea arises from the parable Jesus spoke in Mark chapter 4 and Luke
chapter 8 where Jesus refers to "the fowls of the air" as
Satan who takes away the Word when it is sown. Obviously, Satan is
not omnipresent. He can not be everywhere at once stealing away the
Word, but the power of Satan can be in many places at once because of
his myriads of evil spirits, or demons, that reside in the atmosphere
and travel very quickly to steal away God's Words from a persons
heart. This is the only scripture I can find that may support the
notion of "birds of the air" as being evil spirits.
I also find it
interesting that Ecclesiastes 10:1 refers to dead flies. Beelzebub is
lord of the flies (Matthew 12:24) Could these flies be a reference to
evil spirits?
Was not Solomon's
spiritual demise fostered by the pagan religions of his many wives?
With this in mind, I am inclined to look a little deeper into these
texts than than their face value.
In Christ,
Amos
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