08 February 2024
If you can understand that seas symbolize time, chaos and entropy, while trees and mountains represent space, stability and security, then you are ready for taking things just a bit farther. Pageau's The Language of Creation teaches us that time is also associated with a wheel spinning on its axle, round and without end. It represents wandering in foreign lands. Against this, space is associated with staying at home, representing a pillar and cornered structures, such as the rectangle.
Notice: the axle is the same as a pillar but in a different configuration. It works the same with stones. A stumbling stone is like the axle and wheel associated with unstable time, while a foundation stone conjures the image of stable space held up by pillars. The stumbling or "scandal" stone symbolizes doubts, a change coming. Thus, Proverbs 24:3 says that with the presence of wisdom (divine order) a home is established and trustworthy.
Keep in mind that in the Promised Land, people seldom built homes on flat ground; it was too valuable as arable land. Rather, they always built where things could not be grown, on the slopes. And to build on a slope, one would cut a massive squared off stone and plant it into the side of the hill. It usually sat at a 45 degree angle, one sharp edge turned inward, so that the rest of the building could lean against it from two directions, spreading outward up the face of the slope. This was the cornerstone, but also called the foundation.
If this stone should crack or fail in some way, it would herald unexpected questions and issues that were unanswered. It exposes something not properly dealt with. It creates doubts about the whole thing. Even so, this image is associated with the elohim opposition to Jehovah. They are raising questions against His decrees, and seeking to stir up issues that don't fit into revelation.
If people pursue strange deities, those that had nothing to do with redeeming Israel from slavery, then they introduce anomalies in the stability of life. They are planting a scandal stone at the doorway. It provokes a disintegration of everything, until it all comes apart. Then, the only way forward is to return to the basics, to restore the order God declared from Heaven.
Thus, dragging in anomalies the way idolaters do "floods" the house with instability, and the wheel of time runs rampant, making the place seem alien and hostile. Now recall the parable Jesus told of the two builders, one on stone, and one on sand. Building on sand invites the flood that crashed the house.
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