Introduction
In a previous discussion, I explained at great length how God used the ancient Greek and Hebrew alphanumeric systems devised during the intertestamental period in order to deliberately plant alphanumeric codes in the Bible. I explained how these alphanumeric codes functioned as canonical watermarks which bear witness of the divine authorship and authenticity of God’s two testaments. Today I want to talk about a different form of cryptographic system that the Lord used to watermark the Bible, namely—ELS Bible codes. In this article, I will demonstrate the objective reality of ELS Bible codes by presenting multiple irrefutable examples of such codes.
What are ELS Bible codes?
The acronym ELS stands for Equidistant Letter Sequencing. When I speak of ELS codes in the Bible, I am referring to coherent messages encrypted within the Hebrew text of the Old Testament at equidistant letter sequences, which are either directly prophetically and contextually relevant to the biblical passages in which they are encoded, or which combine with specific elements of the plain text of the passages in which they occur to form new cohesive prophetic messages which exist independently of the plain text narrative. To use a very simple example which provides us with one particular basic rendering of what this can look like, behold the following verse from the book of Psalms:
As the highlighted letters of the original Hebrew text demonstrate–if you start at the very first letter of the verse in the Hebrew and skip every 5 letters, every 5th letter spells out אשיר לו (pronounced “Ah-shir lo”), which is Hebrew for: “I will sing to him.” Behold:
As can be seen, here we have a coherent meaningful statement encrypted within a single verse at an equidistant letter skip sequence of every 5 letters. We can also see that the encoded message is coherent, and we can also see that it is directly topically relevant to the plain text of the verse in which it occurs–a manifest token of its authenticity. One need not be a statistician to acknowledge that this occurred by deliberate design, as such miracles simply do not occur by chance. Like Thomas Jefferson, we hold this truth to be self-evident.
The origins of ELS Bible code research
The history of the ELS Bible codes phenomenon begins in the Middle Ages with a medieval Jewish Rabbi by the name of Rabbeynu Bachayah (1255 – 1340 CE). In his Torah commentary written in the year 1291 CE, Bachayah stated the word בּהרד is encrypted in Genesis 1 at 42 letter intervals (every 42nd letter), starting at the first letter of Genesis 1:1. He then argued that this word had been deliberately encrypted at the beginning of Genesis 1 by God, who was using it to establish a connection between the birth of the luminaries and the birth of the world.
Although his exegetical argument is questionable, the actual method he employed of finding words in the text by skipping a particular number of letters in the text was nothing short of revolutionary. This is the first documented instance of a biblical commentator using equidistant letter sequencing. Unfortunately, Bachayah’s method was largely unnoticed, and ELS Bible code research would lay dormant for another six centuries.
In the twentieth century, a Jewish Rabbi by the name of Michael Dov Weissmandl happened to learn of the ELS Bible codes phenomenon while reading Bachayah’s commentary on Genesis. This aroused Weissmandl’s interest and curiosity enough to conduct his own personal experiments. Using only a set of index cards, Weissmandle discovered that if you begin at the ת in the very first word Genesis and skip 50 letters a total of three times, every 50th letter spells out the word תּורה (“Torah”). This and other similar findings would ignite modern interest in the idea of ELS codes in the Bible. As fate would have it, the advent of the personal computer after Weissmandle’s death would eliminate the agonizing time-consuming process of manual counting, and make it possible for biblical cryptographers to uncover ELS Bible codes in the Hebrew Scriptures within a matter of a few seconds.
How ELS Bible codes are found
Finding ELS codes in the Bible is a lot like mining for gold. Biblical cryptographers like myself labor to uncover ELS Bible codes through the use of a special computer program designed to perform equidistant letter-skip searches on the Hebrew text of the Old Testament.
How an ELS search works
To conduct an ELS search, the code researcher begins by entering a specified range of letter skip intervals to have the program search. So for example, I personally always search for codes at an ELS range of between 2 and 150, that is—a letter skip interval of as few as every 2 letter skips, and as many as every 150 letter skips.1
Once a desired ELS range has been specified, the code researcher then simply inputs the desired Hebrew text-string that he or she wants the program to search for. The program then scans the text of the entire Hebrew Bible at the specified ELS depth and generates a result set containing a list of every biblical passage where that text-string is encoded. Once a search has been conducted, the code researcher must then go through and analyze each positive result in the results set. When the content of the encoded text-string is directly prophetically or contextually relevant to the biblical passage in which it is encoded (as we saw with the above example with Psalm 69:30), it is generally safe to conclude that you are dealing with an authentic biblical ELS code.2
Christian Opposition to ELS Bible codes
While the idea of divinely planted ELS codes in the Bible might seem like a dream come true for the Christian apologist, not everyone within the household of faith is convinced that the phenomenon is real. Ironically, some of the fiercest opposition to the idea of ELS codes in the Bible emanates from within the Church. While some believers are just plain skeptical that ELS Bible codes exist, others with a more religious bent make the argument that God does not speak cryptically or in riddles, and many mentally associate the idea of scouring the Bible looking for codes as a form of divination.3 As I stated in a previous post last year, these arguments are absolutely ridiculous and cannot be defended biblically. And for the record, the Bible does in fact state that God speaks cryptically and in riddles (Ps. 49:4; 78:2; Matt. 13:34-35).
The Bible gives a very simple criterion for determining whether or not a particular doctrine or teaching is of God. Simply put, if the doctrine or teaching testifies that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, then it is of God (1 John 4:2-3). It thus follows that if we find ELS codes in the Bible which testify that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, then we can be certain that the phenomenon is not only real, but is also of God. As we are about to see, the ELS codes in the Bible do testify of Jesus Christ, which thereby proves objectively that they are in fact of God.
The Three classes of ELS Bible Codes
Thus far I have unearthed approximately 925 ELS Bible codes in my research that I can affirm are authentic, and my discoveries continue to accumulate on a daily basis. Based on my analysis of the ELS Bible codes I have uncovered thus far, I have identified what I perceive to be approximately three major categories of ELS codes in the Bible. These are as follows:
Testimonial ELS codes (Type 1): ELS codes which testify of the divinity & messianic identity of Jesus Christ.
Commentarial ELS codes (Type 2): ELS codes which constitute a form of divine commentary on what is going on in the containing passage.
Echoic ELS codes (Type 3): ELS codes which echo a particular key word or concept in the containing biblical passage.
Because I am attempting to prove that ELS Bible codes are both real as well as “of God”, all of the ELS codes that I am going to present in this article are going to be of the Type 1 variety. I will cover Type 2 and Type 3 ELS Bible codes in future discussions.
Examples of Type 1 ELS Bible Codes
Type 1 ELS codes are what I refer to as testimonial ELS codes. The defining feature of this particular category of ELS Bible codes is that they testify of the divinity and messianic identity of Jesus Christ. This type of code comes in a number of different flavors; some are declarative (e.g. “Jesus was beaten.”), others are prophetic (e.g. “Jesus will return.”), others laudative (e.g. “Jesus is worthy.”), and still yet others identifying (e.g. “Jesus is my name.”). In order to get a feel for the nature of Type 1 ELS Bible codes and some of these different ways that they can manifest, let us consider a few examples.
Example 1
The first Bible code I am going to share is found in Genesis 22.4 The code consists of 3 words, 12 letters, begins in verse 7, and ends in verse 9. The code is found at an ELS of every 9 letters, reads from right-to-left, and is not encoded in any other passage in the entire Hebrew Bible at a short-distance ELS5 Here it is in tabular view (to view it as it appears in the grid, click here):
The topical relation between the encoded message and the biblical passage in which it is encoded should be blatantly obvious and need no explanation. First, it should be noted that this scene in Genesis 22 is one of the most memorable Old Testament prophecies concerning the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ. As Abraham and Isaac are journeying up to Mount Moriah, Isaac turns to his father and asks him where is the lamb for the burnt offering, to which Abraham essentially replies (paraphrasing): “Oh, don’t you worry about that son—God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering.” What is so powerful about this statement is that Abraham himself would have undoubtedly been completely oblivious to the prophetic significance of his own words, as he was unknowingly prophesying the future death of Jesus Christ, who was foreordained before the foundation of the world to become the Lamb who would take away the sins of the world (John 1:29; 1:36).
The fact that we find the statement “Jesus was declared perfect” encoded behind this specific passage in Genesis 22 is therefore no coincidence. Jesus is the perfect spotless Lamb that God through the mouth of Abraham promised he would provide for a burnt offering. He alone kept the righteousness of the Law by living a sinless and morally perfect life, and in so doing became the substitute for all who believe in him.
Because the encoded text-string is a declarative statement about Jesus, this particular Type 1 ELS code is declarative in its orientation.
Example 2
The following Type 1 ELS code was discovered on February 14, 2021. It is encoded at an ELS of every 17 letters, and begins in verse 18 of Genesis 40. Here yet again, this encoded statement is not encoded in any other passage in the Bible at a short-distance ELS. Behold:
As the figure above reveals, the Hebrew statement ישוע יתלה (“Jesus will be hanged”) is encoded at an ELS of every 17 letters in Genesis 40:18-20.6 Once again, the topical relation between the encoded message and the specific biblical passage containing it is self-evident. In this passage, Joseph is interpreting the dream of Pharaoh’s chief baker whom he encountered while in prison. Joseph tells him that the three branches he saw in his dream symbolized three days, and that within three days Pharaoh would lift up his head and hang him on a tree.
It is worth noting that the Law of Moses would later declare that anyone who was hung on a tree was cursed of God (Deut. 21:22-23). The Apostle Paul would later quote this Scripture to show how Jesus became a curse for us (Gal. 3:13). Indeed, the cross was referred to as a tree four times in the New Testament (Acts 5:30; 10:39; Gal. 3:13; 1 Pet. 2:24). The fact that we have the statement “Jesus will be hanged” encoded in this specific biblical passage (in which Joseph tells Pharaoh’s baker that he will be hanged upon a tree), is obviously no coincidence. Once again, a search for this encoded message at an ELS range between 2-200 shows that this is the only place in the entire Hebrew Bible where this phrase is encoded. This is the fingerprint of God.
Because the encoded text-string proclaims something that would be fulfilled by Jesus at a future point in history, this particular Type 1 ELS code is prophetic in orientation.
Example 3
In many Type 1 ELS codes, the encrypt-er reveals his personal identity by speaking in the first-person. Such is the case with the following ELS code, also discovered in February of 2021:7
Here we have yet another case in which the topical relation between the encoded message and the passage containing it is self-evident. The fact that we find the statement אני ישוע (“I am Jesus”) encoded at an ELS of every 12 letters backwards in these two verses in which the LORD tells the house of Jacob that it is he who bore them and will carry them, is obviously no coincidence. It is as if Jesus encoded this here to say “I am Jesus who bore you and who continues to carry you, even though you despised and rejected me.”
Because the encoded statement identifies both the encoder and speaker of the containing biblical passage as Jesus, this Type 1 ELS code is identifying in its orientation.
Example 4
In some type 1 ELS codes, the identity of the speaker or subject of the containing biblical passage is identified more subtly using hints. Such is the case in the following Type 1 ELS code that I discovered on February 21, 2021:8
At first glance, one might be tempted to conclude that this one isn’t that impressive, given the fact that it is encrypted at a somewhat larger distance and encompasses a much larger block of text. But appearances can be deceiving. This is the only passage in the entire Hebrew Tanakh (Old Testament) where this string is found encrypted at a short distance ELS.
Here yet again, the topical relation between the encoded text-string and the content of the containing passage should be blatantly obvious and need no explanation. I would hope that everyone reading this is very familiar with the story of the Exodus from Egypt. One will recall that on the eve of the Exodus, the LORD commanded Moses to have every man of Israel who was head of his household to take a male lamb without blemish, and to have them kill it in the evening. They were then to take of the blood of the lamb and paint it on the two side posts and upper posts of the doors of their houses. Thus when the LORD sent the angel of death throughout the land of Egypt to kill the first-born of each household, he would see the blood on the door posts of each house of the children of Israel, and would take it as a sign to “pass over” that house.
To this very day, Jews all over the world celebrate Passover every year to commemorate the night that God brought them out of Egypt. Ironically, they remain completely blind and oblivious to the true prophetic meaning of the event on which this holiday is based. The Passover lamb was a type of Jesus Christ–who was foreordained before the foundation of the world to become the perfect sacrificial lamb without spot or blemish who would willingly lay down his life to take away the sins of the world. The lamb’s blood on the door posts symbolized the blood of Jesus, through which every sinner is justified and declared righteous in the sight of God.
In light of the symbology and prophetic meaning of the events described in Exodus 12, it is undeniably not a coincidence that we find the statement: “He came from Nazareth” encoded in this passage which describes the slaying of the pass-over Lamb. As we know from the New Testament, Jesus was raised in the little Galilean town of Nazareth (Matt. 2:23; cf. 26:71; Mark 1:9, 1:24, 10:47, 14:67, 16:6; Luke 4:34, 18:37, 24:19; John 1:45, 18:5, 19:19; Acts 2:22, 3:6, 4:10, 10:38, 22:8, 26:9). Both the length as well as the composition of this encoded text-string make the probability of it occurring here just by random chance to be practically zero.9 This was very obviously done deliberately by an intelligent hand in order to identify Jesus Christ as the fulfillment of typology of the Passover lamb.10 As such, this Type 1 ELS code is also identifying in its orientation.
Example 5
The following Type 1 ELS Bible code was discovered on an unknown date several months ago.11
Given the length of this encoded string, it should not be surprising to learn that this is the only passage where this string is found encrypted at a short distance ELS. It should also be noted right off the bat that the above biblical passage is one of only 6 places in the entire Hebrew Old Testament where you will find the word “Galilee” in the plain text. This fact alone rules out any realistic possibility of a coincidence. The fact that we find such a coherent statement encrypted within such a topically relevant biblical passage is obviously astonishing. Note that Isaiah’s prophecy speaks of the light shining upon the people who dwell in Galilee and the northern regions of Israel.12 As we know from the New Testament, Jesus was raised in Galilee, and spent the first 30 years of his life there. This cryptic message encoded behind this passage is simply affirming the objective prophetic meaning of Isaiah’s prophecy–telling us that the prophecy is indeed about none other than Jesus. Insomuch as the purpose of the encoded text-string is to shed light on the identity of the subject of the containing passage–this type 1 ELS code is also identifying in its orientation.
Example 6
The following type 1 ELS code was discovered on May 30, 2022, at 5:48 a.m:13
As can be seen, the Hebrew phrase עיניי ישו (ayinee yeshu (literally: “My eyes–Jesus”)) is encrypted in Psalm 69:2-5 at an ELS of every 17 letters, beginning at the ayin in the word במעמקי in verse 2. In all three of our base texts, this is the only passage in the entire Hebrew Tanakh where this eight-letter string appears encrypted at a short-distance ELS.
This particular Type 1 ELS is identifying in its orientation, in that it reveals Jesus to be the first-person speaker in the plain text of the passage. To word that in a slightly different way, it identifies Jesus as the spirit of prophecy speaking through the mouth of David in this psalm. Notice that the encryption forces us to look at this psalm in a different light. What before appeared to be merely random laments of David with regard to trials that he was experiencing at some particular time in his life, suddenly becomes a prayer of Jesus in which he is describing the anguish and rejection that he was experiencing during his earthly ministry. One way to frame this, is to imagine that David was (by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit) unknowingly channeling a prayer that Jesus’ would later make on earth during his earthly ministry over a thousand years later. Viewed through this lens, the innumerable multitude of whom the speaker speaks in the containing passage, whom he claims hate him “without a cause,” (v. 4) refers to the Jewish rabbinic establishment who so vehemently opposed him during his earthly ministry.14
Example 7
I discovered the type 1 ELS code charted below on August 6, 2021 at 7:29a.m.:
The Hebrew construct chain יום ישו (“the day of Jesus”) is encoded in Zephaniah’s description of the coming day of the LORD.15 The message the code is conveying here could not be possibly more obvious, namely–Jesus and the LORD (“Yahweh”, “Jehovah”) are one and the same.16
Because the primary function of the encoded text-string is to clarify the personal identity of “the LORD,” (a-k-a “Yahweh” or “Jehovah”), this type 1 ELS code is identifying in its orientation.
The Purpose of ELS Bible Codes
In addition to functioning as a prophetic witness of Jesus Christ, ELS Bible codes also function as watermarks of authenticity, a built-in system of spell-checkers, and an additional supplementary layer of biblical revelation.
Watermarks of authenticity
When I say that ELS Bible codes function as watermarks of authenticity, I mean that they attest to the divine inspiration of the Hebrew Scriptures. The fact is that human beings do not possess the level of intelligence that is required to plant such an elaborate system of ELS codes in the Bible. Thus far in this analysis, all of the examples I have shared have shown a single encoded text-string per containing passage. However, the reality is that any given Old Testament passage has a potentially infinite number of meaningful encrypted messages present within it. Allow me to demonstrate using an example with multiple encoded text-strings:
Genesis 44:30-45:12
English (KJV)
Hebrew text
Now therefore when I come to thy servant my father, and the lad be not with us; seeing that his life is bound up in the lad’s life; It shall come to pass, when he seeth that the lad is not with us, that he will die: and thy servants shall bring down the gray hairs of thy servant our father with sorrow to the grave. For thy servant became surety for the lad unto my father, saying, If I bring him not unto thee, then I shall bear the blame to my father for ever. Now therefore, I pray thee, let thy servant abide instead of the lad a bondman to my lord; and let the lad go up with his brethren. For how shall I go up to my father, and the lad be not with me? lest peradventure I see the evil that shall come on my father. Then Joseph could not refrain himself before all them that stood by him; and he cried, Cause every man to go out from me. And there stood no man with him, while Joseph made himself known unto his brethren. And he wept aloud: and the Egyptians and the house of Pharaoh heard. And Joseph said unto his brethren, I am Joseph; doth my father yet live? And his brethren could not answer him; for they were troubled at his presence. And Joseph said unto his brethren, Come near to me, I pray you. And they came near. And he said, I am Joseph your brother, whom ye sold into Egypt. Now therefore be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither: for God did send me before you to preserve life. For these two years hath the famine been in the land: and yet there are five years, in the which there shall neither be earing nor harvest. And God sent me before you to preserve you a posterity in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance. So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God: and he hath made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt. Haste ye, and go up to my father, and say unto him, Thus saith thy son Joseph, God hath made me lord of all Egypt: come down unto me, tarry not: And thou shalt dwell in the land of Goshen, and thou shalt be near unto me, thou, and thy children, and thy children’s children, and thy flocks, and thy herds, and all that thou hast: And there will I nourish thee; for yet there are five years of famine; lest thou, and thy household, and all that thou hast, come to poverty. And, behold, your eyes see, and the eyes of my brother Benjamin, that it is my mouth that speaketh unto you.
ועתה כבאי אל־עבדך אבי והנער איננו אתנו ונפשו קשורה בנפשו׃ והיה כראותו כי־אין הנער ומת והורידו עבדיך את־שיבת עבדך אבינו ביגון שאלה׃ כי עבדך ערב את־הנער מעם אבי לאמר אם־לא אביאנו אליך וחטאתי לאבי כל־הימים׃ ועתה ישב־נא עבדך תחת הנער עבד לאדני והנער יעל עם־אחיו׃ כי־איך אעלה אל־אבי והנער איננו אתי פן אראה ברע אשר ימצא את־אבי׃ ולא־יכל יוסף להתאפק לכל הנצבים עליו ויקרא הוציאו כל־איש מעלי ולא־עמד איש אתו בהתודע יוסף אל־אחיו׃ ויתן את־קלו בבכי וישמעו מצרים וישמע בית פרעה׃ ויאמר יוסף אל־אחיו אני יוסף העוד אבי חי ולא־יכלו אחיו לענות אתו כי נבהלו מפניו׃ ויאמר יוסף אל־אחיו גשו־נא אלי ויגשו ויאמר אני יוסף אחיכם אשר־מכרתם אתי מצרימה׃ ועתה אל־תעצבו ואל־יחר בעיניכם כי־מכרתם אתי הנה כי למחיה שלחני אלהים לפניכם׃ כי־זה שנתים הרעב בקרב הארץ ועוד חמש שנים אשר אין־חריש וקציר׃ וישלחני אלהים לפניכם לשום לכם שארית בארץ ולהחיות לכם לפליטה גדלה׃ ועתה לא־אתם שלחתם אתי הנה כי האלהים וישימני לאב לפרעה ולאדון לכל־ביתו ומשל בכל־ארץ מצרים׃ מהרו ועלו אל־אבי ואמרתם אליו כה אמר בנך יוסף שמני אלהים לאדון לכל־מצרים רדה אלי אל־תעמד׃ וישבת בארץ־גשן והיית קרוב אלי אתה ובניך ובני בניך וצאנך ובקרך וכל־אשר־לך׃ וכלכלתי אתך שם כי־עוד חמש שנים רעב פן־תורש אתה וביתך וכל־אשר־לך׃ והנה עיניכם ראות ועיני אחי בנימין כי־פי המדבר אליכם׃
Note that we have a total of four Type 1 ELS codes running through the above passage of Scripture in the original Hebrew. Behold:
Encoded text-string | Translation | Letter-skip interval | Direction | Corresponding Scriptural statements |
אמות: אני ישו | “I will die; I am Jesus.” | 97 | natural | Gen. 44:31; Gen. 45:3-4 |
המושיע | “The Savior” | 95 | retrograde | Gen. 45:7 |
אני חי | “I am alive.” | 11 | natural | Gen. 45:26-28 |
פיו ישוע | “His mouth is Jesus.” | 53 | natural | Gen. 45:12 |
The fact that we find multiple contextually relevant prophetic statements about Jesus Christ encoded in what is one of the oldest books of the Hebrew Bible is enough by itself to prove that the author of the codes is someone who is not bound by the laws of time and space.17 But let us push that fact to the side for just a moment, and briefly shift our attention to the fact that we have four coherent contextually relevant encrypted messages (all encoded at completely different letter-skip intervals), simultaneously present in the same biblical passage.18 Try to reflect on the level of intelligence one would have to possess to have successfully encrypted all of these biblical statements in this passage. The hand responsible for these codes is having to narrate a story, while at the same time is having to order his words in such a way that not just one, but many prophetically meaningful and contextually relevant statements are encrypted within the passage at completely different letter skip intervals–each of which alludes to specific statements or pieces of dialogue spoken in the containing passage. And as if all of that is not enough, he is having to do all of this while somehow faithfully abiding by all of the grammatical laws of the ancient Hebrew language. Fallen human beings simply do not possess the level of intelligence required to accomplish such a feat. This necessitates a level of intelligence which can only be described as superhuman. This could only have been done by someone who is perfect in knowledge, and infinite in understanding. There is only one man who could have been responsible. (Job. 36:4; 37:17; Ps. 147:5)
An additional layer of biblical revelation
In addition to functioning as watermarks of authenticity and as an internal system of orthographic check-digits, ELS Bible codes also function as a supplemental layer of biblical revelation which in many cases can shed light on the prophetic meaning of the biblical passage containing them. To revert back to our previous example of Genesis 44:31-45:12 to illustrate, the four ELS Bible codes we saw there reveal that Joseph’s revelation of himself to his brothers (who had previously despised and rejected him) is a prophetic foreshadowing of Jesus Christ making his identity known to his brethren the house of Jacob at his second coming. A careful analysis of the content of each encoded statement, alongside the specific pieces of dialogue in the containing passage that each statement is alluding to–inevitably leads one to this conclusion. Let us break these down one by one.
1. “I will die; I am Jesus.”
This complete encoded statement can be broken down into two distinct statements: “I will die,” and “I am Jesus.” When read together as one complete sentence, what we have here is a cryptic prophecy in which Jesus speaks in the first-person and foretells his sacrificial death, and then proceeds to identify himself by name. However, it must be noted that each of these statements alludes to two different pieces of dialogue made by various characters in the containing passage. On the one hand, the statement “I will die” begins in Genesis 44:31, and alludes to Judah’s statement to Joseph that if he (Judah) returns to their father without Benjamin–their father (Israel) will die.19 The second part of the encoded text-string (“I am Jesus”), begins in Genesis 45:4, where Joseph is revealing his identity to his brothers with the three-word statement: “I am Joseph.” What this does is it sheds light on the prophetic meaning of the containing passage, revealing that Joseph’s revelation of himself to his brothers (who had previously despised and rejected him) is a prophetic foreshadowing of Jesus Christ making his identity known to his brethren the house of Jacob at his second coming.
2. “The Savior”
The phrase “The Savior” also begins in Genesis 45:4, and runs through verse 11. Through this encoded phrase Jesus affirms and reinforces his identity. Within the context of the containing passage, this encoded phrase specifically alludes to Joseph’s statement to his brothers in Gen. 45:7 that their rejection of him many years prior was divinely ordained, so that through him God might save their lives by a great deliverance. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear what the spirit of prophecy saith.
3. “I am alive.”
To this day, most Jews believe that Jesus Christ was merely a man who has now been dead for almost 2,000 years. The encoded statement אני חי (“I am alive”) alludes to the fact that (just as Joseph had long been presumed to be dead, yet was alive (Gen. 45:26-28; 46:30; cf. Rev. 1:18)), so to the unbelieving house of Jacob is going to one day be very suddenly confronted with the realization that the one whom they despised and rejected is very much alive and well.
4. “His mouth is Jesus.”
The encoded statement “His mouth is Jesus” is a direct allusion to Joseph’s statement made in Gen. 45:12:
And, behold, your eyes see, and the eyes of my brother Benjamin, that it is my mouth that speaketh unto you.
(KJV, Genesis 45:12)
Here yet again, the encoded statement sheds light on the prophetic meaning of the containing passage, affirming that Joseph’s revelation of himself to his brothers is a prophetic foreshadowing of Jesus revealing his identity to his Jewish brethren at his Second Coming.
Conclusion
There is absolutely no denying that the phenomenon of ELS codes in the Bible is real. Anyone who claims otherwise is either completely uninformed on the subject or is willfully ignorant, and accordingly is not even qualified to have an opinion on this matter. All of the ELS Bible codes I have shared in this brief analysis are of the Type 1 (testimonial) variety, and all are my own original discoveries. One can verify for themselves that all of the codes I have shared in this analysis exist using a copy of the Hebrew Tanakh and Google translator.20 For a more advanced and nuanced discussion of ELS Bible codes, see my article on Bible code grids.
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2021 Zerubbabel- There are a couple of different reasons that I limit my ELS searches to a letter skip interval of no more than 150 letters. The most significant reason is that the Masoretic Hebrew manuscripts upon which all modern printed Hebrew Bibles (and translations) are based occasionally exhibit disagreements with regard to how a particular word should be spelled. These disagreements arise as a result of a diversity of scribal opinion about whether a particular word with an “e,” “o,” or “u” vowel sound in one of its syllables should be indicated by a vowel marker or by a consonantal vowel, that is—an additional Hebrew letter. In such instances where the spelling of a particular word is in question, there is a roughly 50/50 chance that the scribe judges incorrectly. When this happens, the spelling of the word ends up either missing a letter which should be there, or containing an additional letter that shouldn’t. And because ELS Bible codes rely on absolute precision when it comes to spelling, that one missing or additional Hebrew letter has the unfortunate effect of inevitably destroying any and all ELS Bible codes where that misspelled word happens to be included in the code’s letter count. Based on my own extensive personal research, I can confidently report that no Hebrew manuscript or text-form in existence today is 100% free of such occasional minuscule spelling errors. This in turn means that searching for ELS Bible codes at extremely long letter skip intervals is a futile endeavor, as the chance of encountering one of these minor spelling errors increases as the maximum letter skip interval in your specified ELS range increases. Accordingly, I limit my maximum letter skip interval in my searches to 150, because encountering one of these aforementioned minor spelling errors within this range is relatively small. This is a very important subject that I will discuss at much greater depth in a future article, if the Lord wills.
- Obvious and undeniable topical relation between the encoded text string and the containing passage is by far the most obvious and reliable indicator of a deliberately planted ELS Bible code.
- As but one example, Don Stewart makes both of these claims in his essay “Is There a Secret Code in Scripture That Proves Its Divine Authority? (The Bible Code)“
- I discovered this code on February 15, 2021.
- A short distance ELS is defined as an ELS of between 2 to 150 letter skips.
- This image shows how the code actually appears within the grid.
- To view this code in grid-view rather than table-view, click here.
- To view the full code matrix in the grid, click here.
- Although it is not necessarily outside the realm of possibility for a seven letter text-string to be encoded somewhere in the Hebrew Scriptures just by random chance, this particular text-string contains a tsade (צ), which is one of the least frequently occurring letters in the Hebrew Bible. This rules out any realistic chance of this being a mere random statistical anamoly.
- This conclusion is reinforced by numerous other highly similar contextually relevant ELS Bible codes that I have discovered in this same chapter, but that’s another discussion that will have to wait for another day.
- For grid-view, click here.
- Galilee was the name of the Roman province that encompassed the tribal territories of Zebulun and Naphtali during the time of Jesus.
- For grid-view, click here.
- One obvious objection to the claim that Jesus is the speaker of the passage is that the speaker speaks of “his sins” in verse 5 of the containing passage. On the surface, this appears to disqualify Jesus as the speaker of the psalm, as we know that he is the one person who never sinned (Heb. 4:15; 2 Cor. 5:21). Yet this apparent contradiction is easily reconciled when we understand that the speaker’s sins of which he is speaking in this psalm are in reality the sins of all believing sinners who have been freely justified by faith, because all of the sins of his people were imputed unto Jesus so that he could pay the penalty for them with his own life (Dan. 9:26). As such, it was as if all of “our sins” literally became “his sins” in the eyes of God—while his righteousness literally became our righteousness (Jer. 23:6; 33:16; Rom. 3:26; 4:13).
- In Hebrew, a construct chain is when two nouns are sandwiched together to form one construct. The first noun in the construct chain is what is known as the construct noun, while the second noun is known as the absolute noun. In English, construct chains are typically rendered by inserting the preposition “of” between the construct noun and the absolute noun, and (depending on the nature or state of the absolute noun) by inserting the definite article “the” before the construct noun.
- Jesus is the only begotten human tabernacle which houses the eternal spirit of Yahweh (John 1:14; 10:38; Matt. 17:4-8).
- The book of Genesis was written several centuries before the life of Jesus Christ regardless of whether or not one accepts the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, or the Documentary Hypothesis.
- I can almost guarantee with 100% certainty that there are many other similar codes in this passage besides these four which have yet to be discovered.
- For an explanation of how Jesus is metaphorically synonymous with Israel, see my article on the camp of Israel in the wilderness.
- Note that the ELS code of example #4 (בא מנצרת (“he came from Nazareth“)) is partially absent from the Leningrad codex due to an alternate spelling of the word מהיוֹת in Exod. 12:4. Consequentially, this manuscript (as well as any printed editions of the Hebrew Scriptures which follow it in Exodus 12) will only contain the encoded word מנצרת (“from Nazareth”).
This work you have accomplished is of God. I first heard of ELS from Chuck Missler’s ministry. I was led by the Lord to research into this as to its truth. For we know as scripture says “It is God that hides a thing and the duty of King’s (and priest) to search it out”, I am paraphrasing the scripture. Chuck Missler alluded to it and left it to his listeners to research it on their own, he had another mission to accomplish, which he did for certain. Your work is exactly the proof I have been searching. Thank you for following the Lord’s work he has given you.
Billy Martin
Hi Billy,
Thank you so much for your kind words, I was very encouraged by that. I am happy to hear that you found the article edifying. I am acquainted with some of the work of the late great Chuck Missler, and can say that I am a fan. He is sorely missed.
– Zerubbabel
Well done. Thank you for your time and effort. “I will take the foolish things of the world, to confound the wise.” It’s refreshing to see people out there still interested in this subject and doing the research required. I pray that G-d prospers you, even as your soul prospers.
Shalom