The boy that time donkey series#

In an attempt to save his master, the donkey turned from the path and crushed Balaam’s foot against a stone wall. Standing in their way was an angel with a drawn sword, but only the donkey was able see him. While on the way to curse the Children of Israel, Balaam and his donkey passed between two vineyards. Probably the most famous donkey in the Old Testament is the one ridden by Balaam the prophet in the book of Numbers.

It is my personal opinion that when the Bible speaks of strength, it is a reference to intellectual strength hence Samson was a great scholar, not a muscle man. The tree in question was an oak tree, traditionally associated with strength. In other words: Absalom’s beliefs came into conflict with the teachings represented by the tree and he was rendered helpless and with no base of support for his ideas. He also said a false prophet was like a tree which produced bad fruit).Īccordingly, what we can see from the story of Absalom then is that his head represents a source of knowledge and the donkey led him to a tree whose branches unseated him, so to speak, from the back of the donkey. (In addition to this, in the New Testament Jesus said that he was like a vine and his disciples were like branches. Furthermore, we discussed that, based on the story of the Tree of knowledge of good and evil, a branch can be described as a source of fruit and on the holy day of Shavout fruit is compared to the word of God. We then went on show that a day was a source of knowledge and that, even in modern times, people like to say “I learn something new every day”.

The boy that time donkey series#

In previous articles in this series we discussed that a tree is a source of knowledge and that when Joseph interpreted the dream of the wine steward in prison he said that a branch was equal to a day and a basket of bread. While he was helplessly hanging there David’s soldiers drew their swords and killed him, despite David’s orders not to harm Absalom. Unfortunately for him, the donkey led him under a tree and his head got caught in some of the branches.

Unlike King Richard, however, Absalom chose to make his escape on a donkey. In Richard III one of the better known lines from Shakespeare is recited on a battlefield when King Richard, in a desperate attempt to escape, cries out: “A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse.” In the Old Testament a similar situation developed when Absalom, after failing to over-throw his father King David, attempted to flee the battlefield. Nevertheless, I have added a few things here and there… Actually, I am not really writing it for Greg I am taking most of the material out of my book: “The Misunderstanding: An Introduction to Metaphors, Images and Symbols Found in the Old and New Testaments”. Be that as it may, I offered to write an article for Greg explaining what I thought a donkey represented in scripture. Okay, fair enough, after all the New Testament speaks a great deal about the need for faith, so I guess that this can be interpreted to mean: “faith that the Old and New Testaments are literally true”. Hundreds of thousands of people have heard the well known comedian Bill Maher ask: “You don’t really believe a snake can talk, do you? Recently, I have been engaged in a dialogue with Greg Smith, a person who not only believes a snake can talk, but believes Balaam’s donkey actually talked as well….