The Bulls of Bashan

In terms of our LORD’s mission, there are highly essential outcomes as necessary for the kingdom of God’s arrival and His redemptive work on earth. The biblical worldview of the fall of man coincides with the presence of rebellion and evil as the enemies of Yahweh and the cause of Christ. Now and before the resurrection of Christ, there is a spiritual condition upon humanity that is hostile to our Creator and His interests. People are enslaved to their sin as they live out their lives in the presence of spiritual beings that seek or contribute to their eternal demise. Not only to destroy the human soul wherever it resides but to also maintain an affront to God and His purposes.

On Mount Hermon, Jesus, our LORD transformed into a glorified state of being as recorded in Matthew 17:1-8. In His full radiant glory, His Apostles Peter, James, and John witnessed His newly formed presence as a temporary transformation while in the company of Moses and Elijah, who returned from their place in the kingdom of heaven. Both were previously deceased yet returned before Jesus’ resurrection to appear with Him on Mount Hermon in the territory of Bashan.

Geography

According to Deuteronomy 3:9, Mount Hermon is also called Mount Sirion by the Sidonians, and Mount Senir by the Amorites also referred to as Baal-Hermon (Judges 3:3, 1 Chronicles 5:23). Topographically, it is 9,232 feet above sea level in altitude and 13 miles long.¹ The mountain rests at satellite coordinates 35.86 longitude and 33.42 latitude (33° 24′ 58.182″ N 35° 51′ 25.294″ E). Its base and slopes range at approximately 38.6 square miles with a limestone, sandstone, volcanic rock, and alkali basalt composition. Populated with fir trees (Ezekiel 27:5) and oaks in the surrounding Bashan area (Ezekiel 27:6), Mount Hermon is sparsely forested. The vegetation and ecology of Mount Hermon mainly consist of emmer wheat as a food staple native to the Fertile Crescent. The physical shape and contour of the mountain are carved by natural processes including tectonic movement and erosion.

Climate & Seasonality

Mount Hermon gets as much as five feet of snow each year at its upper elevations. Overall precipitation from dew, rain, and snow, is a source of water at the foot of the mountain and to the Jordan river further South. Rainfall on Mount Hermon averages about 53 inches per year, with the highest precipitation in January and February with an average of about 119 rainy days throughout the year. Daily average temperatures range from a Winter seasonal low of about 28°F to a high of 71°F in the Summer.

Regional Significance

The history of Bashan and its upper reaches of Mount Hermon is replete with cultic paganism. Where for centuries, from just before the New Testament era, the number of shrines to pagan deities or false gods is many. Excavations carried out over decades in support of archaeological research have yielded evidence of pagan worship and service.² Artifacts, temples, pottery, coinage, pillars, capitals, altars, idol figures, and inscriptions appear in both elaborate and primitive structures on Mount Hermon.

During the Old Testament era, the territory of Bashan had a cultural reputation as the “Gates of Hell” or unholy ground. It was where the deified and dead kings of Canaan were made to dwell.³ The linguistic root of the word the land of the Rephaim is from the Ugaritic language. Pronounced and spelled “Bathan.” As eventually recognized by direct inference, Bashan, or “place of the serpent.” ⁴

With the separation of Samaria and Judah, many people deserted Yahweh from Samaria and began to worship false gods at the high places. Recorded in numerous areas within the Old Testament and given by example with King Ahaz (2 Kings 16:4). There were numerous others among the divided kingdoms who participated in idol worship or who tolerated that activity from within the population in general. Over time and with the comingling of Roman deity worship of Zeus and Pan in the area, it became a cesspit of worship and service to false gods.

Spiritual Significance

Because the sons of God and their demonic offspring crave worship and service of the flesh, Israel sacrificed to the demons which inhabited the idols they formed.⁵ As written in Deut 32:17, the demons among the elohim were worshiped and served. They were understood and recognized as “gods”, as written in Hebrew “elohim.” They were spiritual entities that were demons or “sedim” / “shedim” who became the perverse objects of their worship, bargaining, and prayers. Idolatry was not the worship of other “gods” as often mistranslated but of elohim, which does refer to spiritual beings including demons or devils translated in Deut 32:17 and elsewhere. The mindset of the biblical idolaters recognized that the gods were shedim. Those placed over the nations as elaborated further along in this written work.

Methodology & Extra-Biblical Corroboration

This effort is to thread a fabric of spiritual meaning across both the Old and New Testaments. Broadly to bring together biblical confidence about the punctuated significance of the transfiguration on Mount Hermon. As a stitching of events, or linear sequence across time, to demonstrate that the LORD’s mission was to permanently reclaim the nations and overcome spiritual darkness in a way that was striking and epic.

Along with various layman, scholarly, and historical texts in support of research, the Apocryphal books of Enoch (Aramaic) were referenced to obtain further traditional and historical information. More specifically, the Enochian books were discovered among the Dead Sea scrolls (cave 4 fragments).⁶

Old Testament Sequence of Events

To outline a series of events to highlight biblical and extra-biblical support for what had occurred on Mount Hermon, the reader will begin to recognize the more profound spiritual significance of what took place. The biblical back story of events that led up to the transfiguration of Hermon further serves as a body of historical evidence and archaeological discoveries that match ancient written work.

The mission and purpose of Jesus’ ministry are both conquest and liberation. First, a conquest against spiritual forces of darkness, and second liberation from those forces, sin and its consequences. The long and wide view of scripture provides the context for what Christ accomplished on Mount Hermon. This walkthrough begins with a story familiar to first-century scripture readers and biblical writers. In 1 Enoch 6-16, the 200 sons of God, often referred to as the Watchers, meet on Mount Hermon to make a pact. A curse-laden pact about their desire to marry human women and produce offspring of their own. It was here that offspring became giants within the Canaanite region of the Old Testament era. These were an abomination upon the Earth, and they were of a defiled bloodline(1 Enoch 15:1-12). Eventually, because of their lineage as corrupted and fallen angels, offspring giants formed as demonic spirits as they were killed or died out.⁷

Referenced in historical Mesopotamian texts as the Apkallu,⁸ the sons of God became understood as Watchers (Gen 6:1-7, Daniel 4). Corrupted by their consummation of human women. They were condemned and destroyed in the flood that Noah and his sons were delivered from. As prescribed by God, the biblical flood wiped out the demonic bloodline to include mankind. Their presence intermingled with humanity posed a significant strain on those who were image bearers of Yahweh. The Nephilim, the Rephaim, the Amorites, and others were of the sons of God who chose flesh over heaven in the presence of the Most-High Elohim. The offspring of the sons of God (Watchers, Apkallu), eventually began to devour men in their effort to sustain themselves.⁹ In a profound way, these physical beings of spiritual darkness wronged mankind (1 Enoch 10:12-15).

Once humanity recovered from the flood that wiped out nearly all living beings as written in Genesis 7, Noah and his family began fresh to set about a new life and populate their area with new peoples and tribes. Eventually, these descendants built a high skyward tower within the town of Babel as recorded within scripture (Gen 11:7-9). A tower of insolence that became an object of destruction from God whereby He scattered the people of the land and distributed them elsewhere to distant regions with new languages and cultures. God disinherits the nations and allocates them to the “sons of God” (Deut 32:8-9). The judgment of the LORD to scatter people from Babel preceded His covenant declaration with Abraham and his descendants. Yahweh seals a covenant with Abraham for him to become the Father of Israel. The LORD promises to build a nation from Abraham as His portion among the nations (Gen 12:3) governed by the sons of God.

Wholly corrupted were the peoples as given to the nations and the “sons of God” who ruled over them. The spiritually false gods behind the idols, altars, and Asherim, the people would eventually come to worship them for millennia. With the population growth of Israel and their enslavement to Pharaoh, the plagues of Egypt became directed at the “gods of Egypt” (Ex 12:12, Num 33:4). Moreover, it was Moses who, in scripture, proclaimed that Yahweh is above all other gods (Ex 15:11).

As the LORD led Israel out of captivity from Egypt and the “son of God” who it was allocated to, Joshua, the benefactor of Moses, set out to decimate the nations corrupted mainly by the sons of God. To include Og, the king of Bashan and ruler over Mount Hermon, who was a Rephaim descendant as described in Joshua 12:4-5. The Rephaim were giants along with the Nephilim who were offspring of the “sons of God,” princes of old, or Watchers as the accursed and fallen angels written about in Daniel 4:13-18 and Genesis 6:1-7.

While Bashan was recognized as the gateway to the underworld, more specifically, Canaanite hell, the lands outside of Israel belonged to other “gods” (elohim). Israel as a whole is the LORD’s territory as holy ground just as Israel was the LORD’s inheritance (Deut 4:19-20, 1 Sam 26:17-19). To demonstrate this point, the commander of the Syrian Army (Naaman) asked Elijah for dirt from Israel to carry back to his home because he recognized the one and true holy ground. Naaman wanted the holy ground to take back with him to worship Yahweh. The ground by which his people worshiped the god Rimmon was not holy ground (2 Kings 5:15-19).

It was these sons of the Most-High in His congregation who came under judgment for their injustice among nations as written in Psalm 82. They were the bulls of Bashan in the unseen realm, which, as prophesied, surrounded the messiah during his crucifixion (Ps 22:12). They were of the 200 corrupted sons of God on Bashan. The watchers, or the same stock and origin as described in Daniel 4:23.

Biblically, the dead Rephaim are understood to live in the underworld (Job 26:5-6, Ps 88:10, Prov. 21:16, Is. 14:9-15). These spirits of the dead are referred to as “r^epaim” in the Hebrew language or “rpum” in Ugaritic. Where both are the root of the Rephaim spirits of dead giants. ^10,11 The same giants that Joshua conquered from Bashan and outward throughout Canaan. Where Yahweh conquers the demonic stronghold among nations starting in Bashan at Mount Hermon (“from on high”; Ps 68:18, Eph 4:8). A reference caparison to Jesus’ ascent to “a high mountain” in Matthew 17:1.

New Testament Sequence of Events

In numerous places throughout the gospels, Jesus refers to himself as the “Son of Man” (Mt 8:20, Mk 13:26, Lk 17:30, Jn 3:13). To call attention to the fact He wasn’t of those who were born of mixed blood from a corrupted and hybrid lineage. More specifically, through His virgin birth, He was not of a corrupted bloodline from what the sons of God did long before His arrival.

Along the course of Jesus’ ministry, He arrives at the foot of Mount Hermon within Bashan. It is there that Jesus informs Peter that the “Gates of Hell” shall not prevail against him. He was the rock on which the LORD will build His church (Mt 16:17-18). The literal sense of “Gates of Hell” was spoken here because they were in Caesarea Philippi of Northern Bashan. Both Mount Hermon and Bashan had a reputation for being an exceptionally evil place.

Upon Mount Hermon, Jesus takes His apostles Peter, James, and John into the wilderness. Before them, He becomes transformed in appearance to His glorified state. His transformation on Mount Hermon right at the heart of enemy territory was no longer of purely His flesh, but of this glorified body. It was there that in the presence of the Apostles, while with Moses and Elijah, He plunges an eternal stake into the domain of the corrupted. He has reclaimed the nations, and the Kingdom of God has arrived right on Mount Hermon. To press into Gentile areas and eventually flood the Earth with His Spirit.

East of the Jordan, into Gentile territory, Jesus and His apostles make further incursions into enemy territory (Matt 17:14, Mk 5:1). Only this time within the physical space that the LORD commands and now wholly owns according to His divine and sovereign plan. Specifically, in East Galilee, they encounter a Demoniac who was dwelling in Bashan, the abode of the dead and territory of evil spirits. It was there that the Legion of demons who possessed the ravaged man specifically said, “What have you do with us, Son of the Most-High God” (Mk 5:7)? His presence within enemy territory (the unholy ground), brought the Demoniac to Him. Whereby Legion was cast out into a herd of swine upon their appeal.

In contrast and by geological relevance, the man in the Capernaum synagogue possessed by multiple demons addressed the Messiah as “Jesus of Nazareth (Mk 1:24).” A distinction from the “Son of the Most-High God” (Mark 5:7) as compared to the demoniac from Gerasene in Gentile territory. That was a location “governed” by an entity now on notice that it has lost its territory. It was the difference between holy ground and unholy ground, or by who in the spiritual realm-controlled areas around Israel. Both locations in near proximity having this activity further suggest the area was demonically loaded, or more active with evil spiritual beings.

In due course, the LORD makes His way to Jerusalem, where He knows He will die to fulfill His mission. One could speculate that it was from the transfiguration on Mount Herman that the meeting with Moses and Elijah confirmed His mission and what was about to occur. In the presence of Father Yahweh on Mount Hermon, Jesus had just removed the sons of God’s control and ownership of nations outside Israel.

Shortly thereafter in Jerusalem, Jesus was tried and crucified. A King not of this world, He was tortured and put to death. With the oblivious, evil, and unseen bulls of Bashan surrounding Him, His mission was finished. In their bloodthirst, they had no idea what had occurred and what was shortly to befall them. The spotless lamb was crucified to provide a path for humanity to become reconciled to Yahweh. The old covenant was abolished, the law was fulfilled, and a new covenant was set in place.

Upon the death of Jesus, He descends into Hades (1 Peter 3:19) to proclaim to the non-human spirits in prison¹² that He was alive and that now all of heaven and the underworld were subjected to Him. He had overcome death and the kingdom of God was reclaimed. Death in the underworld could not hold Him.

Jesus, the long-awaited messiah, resurrected from the dead.

So that all nations of men made of one blood (Acts 17:26-27) would seek the LORD and that they would find Him. As it is written in scripture, had the princes of this world, rulers of this age or the sons of God understood the mystery of Christ’s sacrifice and the wisdom of God, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory (1 Cor 2:1-8). The powers of darkness, those of the corrupt sons of God, were put to open shame (Col 2:15 ESV).

The gentiles who were in captivity are now eligible and ushered into the Kingdom of God through repentance and faith. Until their fullness has come (Rm 11:25), the Holy Spirit moves among us as the wind blows where it wishes (Jn 3:8). Beginning at the transfiguration on Mount Hermon in Bashan, within enemy territory, the sons of God were overthrown and no longer had dominion over the gentiles. The kingdom of God has come with the great commission of Jesus, our LORD. With Jesus’ mission to overcome darkness and humanity’s enslavement to sin, the table is now set. The field was now cultivated for harvest. Without any fitting claim coming from the corrupt sons of God. The bulls of Bashan, their demonic offspring, the Apkallu, or the so-called Watchers have no further place among people and, more specifically, within the Kingdom of God on Earth.

Conclusion

The whole area of Bashan, which hosts the upper reaches of Mount Hermon, is symbolic of this world that dwells in darkness. Amid the daily lives of biblical figures, there were profoundly evil entities that were spiritually active toward the deception and destruction of people and the nations in which they reside. While according to Paul, there are spiritual forces of darkness present even today (Eph 6:12), we have the triumph of Christ over these rulers and powers as the Kingdom of God is now upon us. The nations have been reclaimed for the LORD’s kingdom. Beginning with the transfiguration on Mount Hermon that took place leading to the death, burial, resurrection, and coronation of the Lord and King, Jesus our Messiah.

Citations

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¹ Baker Encyclopedia of the Bible, Walter Elwell, Anson F. Rainey
² Settlements and Cult Sites on Mount Hermon, Israel: Ituraean Culture in the Hellenistic and Roman Periods, Shimon Dar, Israel Exploration Journal Vol. 47, No. ¾ (1997), Zvi Uri Ma’oz, pp. 279-283
³ Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible, Eerdmans, G. Del Olmo Lete, 161
⁴ The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible, Lexham Press, Michael Heiser, 200
⁵ Ibid., Unseen Realm, Heiser, 35
⁶ Reversing Hermon: Enoch, The Watchers & the Forgotten Mission of Jesus Christ, Defender Publishing, Michael Heiser, 112-113
⁷ 1 Enoch: A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch, Minneapolis Fortress Press, George W.E. Nickelsburg, 267
⁸ Reversing Hermon: Enoch, The Watchers & the Forgotten Mission of Jesus Christ, Defender Publishing, Michael Heiser, 38-43
⁹ Ibid, Reversing Hermon, Heiser, 29
¹⁰ The Origin of Evil Spirits, Wright; The Waters Traditions in Enoch 6-16: “The Fall of Angels and the Rise of Demons”, The Watchers in Jewish and Christian Traditions, Kevin Sullivan (ed. Angela Harkins, Kelly Bautch, John Endres, Augsburg Fortress Publishers, 2014), 91-103
^11]Dreamy Angels and Demonic Giants: The Watchers Traditions and the Origin of Evil in Early Christian Demonology”, The Watchers in Jewish and Christian Traditions, Silviu N. Bunta, (ed. Angela Harkins, Kelly Bautch, John Endres, Augsburg Fortress Publishers, 2014), 116-138
¹² Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible, Eerdmans, G. Del Olmo Lete, 161-162