What does the metaphorical term “milk and honey” mean and how does it relate to the term “The Land of the Deer?”
Transcript:
Shalom and welcome to Bible Stories as Blueprints of the Soul, your Biblical Hebrew podcast. Shalom and welcome to our Biblical Hebrew podcast. Today I wish to speak about a coin of speech or metaphorical speaking, the term the land of milk and honey. In Hebrew, the land that flows with milk and honey, we meet in Ezekiel chapter 20 verse 6.
I shall read the verse in Hebrew, translate it into English and see what is the perception behind this verse. What is the idea that Ezekiel mentions in this verse? In our former conversations, we were mentioning the land of Egypt versus the land of Canaan. The land of Egypt is not just a geographical land, because Eretz in Hebrew is not just a land or a country, Eretz in Hebrew comes from a will. So the Bible says in a way, in general way, there are two kinds of lands. The land of Egypt, Eretz, or an Egyptian will, or the land of Israel, or the land of Canaan, or the land of the fathers.
In this manner, Eretz, the land of Canaan, or the land or the will of the one, which is to benefit and bestow. We already have shown that the value of the word Egypt is 380. Egypt in Hebrew letters is 380, and Canaan in Hebrew is 190. So the land of Egypt, the volume of the word Egypt, Mitzraim, is double the word Canaan.
So again, even through the letters, we see in the word Mitzraim the word of duality. And the Bible, when the Bible mentions the term Eretz Mitzraim, the land of Egypt is not a geographical Egypt, but a will. A will of people to live in duality, of multiplicity, without a connection to the source, to the one.
So let’s look again to the words of Ezekiel. Ezekiel speaks in the special day that with the help of the providence, God will lift his hand, or carry his hand, to take them. And their will, basically, from the land of Egypt, from the land of multiplicity, from the world of duality, from the world of conflict. And one thing is to lift a person from a bad situation. The second is to act good, meaning one thing is to remove a person from a bad situation, which is removed from bad. And another action is to put him in a good place. And this is what Ezekiel describes.
To pull a person from the duality and in a way to put them in a country, but not in a country, in terms of land, but Eretz, Eretz, into a will, towards a will, which I was looking for. What is this will that Ezekiel is describing? Ezekiel is a will that in its appearance consists of milk and honey, halav, udvash. Milk symbolizes the potential of life, the amazing grace. When a child is born, or even among the animal kingdom, when a fetus is born, with the birth comes the milk of the mother that will support the new life. So the milk is a symbol for the potential that life brings with. And the honey symbolizes the manifestation of the potential.
Again, the milk is the potential of life, the amazing grace, and the honey is the manifestation of the life potential. So in other words, the Prophet says, the land that I will show you or bring you, which I was looking for you, this is a very special country. It’s not the land of duality, the land of Egypt, with everything just multiple and multiple, and you get far from the source, and you never have peace, and you have never tranquility or satisfaction. You always go forward and bounce and fall and continue to bounce between walls and other cycles, but you never have peace, and you can never breathe.
And from this situation, the Prophet says, God is lifting people with his hand into a wheel. Which wheel is it? A wheel that flows with milk and honey, not just bouncing in Egypt into conflicts all the time, the duality, more money, more housing, more and more without any connection. Nobody knows anymore what he’s doing, but to the land of milk and honey into a wheel, which has the potential of something, because the potential is always the source and the manifestation. This is what the Prophet says, I’ll bring them to a country which I already was looking for them, a land that flows with the potential, with the source, with the milk, and with the manifestation of the source, honey. And this is the wheel that God wishes for the people to follow, a good wheel. A good wheel has the potential and the manifestation.
Another hint that we find in those words, halav, udvash, milk and honey, written in Hebrew in the following letters. Halav is milk written with chet, chet equals eight, and udvash and honey, u, the vav, the connecting vav, is opening the second term, and honey, udvash, in Hebrew it’s one word. Chet has the volume of eight, vav has the volume of six. Together they create a number fourteen, meaning one to four. Again, we have an evidence that the term milk and honey is not just a physical description how to make a good cake. Milk and honey. No, it’s the relation between one to four. The source is one, manifestation of it is the four. Halav, udvash, milk and honey. And the prophet continues and gives another symbolical name to this wheel. It’s not just a wheel, a wheel of milk and honey, eretz, zavat, halav, udvash. It also has a synonym name, tzvi hi, deer it is, lechol ha’aratzot, to the all countries, to the all other wheels. Why the land of the one, the wheel of the one, is named the deer land, eretz hatzvi? Why? What is so special about the deer? And why the land of the one is derr to the all countries, to the all other wheels that any other person has?
From the nature of the deer, if we have the time to look at deer in nature, they always move forward into the next world, into the next understanding, into the next manifestation. And only for a split of a second they turn their head a bit back to this life, to the world of duality, and immediately they continue into the future, into the next thing, into the next insight, into the next understanding, into the next bestowal. So here the prophet says the goodwill, the wheel of the one, is not just the land of the milk and honey, it’s also the land of the deer, eretz hatzvi. Because when we are in the wheel of the one, the land of milk and honey, we are not engaging with the world of duality, with materialism, we are not having those economical bothering all the time, to multiple our essence, to multiple our holdings on earth. We behave like the deer, we just move forward all the time, gently forward to the future, to the next moment, to the next understanding. Don’t anchor and look back like the wife of Lot from Genesis. So in this way Ezekiel, the prophet, describes the going out of Egypt. It’s not just that God carries hand to take those people from a foreign will, or a will of duality, of multiplicity, of conflicts. It’s also to bring them to a place they can expand, they can manifest things in their life, but with a relation to the source, the land of milk and honey.
Milk is the source, honey is the manifestation, and again says the prophet, this is also the land of the deer. Eretz hatzvi is a will that always move forward, forward, forward, forward, and just for a little bit of a second look, and immediately continues. Don’t get stuck in the past of things that we cannot change, let’s move together to the future with the deer. So this was our little conversation about the land of the milk and honey, the land of the deer. We wish you a beautiful day and a wonderful week. Thank you for listening to Bible Stories as Blueprints of the Soul. We hope that you enjoyed this episode. If you have any questions, comments, or would like to hear more about a certain topic, just write us an email to Hebrew at LearnOutLive.com. We are always happy to hear from you. For more episodes, videos and articles like this, please visit our website at Hebrew.LearnOutLive.com. We also would like to invite you to join our live classes. Just search for Online College of Biblical Hebrew on Facebook and start learning now with students from all over the world. Koltuv and Shalom!
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