Galatians, part 2, How it Links with Numbers and Ezekiel

Linking Hebrew Letters to the Books of the Bible

As a dalet book Galatians should link in some way with Numbers and Ezekiel. Here’s how. In Numbers 14: 33 – 35 God says:

33 Your children will be shepherds here for forty years, suffering for your unfaithfulness, until the last of your bodies lies in the desert. 34 For forty years—one year for each of the forty days you explored the land—you will suffer for your sins and know what it is like to have me against you.' 35 I, the LORD, have spoken, and I will surely do these things to this whole wicked community, which has banded together against me. They will meet their end in this desert; here they will die."

Then in Ezekiel 4: 4 – 6

 4 "Then lie on your left side and put the sin of the house of Israel upon yourself. You are to bear their sin for the number of days you lie on your side. 5 I have assigned you the same number of days as the years of their sin. So for 390 days you will bear the sin of the house of Israel.

 6 "After you have finished this, lie down again, this time on your right side, and bear the sin of the house of Judah. I have assigned you 40 days, a day for each year.

When God calculated His judgment using “a day for a year”, He commanded His Prophet to lie 390 days on his left side for the sins of Israel, and 40 days on his right for the sins of Judah. 390 +40 = 430. Now for the really cool, amazing stuff: In Galatians Paul uses the same number in reference to the Law in chapter 3: 17-18:

17 What I mean is this: The law, introduced 430 years later, does not set aside the covenant previously established by God and thus do away with the promise. 18 For if the inheritance depends on the law, then it no longer depends on a promise; but God in his grace gave it to Abraham through a promise.

Sound familiar? It should, I’m repeating part of the connections here that I explained under the book of Ezekiel.