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The
Scarlet Thread
Christen
Forster
“According to the law, nearly
everything is cleansed with blood, and apart from shedding of blood there is no
remission of sins” – Hebrews 9:22
Over the years I remember hearing people make reference to “The
Scarlet Thread” or “The Crimson Cord” and I picked up that the image was
used as a motif for a string of images through the Old Testament that included
blood and, in some way pre-figured the Cross.
The image was drawn from the incident in the book of Joshua
where Rahab, the prostitute who helped the Hebrew spies in Jericho, is
told to hang a scarlet thread from her window so that she would marked out and
saved in the ensuing attack, she joined the people of YHWH and it seems became
part of the Messianic line.
But whenever I looked for internal evidence in the Bible for
this being more than just a preacher’s tools, a useful soundbite to convey the
rich pattern of markers that get across the ideas of forgiveness costing blood;
a life for a life, I couldn’t find it.
But then I did find out some things about the “Scarlet Thread”
that gave it meaning beyond simply sharing the colour of blood. First in the
word “Scarlet” and then in the word “Thread.”
In Joshua 2:18 the word scarlet is “shaniy”/”שני” it is almost always translated as “scarlet” though can also
mean the crimson dye that makes things scarlet and even the worm that the dye
comes from.
In the ancient world, scarlet dye was made from the crushed
bodies of pregnant female coccus ilicis worms.
Something had to die to make things scarlet.
Now there is a second Hebrew word with the same set of meanings
as “shaniy”, it is “towla”/”תולע” (translated “crimson” or “worm” in the King James Bible).
Both words “shaniy” and “towla” can be used for
all three states, the source, the substance and the consequence of the red dye,
you have to work out from context which is intended: the worm, the dye or the
colour .
These scarlet worms/coccus ilicis have a very unusual
life-cycle, which deserves a post in its own right, it has been said that the
whole gospel story is contained in the life of the coccus ilicis, when
I’ve written it, you’ll be able to link to it here!
For this post I just want to draw out three aspects of this
important dye.
First it was antiseptic and used for cleansing and second
something had to die to make it, third it was used as a symbol of sin:
”Come now, and let us reason
together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet (shaniy),
they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson (towla),
they shall be as wool.” – Isaiah 1:18
So, when Rahab hangs out her scarlet thread, she is saved by
cord that symbolises a death, sin and cleansing. Straight away we can see it as
an image of the Cross, but there is more…
The spies and Rahab also double up the word for a thread or
cord or tape, (see the clip from an Interlinear translation of Joshua above).
The second word, “thquth”/חוט has two very different meanings, it can mean “cord” or “tape” as translated here
or it can mean “hope”, (see Strong’s Concordance 08615 “Tiqvah”).
So, Rahab hangs out a Scarlet Thread of Cord, quite literally a
Thread of Hope, hope for cleansing from sin by the blood of another’s life!
So, it is not too surprising that this visual symbol, the
Scarlet Thread has been picked up as a symbol of all the incidents where
something else had to die to cover and cleanse and remit the sins of others.
From Genesis 3 where an unnamed animal gave up its skin to cover
Adam and Eve’s sin, through the Passover lamb that saved all in the house and
the scape goat that yearly carried the sins of a nation off to be eaten in the
Wilderness, on and on until finally Jesus gave his own blood as a final and
complete remission of all sins for all people for all time, Matthew 26:28.
“According to the law, nearly
everything is cleansed with blood, and apart from shedding of blood there is no
remission of sins” – Hebrews 9:22
Christen
Forster
is widely recognised as an original Bible teacher who brings people into a love
of and confidence in scripture.
Christen has planted churches, been a youth worker, mission administrator and church leaders. The author of several books, Christen is now an itinerant minister, helping churches to step into a more deliberately spiritual experience of the Christian life while at the same time firmly rooting their practice in scripture.
https://jesuscentred.org/e/the-scarlet-thread/
Christen has planted churches, been a youth worker, mission administrator and church leaders. The author of several books, Christen is now an itinerant minister, helping churches to step into a more deliberately spiritual experience of the Christian life while at the same time firmly rooting their practice in scripture.
https://jesuscentred.org/e/the-scarlet-thread/
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