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© 2016 John D. Brey.

Contrary to English translations, Hashem neither tells Moses to use copper, nor to make a snake nachash. Hashem tells Moses to fashion a "seraph," i.e., a fiery-deity; He never tells Moses what to make it from. -----Since Samael is a fiery-deity, and is imagined as a snake, Moses appear to automatically interpret Hashem's command to make a serpent-deity as a command to fashion a snake.

And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.

John 3:14-15.

The Talmud, as read by Rabbi Ellie Munk, asks how a copper snake could control life and death (Rosh Hashanah 29a). To quote Rabbi Munk, "The answer given is that when the Israelites raised their eyes to Hashem they were healed. . . when the people looked at the serpent at the top of the pole and held the thought that Hashem alone could cause a wound or its healing, then the healing soon followed." -----The wording is interesting in that Rabbi Munk, speaking for the Talmud, seems to echo John 3:14-15. -----The Israelites were raising their eyes to Hashem when they peered at the serpent atop the pole. The Talmud is suggesting the serpent on the pole was designed to get the Israelites to cast their gaze toward Hashem. They’re healed by gazing up at Hashem.

In 2 Kings 18:4-5, the Israelites give the serpent on the pole a personal name, “Nehushtan.” They used the emblem pretty much as Christian's use the crucifix.

In a strange echo from the Gospels, after explaining that the Israelites were worshiping a personified serpent on a pole, Nehushtan, the very next statement reads : "He trusted in Hashem, the Hashem of Israel." . . . The Gospel documents that when they looked up at Jesus hanging on the cross the Israelites said: "He trusted in Hashem; let him deliver him now, if he will have him: for he said, I am the Son of God" (Matthew 27:43).

The genesis of Nehushtan occurs when God tells Moses that Pharaoh is going to ask for a "sign." The sign that’s given Pharaoh is the sign of Moses' rod defeating the sorcerer's tanin. Rashi is clear, with other sages, that Moses' Leviathan, tanin, has already turned back into a rod when the sorcerer's rods are defeated and swallowed up by Moses rod. Furthermore, midrashim suggests that it’s Moses' self-same rod which lifts the defeated fiery-serpent in Numbers chapter 21. So this important symbol is given both to Pharaoh (i.e., Moses’ serpent defeating rod), and then to Israel, when Nehushtan is created to defeat the serpents attacking Israel in Numbers chapter 21.

At the burning bush theophany Moses expresses concern that Israel won’t believe God has "appeared" to him. Moses seems to think he needs proof that God has appeared to him in order to establish the authority he needs to lead Israel out of bondage. God's response is a direct answer to Moses' concern that Israel will not believe that He has "appeared" to him. . . Since God is responding specifically to Moses' complaint that Israel will not believe that God has "appeared" to him, it stands to reason that what follows is God giving Moses a "sign" or "emblem" of the theophany (an emblem or banner signifying what Moses saw when God appeared to him). Moses will establish his authority over Israel by proving that the God of Israel has "appeared" to him. He’s going to prove that God has appeared to him by revealing a "miraculous sign" (Rashi) or "emblem" (Heb. nes) showing in some manner how God appeared to him.

Proof of this idea is given when right after Moses states that Israel will not believe that God has "appeared" to him (Israel won't believe Moses has received a theophany), God says, "What’s that," referring to the rod in Moses hand? Rashi explains that two Hebrew words which are not normally combined, are combined in the statement "what’s that," and according to Rashi, the combining means "from this rod," rather than "what’s that." Which is to say that if Rashi is correct about the exegetical nuance, then God is saying to Moses, "from this rod" you will prove that I have appeared to you. He has Moses cast it to the ground and it turns into a serpent.

It's clear that everything in the passage (Ex. 4:1-3) concerns Moses' fear that Israel will not believe that he’s "seen" God with his own eyes, God has literally "appeared" to Moses. Moses clearly thinks that if Israel is aware that he’s seen God, they’ll trust in him. So God gives Moses a miraculous "sign" of his appearance: the rod of God, which, when cast to the ground, becomes a serpent. The serpent/rod is a miraculous theophany.

Exodus 4:1-3 is patently clear that the serpent/rod is a theophany of God. And the Talmud remarks that only God has power over life and death, so that when the Israelites look up at the serpent on the pole, and acknowledged that only God has power over life and death (i.e. they equated the life-giving serpent on the pole with God) they‘re immediately healed. They’re healed when they acknowledge that the serpent on the pole is a theophany of God; an emblem of what Moses experienced on Sinai. . . . The narrative imagines the "burning" bush as a Branch with a "burning one" on it (Ex. 3:2). So that Numbers 21:8  (where God tells Moses to make a "burning one" and place it on the rod) begins to make sense as representative of the burning bush where Moses had his theophany.

Exodus 4:1 is clear that just as the burning bush is a theophany of God, so too the rod of Moses will become an emblematic banner (nes) of the burning bush. The burning bush (the burning one of God on the rod, creating a burning bush) will be in Moses’ right hand, and thus with Israel, throughout their sojourn in the desert. The rod that’s Moses' emblematic banner of the burning bush clearly represents the "burning one" of God (Ex. 3:2), who will guide Israel and protect them until they arrive at the holy land. In the Hebrew, the word for “bush” sound’s like “Sinai,” the theophany Moses experienced on Sinai, follows Moses and Israel throughout the desert in the form of Moses’ papal ferula, his ruler’s staff ---- Nehushtan.

Why is the angel of Hashem represented by a serpent? -----Why, if we’re true to sound exegesis, must we picture the "burning bush" as a serpent surrounding the rod of God: Hashem, the Tree of Life? The vocabulary in Psalm 104:4 is similar. God makes his angelic ministers a flaming fire. . . Naturally they don't burn themselves up. So the burning bush could easily be a wooden stump, or branch, around which a flaming angel of God exists.

The Hebrew word "nes," used to speak of Moses' rod is constructed of a nun, which symbolizes the Messianic branch, and a samech, which stands for a protecting enclosure. Messiah, the nun of God, is protected by the flaming fire of the angel of Hashem, who’s symbolized by the samech surrounding the nun; the nun obviously being something like a pictogram of a "rod" and a samech being something like a pictogram of a "snake,” which is wrapped around the nun in the word nes. The angel of Hashem is the protector of the throne of Messiah. Moses' rod is the Messianic Branch spoken of throughout Isaiah. It’s surrounded by the angel of the Lord, the burning-flame that protects the Messianic rod of Moses.

The angel of Hashem is something like the protector of God's monotheistic invisibility. To see the flaming angel of Hashem is as far as any visionary can go without transgressing Jewish monotheistic anaconism. The angel of Hashem protects Hashem's invisibility by acting as the vision closest to seeing Hashem (who can’t be seen). Moses spoke with Hashem, whose voice came from behind the protection of the angel of Hashem, the flaming bush covering the trunk of the Tree of Life, which is Hashem.

Exodus 3:2 says the angel of the Hashem appeared to Moses in a flame of fire from within a thorn-bush. So Hashem's angel "appeared" to Moses from a thorn-bush. But then Hashem calls to Moses. Psalms 104:4 suggests that God's angels are a flaming fire implying that it’s pretty straightforward to suggest that the angel of Hashem is the flame associated with the burning bush. Hashem himself is the rod, or stump of the bush, while His angel is the burning bush itself. The Branch is invisible when the burning part of the bush is in view.

This being the case, it makes sense that God tells Moses to fashion a "burning one" and place it on the rod of Moses to form an emblematic image (a hand-held banner) of the burning bush from whence God spoke to Moses (Moses’ rod is an emblem of the theophany that is the burning bush). The Talmud is clear that Moses rod, with the copper snake, could not have power over life and death, since only Hashem has that. So when the Israelites looked up at the "burning one" as the outer bush, and Moses' rod as the stump of the burning bush, they were looking at a liturgical replica of what existed on the mountain of God when Moses spoke with Hashem.

In a number of places, midrashim tells us Moses' rod (which was created on the first Sabbath eve) was engraved with the name of Hashem. Therefore, if more confirmation was needed concerning the fact that Moses' rod was the stump, and the angel of Hashem the flaming outer foliage of the Edenic tree, then Exodus 23:20-21 should make it perfectly clear since Hashem tells Moses that He’s sending his angel to guard Israel along the way; and Hashem notes that His Name is in him (i.e. in the angel's midst). . . So when the rod of Moses, with the Name of Hashem engraved on it, is augmented with a "burning one" or a flaming seraph (a serpent deity), we can be pretty sure from these and other passage of scripture precisely what’s being portrayed by Moses' rod.

For a metaphor to work, its metaphorical sense must actually make sense. Take the thorn-bush. Why in God's Name does God's Name --- Hashem ---- come to Moses disguised as (or in) a burning thorn-bush? Clearly the burning thorn-bush is a metaphor. But a metaphor for what?

Rashi says that it signifies that Hashem is with Israel in distress. -----Shemos Rabbah 2.5 clarifies Rashi's point: "I speak unto you-- from a thorn-bush--- that I am, as it were, a partner in their trouble. . .R. Jannai said: `Just as in the case of twins (te'omim), if one has a pain in his head the other feels it also, so God said, as it were: I will be with him in trouble' (Ps.XCI, 15)."

Psalm 91:15 (quoted in Shemos Rabbah 2.5) is a Messianic passage. Christians would have a heyday with the fact that Shemos Rabbah quotes a Messianic passage in conjunction with the idea that Hashem appears in a thorn-bush because when Messiah experiences a pain in his head Hashem experiences it too. The Christian messiah spoke from out of a thorn-bush which caused a pain in his head, so the other feels it also. God speaks to Moses from a thorn-bush because: "I will be with him in trouble" which R. Jannai said means, "If one has a pain in his head the other feels it also."

Christians will recognize these words from their Gospels:

For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways: they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone. You will tread upon the lion and the cobra; you will trample the great lion and the serpent. . . I will be with him in trouble.

Psalm 91:11-15.

The word "serpent" in Psalm 91:13 is tannin, the same word used for the serpents created by Pharaoh's sorcerers. Rashi says that Moses' rod had turned back into a rod before it devoured the sorcerer's tannin. Someone intimate with the book of Isaiah will know what all this means.

In Jewish monotheism Hashem is nowhere and everywhere. God doesn't have a body or a soul like a human being. . . So He’s not time-bound, nor does He exist in a particular place and not another. He’s just as much in the thorn-bush as He is in the space right next to the thorn-bush, and the space at the foot of the mountain, and the space at the top of the pyramid, and the space between our ears. Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on one’s sensibilities, this plays right into the hands of the Christians. For they don’t claim that God is "in" Jesus. They claim that Jesus is a man like you and me who also happens to be God.

In this sense Jesus doesn't transgress Jewish monotheism, since in the flesh, he is flesh through and through. His deity is not in his flesh. It isn't in anything. Thus, Jesus can no more be known to be God, nor said to be God, nor accepted by Jews as God, than could Moses' thorn-bush theophany on Sinai, or the theurgical replica he constructed in the book of Numbers.

But that doesn't bother the Christians since they don't really consider Jesus to be God in the sense that pagan's think of a man or snake or tree as God. They distinguish the fact that God is nowhere and everywhere, and that He can’t be a man, while suggesting that although God can’t be a man, a man can be God.

In Jewish monotheism God is not subject to being localized in a place like a rock, or a tree, or a statue or an image; that's pagan idolatry. Moses didn't "see" Hashem at the burning bush. Hashem can’t be "seen" without transgressing Jewish monotheistic principles. But those same principles should apply to "hearing" just as much as "seeing" since the ear-gate would require a tangible manifestation of Hashem (His direct movement of a sound wave) just as the eye gate --- "seeing" --- requires some direct entanglement in the profane world.

If Hashem cannot be seen, He shouldn’t be able to be literally heard either.

Hashem uses the angel of Hashem as something like his voice, his hand, his foot, his everything. And yet, in places, the word of God seems to suggest that Hashem doesn’t always cue the angel in to the whole picture. A careful examination of the passages in question, taking the Hebrew into account, seem to suggest that Hashem does nothing tangible without mediation of the angel of the Lord. And yet Moses seems to hear Hashem in an unmediated manner, even to the degree that anyone who understands the broad overview of the narrative, suspects Hashem is telling Moses things he doesn't want the angel to know.

But if the angel is Hashem's mediator, then how does Hashem speak to Moses without His mouth (the angel of the Lord), and why can’t the angel, or Israel for that manner, hear Hashem as Moses hears Him?

When Hashem told Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, it was the angel of the Lord who stayed the hand of Abraham to save Isaac. Perhaps the angel of the Lord (and not Hashem) transformed the rod of Moses into a serpent, and back again. The angel of the Lord appears to be the administrator and initiator of all that Hashem wants done in the physical world. The fact that Hashem uses angelic messengers/mediators, tells us something important about Hashem's relationship to the physical world. And the fact that He uses these mediators is a guarantee that they have volition separate from His perfect will, or else they would be Hashem, and if they are Hashem, then they’re not mediators, and thus calling them anything but “Hashem” is superfluous.

In Exodus 23:20-21, Hashem warns Moses about the angel of the Lord, as though Hashem is speaking to Moses about the angel (as though they, Hashem and the angel, are different entities). On the surface it appears that Hashem is warning Moses about His own Justice, manifest by this angel. But then Moses inquires about Hashem's personal modus operandi set against that of the angel? There’s serious reason to suspect something very important is going on beneath the surface of the text. So important that in places it erupts onto the text itself. But never so much that anyone not cued into the voice of Hashem, unmediated by the angel, can make sense of it in such a manner as to thwart the plans of Hashem, which, it could be said, seem, at times, to rely more on flesh and blood than angelic mediation.

The angel of Hashem seems more like a herald. His job is to announce Hashem's Presence, and act as something like an ambassador, even a forerunner. . . And Moses' rod is pretty clearly a "sign" or "banner" . . . an emblem representing the heraldic relationship between the angel of Hashem and Hashem himself. On the mountain of God, Moses hears Hashem speaking from a rod, or Branch, in the midst of a flaming angel, which is imagined as a "burning" thorn-bush (a stump, or rod [Isa. 11:1-4], in the midst of a flaming angel, a seraph).

Likewise, in Isaiah (6:1-3), we read that Isaiah "saw" Hashem seated on a throne, high and exalted. In the description of Isaiah's vision of we read that around Hashem, or above Him, were seraphim. The Hebrew "seraph" generally means "serpent" but is also used for angelic heralds. And we note that Moses' rod is an emblem or herald of God's "appearing" to Moses; and it turns into a seraph, or serpent; actually both.

As noted in the Talmud, the ability of Moses' emblem (the flaming serpent on Moses' rod) to save from death is proof-positive that we’re in the presence of a heraldic image of the Presence of Hashem. When Isaiah tells us of seeing Hashem he notes that there are seraphim surrounding, or above, the throne of Hashem. Likewise, the Ark of the Covenant, which is an emblem of the throne of Hashem, has angelic creatures covering the actual throne with their wings. So it's a very common theme in the Tanakh for the Presence of Hashem to be protected by the outer skene (the foreskene) which is the angelic-presence.

The fact that this emblematic rod of Moses' appears to transgress the commandment not to make an image of anything in heaven (and most definitely not an image of what "seeing" Hashem is like) seems to have caused even brilliant Jewish exegetes to beat around the bush (so to say) about what’s extremely clear symbolism, clarified over and over again throughout the book of Isaiah.

We know Moses' staff has the Name of Hashem engraved on it, so that if Moses attaches a bronze serpent to this rod in such a manner that it covers up the Name of Hashem then we have a very standard image of seraphim, or angels, covering the throne of God, covering the Presence of Hashem (the Name of God).

Since a seraph, or cherub, covered the Presence of Hashem on the holy mountain, and since cherubim cover the throne of God (Hashem's Presence) on the Ark of the Covenant, and also in Isaiah's vision, we should’ve come to expect that when the throne of Hashem, or the Presence of Hashem, is in view, there’ll be cherubim or seraphim covering the Presence, covering the Name (Ex. 23:21).

Moses' rod represents the Holy One of God, i.e., it’s a stand-in for Hashem Himself. When Moses complains that Israel will not believe Hashem has appeared to Him, Hashem makes a statement which Rashi insinuates means that the rod will be proof that Moses has seen Hashem. Moses' rod is a figure of Hashem himself. To be in the presence of Moses’ rod is to be in the Presence of Hashem. Numbers 21:7 seems designed to remind Israel of that fact.

Numbers (21:8-9) claims that if a person was in danger of dying from a seraph, he could raise his eyes to the seraph nailed to the wood and live. Since the seraphim were sent by Hashem for Israel's sin, the healing provided by raising ones eyes to the seraph nailed to the wood seems to displays the appearance of substitutionary atonement. The fatal bite of the serpent, sent by Hashem because of sin, is forgiven by Hashem, if one will simply raise their eyes to Hashem, i.e., to Nehushtan.

Far from being a one trick pony, were told in 2 Kings 18:4-5 that right up until the time Nehushtan was destroyed, the children of Israel made offerings to it, and called it by a personal name. This emblem was not used once and destroyed (or forgotten), else it wouldn’t be around at the time of Hezekiah. It had to have been revered and protected in order to still be functioning as a religious icon of some import so many years after its first appearance in the desert. Not only is the prophet Isaiah clearly familiar with this religious relic, but it's not an exaggeration in the least to suggest that it’s the most prominent symbol of his entire book of prophesy.

The seraphim sent to kill Israel with their bite, are sent by Hashem. So we’re not speaking of a garden variety garter snake biting Israel. These seraphim are sent as judgment against Israel. Hashem sends them to kill Israel for her sin. Moses takes a bronze figure of a seraph (God's judge and executioner), and nails it to the wood, and lifts it up as a banner for the people. If they look up at it they’re healed; if they don’t they die. He that looks up and believeth on Nehushtan has life. But he who does not believe, who does not look up at this banner, will not see life, rather the wrath of God abideth on him.

Isaiah uses a number of metaphors to speak of the entity he calls the "arm of the Lord," the "living growth from a dead stump, or dry ground" and the "banner" lifted up like a military staff to call everyone to the mountain of God. All these metaphors speak of God's holy and suffering servant, which Rashi, and others, interpret as the nation of Israel, which no doubt the nation of Israel fulfills to some degree.

But even though there’s no doubt that Israel has bore the brunt of the suffering required for God's salvation to appear unto all mankind, and thus Israel, as a people, are a type of the suffering servant, it’s clear in Isaiah that he’s speaking primarily of a particular entity clearly and unequivocally distinct from the nation of Israel. Which is to say that Israel is without a doubt the national "arm of the Lord" and a living growth out of dry ground, and a sort of national banner to which the nations should (and will . . . eventually) look up to. Nevertheless, there’s no way Isaiah can be properly interpreted without acknowledging that he’s speaking only implicitly of the national suffering servant, and the national banner, but explicitly about a particular individual, Messiah, who, is both born of the nation, but also the source of the nation.

Anyone who studies Isaiah carefully, in the light of the great sages, can only blush when observing the outrageous exegetical sleight of hand Rashi and others are forced into in a pitiful attempt to raise up the whole nation on a wooden pole which in truth can bear the weight of only one particular messianic soul (and perhaps a burning seraph or two).

Isaiah 53:1 reads: "Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?" The very next statement reads, "He grew up before him like a tender shoot, like a root out of dry ground." Rashi and Redak accept that the first verse is speaking of Messiah, but then, according to their interpretation, the second statement makes a drastic shift, and is speaking not of Messiah, but Israel?

Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? He grew up before him like a tender shoot, like a root out of dry ground.

The general flow of the statement appears to suggest that Isaiah is firstly questioning to whom Messiah has appeared . . . and secondarily beginning to describe Messiah. Since Messiah is the arm of the Lord, Isaiah says that this arm of the Lord grew up before Him, the Lord, like a shoot out of dry ground. But since this passage, Isaiah 53, lends itself more than any other passage in the Tanakh, to the Christian's interpretation, it seems like Rashi, Redak, and Ibn Ezra (to name a few prominent Jewish exegetes) interpret it against the grain of the passage in order that the Christian's interpretation of this verse not contaminate the rest of the book of Isaiah.

In verse two of Isaiah 53, Isaiah uses a mythological image familiar to Israel. In the ancient religious world, rain was representative of God's male-seed, coming down from heaven and impregnating the earth to give birth to all those things which grow out of the earth. Messiah is specifically associated with a Branch growing out of the earth. But in the case of the Messianic branch, the earth is not impregnated by male seed (rain), since this Messianic branch grows out of "dry" (unfertilized) ground.

In his book, Marital Relations in Ancient Judaism, Etan Levine says this about Hosea 2:16-20:

The root [Heb. anah] in agricultural diction reflects the conceptualizing of the earth in terms of female sexuality. A male God fertilizes the female earth. The female body and the earth were likened, so a "furrow" is signified by [Heb. nouns meaning] an "opening" made in the soil as a preparation for inserting seed. The plowing metaphor is a general euphemism for sexual intercourse . . . The young woman is compared to a field waiting to be rendered fertile . . . It is in the context of marital intercourse that the male sexual role defines itself as the provider of fertility. . . And the soil when arid or irrigated is personified as a woman neglected or inseminated. Even in Mishnah Hebrew [the Hebrew words remain] a technical term for a field made fertile by rain. And though "sowing" may have a literal sense in Qo. 11:6, both Qo. R. and Ben Sira 26:20 understand it sexually.

The passage in Isaiah 53 is the only place in the Tanakh that a branch is said to grow out of "dry ground." It's the only place a virgin birth is implied, and since we know from extra-biblical, as well as biblical sources, that growth out of "dry ground" implies the non-existence of male seed, we should be tempted to connect verse 2 of Isaiah 53 with Isaiah 7:14, and 9:6-7, where a virgin birth seems to be implied in relationship to the birth of Messiah.

Throughout ancient religions, and in the Tanakh, at passages like Hosea 2:16-20, we see the concept of rain coming down from heaven as the male seed of God, and the earth representing terrestrial fecundity. In Isaiah 53 we read that the Messianic branch will grow from "dry ground." Redak says, " . . . if the root of a tree, or grass grows in dry ground, it is indeed a miracle." -----Isaiah 7:14 uses the word alma, which doesn't necessarily mean a virgin, but then just two chapters later in 9:6, we have a closed mem (representing a closed womb) placed in such a way that it begs notice, and this in a passage dealing specifically with Messiah. This might suggest that Isaiah 9:6 clarifies Isaiah 7:14, and that both are bolstered by the fact that Isaiah 53:2 says that the Messianic branch will grow out of "dry earth" which is a return to the concept of a closed or unfertilized womb.

Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh, an expert on Hebrew letter symbolism, says:

The form of the mem resembles a womb, which for the fetus is a "fountain of life." The fetus "swims" in an all-encompassing environment of water. In Hebrew, the word alef-mem, "mother," also means "womb." Its essential consonant is the letter mem. In most languages mem is the basic sound of "mother" (mom).

Throughout Jewish midrash, the mem is associated with the belly, and particularly pregnancy. In The Bahir (one of the most important texts in Jewish mysticism), we read, "What is the closed Mem? It is made like a belly from above. . . Just like the male cannot give  birth, so the closed Mem cannot give birth. And just like the female has an opening with which to give birth, so can the open Mem give birth."

There are two forms of the mem, an open mem (used anywhere in a word) and a closed mem, used only at the very end of a word. Isaiah 9:6, which is a passage speaking of Messiah, has the only case throughout the Tanakh of a closed-mem being used anywhere but at the end of a word. The sages tell us that the closed-mem in Isaiah 9:6 is not an accident, but is to be placed in every legitimate scroll. Since the mem is a symbol of the womb, throughout Jewish midrashim, and a closed-mem signifies a womb whose female mem-brane has not been opened, the bizarre appearance of a closed-mem, a virgin womb, in a verse speaking of Messiah, is very telling. Rabbi Ginsburgh states in his work on Hebrew letter symbolism that, "The closed mem [symbolizes] the arrival of Mashiach."

Since the mem represents the womb, and is prominent in the word for "water" which begins and ends with a mem, it doesn't seem outrageous to think of Moses' rod turning the mayim "water" to blood as a veiled warning about the fact that the wombs of the Egyptians are going to be turned to blood (the death of the firstborn).

Isaiah 11:1 says that a "shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse." The "stump" of Jesse refers to the royal line which went through David. That line appeared to be cut off and dead after the captivities. But Isaiah prophesies that even though the Davidic-line, which originated through Jesse, appears to be dead, Messiah will in fact rise from that apparently dead stump, that dead royal-line.

Rashi and all the interpreters are clear that this "shoot" or "branch" (as the same verse later calls it) signifies Messiah (which is also signified in Isaiah 53:1). Rashi says the "shoot" is symbolic of the royal-scepter of God: Messiah is God's royal-scepter. Later in the same chapter, verse 4, Isaiah says that this royal scepter, "will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth."  Moses took the rod of God, and placed its mouth on the sea and it turned to blood? He struck the earth with the mouth of the rod of God. Isaiah is drawing an unmistakable parallel between Messiah, and the rod of Moses.

Since God implied to Moses that Moses' rod would be proof to Israel that Moses had seen God, i.e., seeing this scepter/branch of God is seeing the Presence of God (Exodus 4:5), and since Isaiah (throughout his prophesy) draws undeniable parallels between the branch that is Messiah, and the branch that is Moses' rod, which (Moses' rod) Isaiah has seen personally prior to its destruction at the hands of Hezekiah, we have the prophet Isaiah, who symbolically proclaims a virgin birth for Messiah (a branch out of "dry" un-ploughed and unfertilized soil), also claiming that seeing this virgin Branch is, as in the case of Moses' rod, seeing God Himself.

Isaiah grew up seeing this icon many times. And we can imagine the force this icon would have had for his heated religious imagination. Particularly if it was indeed the original rod of Moses with a brass seraph attached to it. It would have been an amazing thing to see. -----Isaiah seems to have unraveled elements of the symbolism contained in Moses' rod that had not been fully understood by the rest of Israel. He uses Moses' rod as a symbol of the Messianic-Branch. And since we know that Moses' rod budded, we have a clear picture of what Isaiah is getting on about when he speaks of a sprout (basal-shoot) growing out of a stump asexually.

But Moses' rod is more than a stump.

Throughout his prophesy Isaiah keeps coming back to the concept of a branch, or rod, being lifted up on a mountain, as something like a military banner, to which not just Israel, but even the Gentile nations will come running (11:10). In probably the most symbol rich verse in the entire book of Isaiah, 25:7-8, Isaiah seems to be trying to key us in to exactly where he’s going concerning this military banner, or rod, which will draw the whole world to Jerusalem. Isaiah 25:7 appears to be the key to Isaiah's entire prophesy.

Adam, much like the Messianic arm of the Lord found at Isaiah 53, is said to come from "dry ground." In Genesis 1:9, the female waters are pulled back to reveal "dry ground." Adam is born from that apar, dust, or dry powder, of the earth. The Zoharic sages (Be-Reshit 1:18a) equate the "Let it appear" (i.e. dry ground) of Genesis 1:9, with "I saw YHVH," of Isaiah 6:1, "They saw the God of Israel," of Exodus 24:10, and "The Presence of YHVH appeared," Numbers 14:10. The sages of the Zohar draw a direct reference from the revelation of "dry ground" at Genesis 1:9, to the appearance of Hashem. Hashem will appear from "dry ground," i.e., when the female waters are pulled back to reveal dry ground beneath.

This is not talking about some magical or purely spiritual event taking place at the virgin birth of Hashem. This is talking about the "Let it appear" as an implication that it has always been there waiting to be revealed. Which is to say that if we knew enough about biology, we would see that something inherent to our biology, something innate, presupposed that eventually this hidden element of the biological process would "appear."

. . . the revealed world is unified below, and this revealed world is the world of let it appear! (Genesis 1:9). I saw YHVH (Isaiah 6:1). They saw the God of Israel (Exodus 24:19). The presence of YHVH appeared (Numbers 14:10). The presence of YHVH appeared (Ibid. 17:7). Like the appearance of the bow in the cloud on a rainy day, so was the appearance of the surrounding radiance ---the appearance of the image of the presence of YHVH (Ezekiel 1:28). This is the mystery of: Let the dry land appear! (Genesis 1:9).

The Zohar, Be-Reshit 1:18a.

God places a "firmament" between the upper male waters, and the lower female waters (so they can’t mix). Thus, there’s no “rain” until after the firmament comes crashing to earth causing the universal flood (symbolizing the angelic-infiltration of the female seed mythologized in Genesis 6). Prior to that, the ground is watered by the female waters which come up from the earth as dew. The Zoharic sages interpret the pulling back of the female waters to reveal the dry earth beneath as figurative of the hymen being pulled away to reveal Hashem.

God establishes a boundary so that the male waters can’t impregnate the female waters during the formation of the prelapse earth.  Likewise, God establishes the hymenal membrane on the male and the female as a biological form of the firmament, or boundary, separating the male seed and the female seed in the conception of Messiah (The Zohar, Be-Reshit 1:32b). When Moses speaks of consecrating the firstborn who “opens the womb” he speaking of a firstborn whose conception is sanctified by the intact nature of the boundary God establishes between the upper male water and the lower female water in the conception of the sacred earth; a boundary that’s destroyed by the angelic infiltration of the seed of the woman.

The dry land appears after the male waters, symbolizing male seed, are held back by the firmament. Subsequently the female waters are pulled away to reveal the dry land beneath them. The Zohar makes the revelation of dry land a revelation of Hashem, YHVH's appearance. The Zoharic sages are aware that God divides the upper male waters from the lower female waters by placing a boundary between them. They therefore surmise that the revelation of "dry land" beneath the female waters must signify that the "dry land" appears in a case where the male seed (upper waters) is blocked, and the female waters are pulled back to reveal something that was already there beneath them.

Messiah comes from the dry earth. He’s watered by the lower female waters, Mary's womb, and not from the rain, which has been blocked by the firmament represented by an intact hymen. When Messiah is born, the female waters of Mary's womb are parted to reveal the root from the dry earth, a root revealed when the female waters of Mary's womb (which watered Messiah's fetal growth) are pulled back to reveal the root from the dry earth: this is the mystery of Let dry earth appear when the female waters are pulled back.

In the midrashim, the placing of the firmament is imagined as the separation of the male and female waters. It's like when Eve was pulled from Adam, and male and female were separated. But then God places a "firmament" or barrier between the male waters (reproductive seed) and the female (seed). . . The "firmament" or barrier, is a barrier to mixing the seed of male and female, which (the mixing of male and female seed), for reasons hidden deep in the text, is considered profane, and the source of original sin.

When Samael copulates with Eve, it's the genesis of original sin. The "firmament" or barrier has been transgressed by the rebellious angels, and mixing of the sexes takes place between Samael and Eve, and then between Adam and Eve. . . . But Adam was born not of a mixing of male and female seed, since the waters are separated and a barrier or "firmament" is placed between them at the time of his birth from "dry ground". Adam is born when the female waters, the hymen, are pulled back, not by the male organ on the other side of the barrier, or firmament, but by the hand of God beneath the waters. Adam is virgin born while Cain is born of meiotic sexual coupling of male and female seed.

After the fall, Adam and Eve are promised they’ll be redeemed by the "seed of the woman," i.e., a second Adam, who, like the first, will be born when the hand of God passes through the hymen at birth, since it (the hymen) hasn't be transgressed by the demonic male seed-spreader prior to birth. The Zoharic sages are extremely agitated, in a good way, by the parallel between the appearance of dry land beneath the female waters, and the revelation of Hashem, His appearance. . . The Christians imagine the strangely apropos picture of Jesus' hand, or even the nail in his hand, piercing the female mem-brane, at birth. The hand, or nail, or both, separates the waters, which in a profane pregnancy, a sexual one, is separated by the serpent that was cut off, or down, or down to size, as a stump, a dead rod, or root, in the birth of Jesus of Bethlehem.

If this Jew from the line of Judah is born of a virgin pregnancy, so that the seed of Hashem, hidden in human biology, was there beneath the female waters (the seed of the woman) from the very start (though hidden from all creatures, human  and angelic, until the birth of Hashem), then there’s nothing wrong with suggesting that we use the birth of Hashem as the revelation through which we look back at practices like circumcision, and laws such as the one that says Jewish identity comes only through the womb, and make sense of them as clues that Hashem's birth was in fact not an event unplanned or unprepared for, but that God had presupposed it all along, and even set up clues which, although impossible to decipher in real time, would shine backwards as a beacon to the fact that Hashem's birth to a virgin mother actually fulfilled things hidden in the prophets, Jewish ritual and practice.

The existence of the Jewish race makes the prophesy inevitable so that we can look at each and every element of the Jewish epoch up to the birth of Hashem and see that God had not only preplanned the virgin birth of Hashem, but has put unleavened bread crumbs along the path of the Torah, so that once He was born, it was possible to trace these crumbs all the way back to the very Genesis, and see that not only had God preplanned the whole thing, but that He kept it hidden until the birth of Hashem, so that all the mysteries and glories of the divine plan are hidden in Him and His birth.