The Red (Sea) Zoan

We are told in Psalm 78 of our Holy Bible that the miraculous escape of the Hebrew nation of Israel from Egypt took place in the Field of Zoan, this city being the one-time capital of Egypt. Zoan is mentioned twice in Isaiah, chapter 30, firstly as the place where the princes of the land resided.

Starting from verse one of this chapter in the Moffatt version, we read “O self-willed sons, says the Eternal, bent on no plan of mine, weaving a treaty that I never sanctioned, and adding sin to sin; who move away to Egypt without consulting me, to shelter beside the Pharaoh and get Egypt to protect them!

Here we have a neat encapsulation of our current Brexit conundrum. For the deal that our Prime minister Boris Johnson has concluded with the European Union, is in fact a treaty that still keeps us bound to the iniquitous European monolith. Is indeed a deal that the Lord God of Israel has not sanctioned, and which will be a source of shame if enacted and ratified? However, events have taken another twist as the subservient and treacherous House of Commons (Parliament) has not agreed that this Bill should be scrutinised in just 3 days as the Government requested. Which means that Boris Johnson has had to go back on his word and request yet another extension from the EU Commission in Brussels, Thus the deal was stopped in its tracks and as a result a General Election was called, to, it is hoped, finally resolve this issue. This at first sight appeared to be another hammer blow to Brexit, but as Nigel Farage of the Brexit Party has stated, this deal was Brexit In Name Only. And so, the saga continues.

In the 2018 Autumn/Winter edition of our South-West Beacon, as it was then, I speculated that the whole Brexit process would not conclude until about October 2020, and perhaps this is so. In any event, there are still many tricks and turns in store before then. The year 2020 is of course 80 years (2 times 40) from the deliverance of British forces from Dunkirk at the start of World War 2. And this just after the appointment of Winston Churchill as British Prime Minister, a man almost continuously vilified over the previous two decades, for being “out of touch” with the received political wisdom! Is our new leader waiting in the wings to save us? Only the Lord knows.

The chapter Isaiah 30 continues – “It is a race rebellious” referring to Israel, “a faithless brood, children who will not listen to any of the Eternal’s Laws, who would have only smooth things told them. “The Lord, the Eternal, Israel’s Majesty, he has declared, Your safety lies in ceasing to make leagues, your strength is quiet faith”. In other words, we must depend upon the Lord and not trust in the devices of others. Therefore, shall we soon see the end of these pernicious agreements which are mostly to our detriment and where a phalanx of hostile, alien monstrosities has legal hold over us in their unaccountable foreign courts?

According to the Book of Jasher, chapter 81, the Israelites were camped on the shore of the Red Sea in an almost invidious situation and were divided into 4 divisions. The first were resolved to cast themselves into the sea for they were afraid of the Egyptians, the second resolved to go back to Egypt with the Egyptians, the third said that they would fight with the Egyptians, this group included Joseph and the fourth resolved to go into the midst of the Egyptians, to confound them. In every instance Moses counselled that they should not fear, for the Lord would fight this battle for them and be victorious.

Let us then escape across our Red Sea. Which may equate to what John Keats called “the red-lined account books” where the red lines of economic perversion speak of blood, or in this case the lifeblood of our nation; its economy held in subjection to squatting parasites, in any case we are most certainly in the Red Zone of running on empty. And this is when the Lord lifts up His Hand, when we realise that we have no help but in Him.

We should have understood by now, that if we serve the Lord, very little shall suffice our needs, but if we serve other gods, the greatest largesse will never be enough. Let us then advance away from spiritual Egypt and Babylon and towards the everlasting arms of the Eternal, Our God.