Daily Tidbits 2/12 – Abraham Lincoln

On this date, 2/12/1809, Abraham Lincoln was born. Abraham Lincoln has become an iconic figure for Americans but his life was that of all mortal men. One of faith and doubt, righteousness and wickedness. The purpose of this tidbit is to share, in a small way, how the Father raised up this man to a position of leadership to end slavery (which is a picture of Messiah – John 8:36) and restore the Union (a picture of the two houses of Israel coming back together in Messiah John 10:16).

The predominating theme of Lincoln’s life and Presidency was the Civil War and the Emancipation Proclamation ending slavery in America.

Much has been written about Lincoln and his beliefs but his fruits display a picture of a man who believed in God from youth but did not come to know Him until his son Willie died and the giving of the Gettysburg address.

The story of Lincoln’s life is portrayed in the meaning of his name. Abraham means the ‘father of a multitude’ (Genesis 17:5). Lincoln has multiple meanings.

Lincoln traces back to a Brythonic word ‘lindo’ meaning a lake or pool which traces has the same meaning as the English word ‘linden’ speaking of a tree by rivers of waters. Lincoln also links back to the Latin word ‘colonia’ from whence comes the English word ‘colony.’

The (linden) tree by the rivers of waters is a picture of the tree of life:
Psa 1:2 But his delight is only in the Law of YHWH, and he meditates in His Law day and night.
Psa 1:3 And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivulets of waters, which will give its fruit in its seasons, and its leaf will not wither, and all which he does will prosper.
Rev 22:2 In the midst of its street and of the river, from here and from there, was a tree of life producing twelve fruits: according to one month each yielding its fruit. And the leaves of the tree were for healing of the nations.
Rev 22:3 And every curse will no longer be. And the throne of God and the Lamb will be in it; and His slaves will serve Him.

Papyrus sheets were glued together to form scrolls in ancient times from tree bark such as lime (Latin liber).

Lime is an altered form of Middle English lind, in the 16th century also line, from Old English feminine lind or linde, Proto-Germanic *lendā, cognate to Latin lentus “flexible” and Sanskrit latā “liana”. Within Germanic languages, English lithe, German lind “lenient, yielding” are from the same root.

Linden was originally the adjective, “made from lime-wood” (equivalent to “wooden”), from the late 16th century “linden” was also used as a noun, probably influenced by translations of German romance, as an adoption of Linden, the plural of German Linde. Neither the name nor the tree is related to the citrus fruit called “lime” (Citrus aurantifolia, family Rutaceae).

The Linden tree in Scripture:

The following passage of Scripture is speaking of the remnant of Yisrael, the olive tree who are in the image and likeness of Messiah.

Isa 6:13 But yet in it shall be a tenth, and it shall return, and shall be eaten: as a teil tree (אלה ‘elah’ linden), and as an oak, whose substance is in them, when they cast their leaves: so the holy seed shall be the substance thereof.

Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

teil tree: The teil-tree is the linden or lime-tree, a species very common in Palestine; the leaf of which resembles that of the laurel, and its flower that of the olive. But the original ailah which our translators render the oak (but here distinguished from allon the oak)

Keil & Delitszch speak of the linen and oak as ‘fitting symbols of Israel, on account of their peculiar facility for springing up again from the root (like the beech and nut, for example), even when they had been completely felled.’

The root-stump was the remnant that had survived the judgment, and this remnant would become a seed, out of which a new Israel would spring up after the old had been destroyed (Matthew 3:10). Thus in a few weighty words is the way sketched out, which God would henceforth take with His people. The passage contains an outline of the history of Israel to the end of time. Israel as a nation was indestructible, by virtue of the promise of God; but the mass of the people were doomed to destruction through the judicial sentence of God, and only a remnant, which would be converted, would perpetuate the nationality of Israel, and inherit the glorious future. This law of a blessing sunk in the depths of the curse actually inflicted, still prevails in the history of the Jews. The way of salvation is open to all. Individuals find it, and give us a presentiment of what might be and is to be; but the great mass are hopelessly lost, and only when they have been swept away will a holy seed, saved by the covenant-keeping God, grow up into a new and holy Israel, which, according to Isa_27:6, will fill the earth with its fruits, or, as the apostle expresses it in Rom_11:12, become “the riches of the Gentiles.”

The word for teil tree/linden tree in Hebrew is אלה ‘elah’ which comes from the root אל ‘el’ which is commonly translated as God.

The Scrolls were held together by lime/linden trees. This is seen in creation as well. It is Messiah who is holding all things together (Colossians 1:17).

Col 1:17 And He is before all things, and all things have subsisted (G4921 συνέστηκε) in Him.

Liber
In Latin Liber means a book, bark of a tree, treatise, letter from Latin, in original sense: tree bark]

Liber is also a rare name for phloem

Phloem is a tissue in vascular plants that conducts food from the leaves and other photosynthetic tissues to other plant parts.

In vascular plants, phloem is the living tissue that carries organic nutrients (known as photosynthate), particularly sucrose, a sugar, to all parts of the plant where needed. In trees, the phloem is the innermost layer of the bark, hence the name, derived from the Greek word φλόος (phloos) “bark”. The phloem is concerned mainly with the transport of soluble organic material made during photosynthesis. This is called translocation.

Interestingly, when looking at the cross section of a tree from the the tilia genus (such as the linden tree mentioned above), it is seen that it is divided into 7 sections…just like the Menorah

The Menorah = the Word = the Tree of Life = the Olive Tree = the Body of Messiah…

Click picture for more details on how the Scriptures are in the form of a Menorah…

The other word from whence Lincoln derives is ‘colonia.’ The English word ‘colony’ traces back to this Latin word ‘colonia’ which traces back further to the Hebrew word גלגל ‘galgal’ which literally means a wheel but also has the meaning of a boundary around a parcel of land, hence a ‘colony.’
This word has an amazing connection to the Word. גלגל has the numerical equivalent of 66, which is how many books are in the Bible. The Menorah, which is a picture of His body is divided into 66.

Exo 25:33 three almond like calyxes on the one branch with knob and blossom; and three almond like calyxes on the one branch with knob and blossom, so for the six branches, those going out from the lampstand.

The following is from Richard McGough’s work on the Bible Wheel.
3×6+4=22…corresponding to the 22 Hebrew letters.

Each side branch has three sets of three items – three bowls, each with a “knop” and a “flower.” The central branch has four sets of the same three items. Thus, the numerical arrangement of these decorations follow a symmetric pattern on the seven branches:

9 + 9 + 9 + 12 + 9 + 9 + 9

The number of these “decorations” sums to 66, the number of books in the Bible. Furthermore, the sum subdivides into the sum of the first four (9 + 9 + 9 + 9 + 12 = 39) and the last three (9 + 9 + 9 = 27) to give the number of books in the Old and New Testaments. Putting it all together, we see that the Bible and the Menorah have a large set of structural numbers in common:

7 Branches [Canonical Divisions] symmetrically displayed
3 Branches [Canonical Divisions] are paired, with one set apart.
22 Bowls [Hebrew Letters]
66 Decorations [Books] that subdivide into groups of 39 and 27

The divine integration is astounding. The Number 22 – the Number that unites the entire body of Scripture – is also the value of the fundamental Hebrew word (Yachad, Unite) used in Psalm 86, Yet there is more, the phrase “unite my heart” is numerically equivalent for the Hebrew

word for the Wheel, Gilgal. We have a pair of identities:

Unite My Heart!

Yached Levavi

= 66 =

(Galgal, Wheel)

The triliteral root common to the two words rolled and Gilgal is galal () which expresses the idea of something round, circular, or rolling. It is the root of the word Galilee, the region of the Lord’s earthly ministry, so called because it consisted of a circuit (galeel ) of cities on the furthest outreaches of the Israeli kingdom. This root also gives rise to megillah () denoting a scroll, or roll of a book. The prophet Zechariah used this word when he wrote, “Then I turned, and lifted up mine eyes, and looked, and behold a flying roll ().” Likewise, it is used in Psalm 40, the prophetic Psalm of the Lord’s first advent, where we read: “Then said I, Lo, I come: in the volume () of the book it is written of me, I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart.”

All of these ideas come together in the meaning of the root (Galah, S# H1540) which is various translated as uncovered, discovered, opened, or revealed. It is used in Isaiah 53.1 “Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed?” This is the Hebrew root – the root of the word Revelation – that governs the overall structure of Scripture!

The name of the place where the Lord was crucified is the Aramaic³ Gulgoltha () which became Golgotha () in Greek. It arose from galal through the Hebrew word for a skull, gulgoluth (), so called because of its round form.

The name of the place where the Lord was crucified, therefore, differs from the Hebrew word denoting a wheel, galgal (), by the addition of two letters, the Aleph () and the Tav (). These are the first and last letters of the Hebrew alphabet that govern the overall structure of God’s Wheel. They correspond to the Greek Alpha and Omega, by which the Lord God identified himself, saying, “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.”

In the PBS documentary called God in America part 3: A Nation Rebornclick here, the account of the death of Lincoln’s son is said to be the turning point in his life as a believer. Lincoln came to know Messiah and felt that he was raised up to end slavery which was a scourge from the Almighty for the sin of slavery in this country founded by men who believed and wrote in the Declaration of Independence that ‘all men are created equal.’

“It is the duty of nations as well as of men to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, and to confess their sins and transgressions in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon, and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in Holy Scripture, and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord. And, insomuch as we know that by His divine law nations, like individuals, are subjected to punishments and chastisement in this world, may we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war which now desolates the land may be but a punishment inflicted upon us for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole people? We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven; we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity; we have grown in numbers, wealth and power as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which has preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us. It behooves us, then, to humble ourselves before the offended power, to confess our national sins and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.” {Abraham Lincoln 3/30/1863}

Lincoln said regarding the framers of the Declaration of Independence: “These communities, by their representatives in old Independence Hall, said to the whole world of men: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” This was their majestic interpretation of the economy of the Universe. This was their lofty, and wise, and noble understanding of the justice of the Creator to His creatures. Yes, gentlemen, to all His creatures, to the whole great family of man. In their enlightened belief, nothing stamped with the Divine image and likeness was sent into the world to be trodden on, and degraded, and imbruted by its fellows. They grasped not only the whole race of man then living, but they reached forward and seized upon the farthest posterity. They erected a beacon to guide their children and their children’s children, and the countless myriads who should inhabit the earth in other ages. Wise statesmen as they were, they knew the tendency of prosperity to breed tyrants, and so they established these great self-evident truths, that when in the distant future some man, some faction, some interest, should set up the doctrine that none but rich men, or none but white men, were entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, their posterity might look up again to the Declaration of Independence and take courage to renew the battle which their fathers began — so that truth, and justice, and mercy, and all the humane and Christian virtues might not be extinguished from the land; so that no man would hereafter dare to limit and circumscribe the great principles on which the temple of liberty was being built.” {Speech at Lewistown, Illinois, on August 17, 1858}

YHWH used Lincoln to renew America’s determination to trust and follow Him (Proverbs 21:1).
“And having thus chosen our course, without guile, and with pure purpose, let us renew our trust in God, and go forward without fear, and with manly hearts.” {Message to Congress in Special Session on July 4, 1861}

In September 1864, Lincoln, placing the Civil War squarely within a divine province, wrote in a letter to a member of the Society of Friends, “The purposes of the Almighty are perfect, and must prevail, though we erring mortals may fail accurately to perceive them in advance. We hoped for a happy termination of this terrible war long before this; but God knows best, and has ruled otherwise…we must work earnestly in the best light He gives us, trusting that so working still conduces to the great ends He ordains. Surely He intends some great good to follow this mighty convulsion, which no mortal could make, and no mortal could stay.”

Thanksgiving was proclaimed as a national holiday after the north and south came back together as one nation. The Scriptures speak of the northern tribes and the southern tribes coming back together as a time of Thanksgiving as well.

Jer 30:18 So says YHWH, Behold I will turn the captivity of Jacob’s tents and will have mercy on his dwelling places. And the city shall be built on her ruin heap; and the fortress shall remain on its own ordinance.
Jer 30:19 And out of them shall come thanksgiving and the voice of those who are merry. And I will multiply them, and they shall not be few. I also will honor them, and they shall not be small.
Isa 51:3 For YHWH comforts Zion. He comforts all her desolations, and He makes her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of YHWH; joy and gladness shall be found in it, thanksgiving and the voice of singing praise.

“No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.

It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and voice by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union.
In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.”

Done at the city of Washington, this third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the independence of the United States the eighty-eighth.” {Proclamation of President Abraham Lincoln for a National Day of Thanksgiving October 3, 1863}

Lincoln proclaimed March 30th of 1863 to be a National Day of Prayer for the preservation of the union and repentance of the people to YHWH Almighty:

“all people abstain on that day from their ordinary secular pursuits and unite…in keeping the day holy to the Lord.”

“A Proclamation.

Whereas, the Senate of the United States, devoutly recognizing the Supreme Authority and just Government of Almighty God, in all the affairs of men and of nations, has, by a resolution, requested the President to designate and set apart a day for National prayer and humiliation.

And whereas it is the duty of nations as well as of men, to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions, in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon; and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord.

And, insomuch as we know that, by His divine law, nations like individuals are subjected to punishments and chastisements in this world, may we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war, which now desolates the land, may be but a punishment, inflicted upon us, for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole People? We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us!

It behooves us then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.

Now, therefore, in compliance with the request, and fully concurring in the views of the Senate, I do, by this my proclamation, designate and set apart Thursday, the 30th. day of April, 1863, as a day of national humiliation, fasting and prayer. And I do hereby request all the People to abstain, on that day, from their ordinary secular pursuits, and to unite, at their several places of public worship and their respective homes, in keeping the day holy to the Lord, and devoted to the humble discharge of the religious duties proper to that solemn occasion.

All this being done, in sincerity and truth, let us then rest humbly in the hope authorized by the Divine teachings, that the united cry of the Nation will be heard on high, and answered with blessings, no less than the pardon of our national sins, and the restoration of our now divided and suffering Country, to its former happy condition of unity and peace. {2 Chronicles 7:14}

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington, this thirtieth day of March, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty seventh.”

The ending of slavery:
http://www.mrlincolnandfreedom.org/inside.asp?ID=39&subjectID=3

The Civil War was a war of contradictions. The South seceded to perpetuate slavery and instead ended up destroying it. North vowed not to interfere with slavery and won sufficient support to kill it. Unlike many abolitionists, President Lincoln understood he couldn’t eliminate slavery without first saving the union. And unlike many conservative Republicans and Democrats, he realized he couldn’t save the union without eliminating slavery. The Emancipation Proclamation was designed to help the Union win the Civil War and thus preserve the Union.

So too with the two houses of Israel, slavery must be ended before the ‘union’ can prevail.
Joh 8:31 Then Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in Him, If you continue in My Word, you are truly My disciples.
Joh 8:32 And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.
Joh 8:33 They answered Him, We are Abraham’s seed, and we have been in slavery to no one, never! How do You say, You will become free?
Joh 8:34 Jesus answered them, Truly, truly, I say to you, Everyone practicing sin is a slave of sin.
Joh 8:35 But the slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains to the age.
Joh 8:36 Therefore, if the Son sets you free, you are free indeed.

Eph 2:14 For He is our peace, He making us both one, and breaking down the middle wall of partition,
Eph 2:15 in His flesh causing to cease the enmity, the Law of the commandments in decrees, that He might in Himself create the two into one new man, making peace,
Eph 2:16 and might reconcile both in one body to God through the cross, slaying the enmity in Himself.
Eph 2:17 And coming, He proclaimed “peace to you, the ones afar off, and to the ones near.” Isa. 57:19
Eph 2:18 For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father.
Eph 2:19 So, then, you are no longer strangers and tenants, but you are fellow citizens of the saints and of the family of God,
Eph 2:20 being built up on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the cornerstone,
Eph 2:21 in whom all the building being fitted together grows into a holy temple in the Lord,
Eph 2:22 in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.

1Co 6:20 You were bought with a price; then glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are of God.

Gettysburg address

“When I left Springfield I asked the people to pray for me. I was not a Christian. When I buried my son, the severest trial of my life, I was not a Christian. But when I went to Gettysburg and saw the graves of thousands of our soldiers, I then and there consecrated myself to Christ. Yes, I do love Jesus.”

General Daniel Sickles asked Lincoln if he was anxious about the battle of Gettysburg which Lincoln replied:

“I went to my room one day, and I locked the door, and got down on my knees before Almighty God, and prayed to Him mightily for victory at Gettysburg.

I told Him that this was His war, and our cause His cause, but we couldn’t stand another Fredericksburg or Chancellorsville. And I then and there made a solemn vow to Almighty God, that if He would stand by you boys at Gettsyburg, I would stand by Him.”

Gettysburg address:

“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Lincoln & the Bible
In 1864, some former slaves in Maryland presented Lincoln with a gift of a Bible. Lincoln replied:

In regard to this great book, I have but to say, it is the best gift God has given to man. All the good the Saviour gave to the world was communicated through this book. But for it we could not know right from wrong. All things most desirable for man’s welfare, here and hereafter, are to be found portrayed in it. {Reply to Loyal Colored People of Baltimore upon Presentation of a Bible on September 7, 1864}

The speeches that Lincoln gave were very Biblical in form. “Lincoln’s rhetoric is, instead, deliberately Biblical. Lincoln had mastered the sound of the King James Bible so completely that he could recast abstract issues of constitutional law in Biblical terms, making the proposition that Texas and New Hampshire should be forever bound by a single post office sound like something right out of Genesis.” {Angels and Ages: Lincoln’s language and its legacy}

2nd Inaugural Speech

“Lincoln presided over the nation’s most terrible crisis. The Civil War began 1 month after he took office and ended 5 days before he died. It was more bitter and protracted than anyone had predicted, costing more than 600,000 lives. In Lincoln’s second inaugural address, delivered just over a month before his death, he spoke about the war as he had come to understand it. The unspeakable savagery that had already lasted 4 years, he believed, was nothing short of God’s own punishment for the sins of human slavery. And with the war not quite over, he offered this terrible pronouncement:

Fondly do we hope—fervently do we pray—that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue, until all the wealth piled by the bond-men’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn by the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord, are true and righteous altogether.”

Psa 19:7 The Law of YHWH is perfect, converting the soul. The Testimony of YHWH is sure, making the simple wise.
Psa 19:8 The precepts of YHWH are right, rejoicing the heart. The commands of YHWH are pure, giving light to the eyes.
Psa 19:9 The fear of YHWH is clean, enduring forever. The judgments of YHWH are true, they are righteous altogether.
Psa 19:10 They are more precious than gold, even much fine gold, and sweeter than honey and drops from the honeycomb.

The crowd was mostly silent throughout Lincoln’s address until halfway through, when African-Americans in the audience began to repeat “Bless the Lord” after each sentence. {Psalm 135:19-20}

Finally, in the speech’s closing, with the immortal words of reconciliation and healing that are carved in the walls of the Lincoln Memorial in the nation’s capital, he set the tone for his plan for the nation’s Reconstruction.

With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.

“Nevertheless, amid the greatest difficulties of my Administration, when I could not see any other resort, I would place my whole reliance on God, knowing that all would go well, and that He would decide for the right.” {Remarks to Baltimore Presbyterian Synod on October 24, 1863}

During Lincoln’s Presidency, the North and South was re-united. This portrays the re-unification of the two houses of Israel and the end of their exile foreshadowed in the birth of Abraham’s son, Isaac. The name Isaac comes from the Hebrew word צחק ‘tsachaq’ which means laughter (Genesis 21:6). This word is linked to the redemption of Israel (Psalm 126:1-2).

Psalm 126:1 A Song of degrees. When the LORD turned again the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream.

Psalm 126:2 Then was our mouth filled with laughter {צחק}, and our tongue with singing: then said they among the heathen, The LORD hath done great things for them.

Ultimately, this is a picture of the two houses of Israel being reunited in Messiah (John 10:16), THE Promised Seed. This was accomplished through the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus.

John 10:14 I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine.

John 10:15 As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father: and I lay down my life for the sheep.

John 10:16 And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd.

John 10:17 Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again.

John 10:18 No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father.

It is interesting to note that men of Lincoln’s day believed that his death was brought about by the hand of God as an atonement for the nation due to the sin of slavery and to finish the restoration of the Union. Lincoln was shot on Good Friday which has been the traditional day to remember the crucifixion of Christ. On the Sunday following Lincoln’s death, ministers from around the country eulogized him, likening his death as shadow picture of Messiah. C.B. Crane, a Hartford preacher stated ‘Jesus Christ died for the world, Abraham Lincoln died for his country.”

Frederick Douglass, former slave and leading abolitionist of the day said:

“It may be the blood of our beloved martyred President will be the salvation of our country. Though Abraham Lincoln dies, the Republic lives.”
As mentioned before, Thanksgiving was proclaimed as a national holiday after the North and South came back together as one nation. The Scriptures speak of the northern tribes of Israel and the southern tribes coming back together as a time of Thanksgiving as well (Jeremiah 30:18-19; Isaiah 51:3).

The Presidents Code – Abraham Lincoln

Thanksgiving Proclamations – Abraham Lincoln