ELTB CC 24-25
The lizard is cold blooded. His body doesn’t generate heat, but his body is the temperature of the environment. In the cold, Lizards try to find a place to not freeze, and wait for warmer weather. Then they slowly walk to a sunny rock and sit there, almost like they were dead, warming up in the sunlight and from the heat of the rock. When they are warm, they can run quickly to chase bugs and other lizards.
While they are still cold, sometimes insects will pass them on the rock and they don’t even try to eat. Adam named the lizard ‘death of wanting’, like the lizard just didn't want to do anything. It must have been a cold day that day.
The lizard represents those whose desire for God has become dead. They don’t even want or try to know him.
Sometimes people get hurt so much they just don’t care about anything. They may know that God loves them and whispers to them, but the hurt is so much his voice gets drowned out by their own voice in their head screaming.
God says at times like this, “Be still, and know that I am God.” [1]
lizard leta’ah לטאה - myrrh [death] לט of yearning אה
The next critter on the list is difficult to discern. The word chomet חמט only occurs one tme in the Bible. So the translators had to guess what it meant. Some say it is a snail, and others say a kind of lizard.
Reason with me and you decide. Here is the evidence for a snail.
- 1. It isn't on the list anywhere else and we already have lizard.
- 2. Chomet might mean 'understanding ח from מ doctrine ט, but I can't think of how that would be something we wouldn't want to learn.
Evidence for chomet being a lizard:
- 1. Though we already have lizard on the list, the chameleon is a type of lizard, so the chomet might be another type of lizard.
- 2. Chomet might mean 'hot חמ teaching ט.' If Adam saw a chomets on a rock and then scurry off as if on tip toes, it might look like he learned from the hot rock and maybe burned his toes.
- 3. Chometahחמטה means 'place of lizards.'
I think it is a lizard. If so, then it would represent those who have to learn the hard way. We can learn not to touch the stove the easy way; by listening to mom, or we can learn the hard way, by touching it and burning a finger.
Since mom and God love us, they want us to learn the easy way.
- snail chomet חמט - undersanding ח [separated] from מ the doctrine [marriage] ט
- a type of lizard chomet חמט - 'hot' חמ teaching ט
Adam saw the path of the mole tunneling underground as the dirt pushed up in a trail. When they dig, they have to put the dirt somewhere. It gets pushed above ground but remains a tunnel. Maybe Adam never saw the mole at all, since it was always under the dirt. Adam never saw what the mole did. It never built anything he could see. It never danced for him as others did. It didn't fly.
The mole represents those who have died desolate, or unfruitful. Some authors have written good books that never get read, some have bad books that never get read. The mole is suggestive of dead authors who never changed anyone's life; they were unfruitful. They died 'desolate'.
There are many books and videos. Much of it is not useful for anything. They just waste our time. We should avoid moles so that we too do not die desolate.
- mole tanshemeth תנשׁמת - final ת breath נשׁמת or the desolate ones
