articlesforchristians

ARA (The Altar)

Consuming Fire Prepared for His Enemies.

Here we have an altar or burning pyre, placed significantly and ominously upside down! with its fires burning and pointing downwards towards the lower regions, called Tartarus, or the abyss, or “outer-darkness.”

It is an asterism with nine stars, of which three are of the 3rd magnitude, four of the 4th, etc. It is south of the Scorpion’s tail, and when these constellations were first formed it was visible only on the very lowest horizon of the south, pointing to the completion of all judgment in the lake of fire.

In the Zodiac of Denderah we have a different picture, giving us another aspect of the same judgment. It is a man enthroned, with a flail in his hand. His name is Bau, the same name as Hercules has, and means He cometh. It is from the Hebrew בּוֹא (Bōh), to come, as in Isa. lxiii. 1:

The completion of judgment, therefore, is what is pictured both by the burning pyre and the Coming One enthroned, with his threshing instrument.

In Arabic it is called Al Mugamra, which means the completing, or finishing. The Greeks used the word Ara sometimes in the sense of praying, but more frequently in the sense of imprecation or cursing.

This is the curse pronounced against the great enemy. This is the burning fire, pointing to the completion of that curse, when he shall be cast into that everlasting fire “prepared for the devil and his angels.” This is the allusion to it written in the midst of the very Scripture from which we have already quoted, Ps. xxi., where we read in verse 9 (which we then omitted): —