Death Descending Passage and Pit
All go
unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again. Michael Nekora Nearly all the pyramids in Egypt were built as tombs for powerful Egyptian pharaohs. The entrance was always on the north face, probably because a stationary north star provided a fixed reference point in the night sky to align the descending passageway as it was being constructed. This indirectly provides a way to date a pyramid’s construction since astronomers can calculate when a north star would shine down a passage descending at a given angle. 1 In the case of the Great Pyramid this same north star could also be used to align the upward passage which has the same angle of ascent. Some theorize that the builders used a flat, mirror-like surface—perhaps liquid mercury in a pan—at the intersection of the Descending Passage and the Ascending Passage and reflected the light of the stationary north star upwards. That technique would allow them to maintain perfect alignment of the passage as construction continued year after year. The only entrance to the Great Pyramid was about fifty feet above the base and about twenty-four feet east of the center line. It was cleverly concealed. The knowledge of how to find it was probably lost with the death of the builders and their immediate successors. This changed in 820 A.D. when Abd-Allah Al-Mamoun, a caliph from Baghdad, believing that this great monument contained a cache of secret treasure and learning, assembled a team of men to force their way in. They began much too low and on the center line. The work was extremely difficult. Although limestone may be softer than granite, this limestone was stronger than their hammers and chisels. Al-Mamoun’s solution was to heat a section with fire then, when it was red hot, throw cold vinegar on it to make it crack. These “safe crackers” could have tunneled completely through the pyramid and come up empty handed were it not for a fortuitous accident. A worker heard the sound of something heavy falling somewhere within the pyramid. They changed the direction of the bore and eventually intersected the Descending Passage. The heavy “something” that fell was a stone covering the granite plug. This revealed the location of a secret passage. Unable to attack the granite as they had the limestone, the boring team simply attacked the limestone on one side of the plug. To this day anyone visiting the interior of the Great Pyramid enters the Descending Passage via Al-Mamoun’s forced entrance, and gets to the upper passages and rooms by climbing around the granite plug, following the same path as those who did it nearly twelve hundred years ago. Al-Mamoun’s men must have been keenly disappointed for they found absolutely nothing in the Great Pyramid. And there was no sign that others had beaten them to a treasure. This huge structure did contain a cache of secret learning, but Al-Mamoun never benefitted from it. The Passage In other Egyptian pyramids the single passage descends from an entrance to a subterranean pit. Such would seem to be the case with this pyramid as well. The long, steep Descending Passage drops from a high elevation to a pit nearly 120 feet below ground level. There is apparently nothing else; there is no escape. This is an apt metaphor for the human race.
Our first parents were created perfect. They entered life at a high level and
could have continued to live at that level indefinitely if they had simply
followed the rules. But they disobeyed and began to die. Abel’s death was
the first recorded in Scripture (Genesis 4:8). Some individuals lived for
centuries, others did not. But whether life spans were long or short, all were
condemned to death and there was no escape. “As in Adam all die” (1
Corinthians 15:22).
The
subterranean pit has reasonably smooth, finished walls and ceiling, but the
floor is uneven and completely unfinished. There is a hole in the center of the
floor which was twelve feet deep in 1838. An English explorer at that time dug
it deeper in a vain attempt to find something more. Also unexpected is
a fifty-three-foot long low passage leading from the south wall to a dead
end. In
all the Egyptian pyramids an underground crypt is associated with death. The unfinished
floor with its hole is probably meant to signify a bottomless pit. “There are
three things that are never satisfied, yea, four things say not, It is enough:
the grave; and the barren womb; the earth that is not filled with water;
and the fire that saith not, It is enough” (Proverbs 30:15,16). The
low passage from the pit leads nowhere, certainly not to life. It brings no air
in from the outside as do tubes in the King’s Chamber. So the symbolism
continues to be associated with death. In
Christ’s kingdom when the world of mankind will be resurrected, life will still
be conditional. The general rule that “the soul that sinneth it shall die”
(Ezekiel 18:4) is God’s rule for all eternity. The
Bible calls death in the kingdom the “second death.” Those who are united with
Christ to bring blessings to the earth will never die, but there is no such
guarantee for those on earth. “Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the
first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be
priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years”
(Revelation 20:6). “He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death”
(Revelation 2:11). Thus the small passageway extending south from the Pit aptly pictures the second death during the time of Christ’s kingdom. Come Up Higher A descending passage and a pit are all that can be found in most every other pyramid and such it appears in this one as well. But appearances are deceiving. There are grander things in store for those who seek them in the Great Pyramid, things at much higher levels. “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8,9). Like the experience of the two witnesses described in Revelation 11:12, a voice calls “come up higher.” The next article explains how we can do that without forcing our way around the granite plug as a previous intruder did. “He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber” (John 10:1). __________________ 1. Due to the precession of the earth's axis, similar to that of a spinning top, the north celestial pole seems to inscribe a cone in the heavens requiring exactly 25,800 years for one cycle.
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