Dolphins

In the dream I was crossing a bridge with my children and other people. It was a bridge called Pont Victoria near my home. It's not one people typically walk over (or I don't anyway) but I've driven over it countless times.

In the dream, as I was walking, I could see over the side into the water and there was this amazing school of dolphins swimming swiftly in the same direction we were going in. When I say these dolphins were excited, that's an understatement. I could feel their joy, happiness, and excitement for us to be walking across the bridge and to be beside us. They were doing jumps in the air.

The dolphins were a beautiful shade of blue that reminded me of a clear sky. I couldn't stop marveling at how beautiful they were, they glistened as if lit from a light that came from within and came out of all of them. They didn't have regular skin, there was something unearthly about them in their perfection and form. They all expressed an overjoyed anticipation that they had as they swam quickly and did their leaps from the water back into the water together.

There was one dolphin in the end of the dream who leapt higher than all of the rest, so high it was completely vertical and many feet in the air. This dolphin stood out from the rest.

When I woke up I was dumbfounded. Dolphins?

I searched "dolphins in the bible" and found the animal was a symbol long used in early Christian art to represent Christ.

What remains in my heart from the dream was the excitement, joy, and anticipation in the dolphins as they swam quickly alongside us who walked across the bridge. It was an overwhelming joy as we traversed. It reminded me of the joy of children on their way to a vacation destination. Overflowing happiness and anticipation. They were cheering us who walked and accompanying us as we walked.

I kept researching, sure that there were no instances of dolphins in the Bible until I read Exodus 26:14 which describes God instructing the children of Israel to use a certain type of mammal skin to make a cover for the traveling tabernacle, the mishkan.

“You are to make a cover for the tent of ram skins dyed red and a covering of dolphin skins above that." Exodus 26:14 ISV

The word for the animal skin is: תַּ֫חַשׁ (tachash) which in many english translations is translated to badger, sheepskin, or fine leather, but in Jewish tradition and one english translation, it is often translated to dolphin.

The belief is that dolphins were washed up on shore after the children of Israel made it through the Red Sea and it was their skin that was used to form the covering for the mishakan/tabernacle.

I read this commentary on the journey out of Egypt and through the Red Sea by Marc Gellman. "When our ancestors, the children of Israel, escaped from Egypt, they found the dolphins of the Red Sea waiting for them, chirping their happy dolphin-chirping sounds and splashing the blue waters of the Red Sea with their flat tails."

What is so astounding to me is that while this is not scripture, the description of the dolphins is exactly like in my dream. The joy. The excitement and splashing.

How dolphins became to be a symbol for Christ, I do not know. But if it was indeed dolphin skin that was used as the outer-covering for the first tabernacle, the place God used to dwell amongst His people in the desert, the connection to Christ being God amongst us and those who carry His name being temples clothed in His garment on this Earth is profound.

It reminds me of the verse that says, "Clothe yourself with Christ." Romans 13:14

I keep feeling the joy I saw as those dolphins swam at breathtaking pace next to us, jumping, happy, excited.

The following verses came to mind.

"For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words."

1 Thessalonians 4:16-18

I do believe that the time is coming soon when followers of Yeshua will be taken like in "twinkling of an eye." I do believe there is much excitement in heaven, even though the only one who knows the time and date is God.

It's my fervent hope that anyone who wants to know Jesus as their Lord does so.

It's never been complicated.

"If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved." Romans 10:9

That's His promise. I hope you will today. I hope to see you there.

love, Bunmi