saw Shem, for Shem lived some thirty years after Abraham’s death. Shem, and Melchisedek, and Job, are likely the same person. Certainly, Shem and Melchisedek are the same, and by Egyptian historians called Philitis. This Philitis was the builder of the Great Pyramid. Now Shem saw Methuselah and Methuselah Adam. Thus, then, tradition would be sufficient. As tradition failed, the written Word began. There is little doubt now but that Shem, called also Melchisedek, was the builder of the Pyramid, being instructed of God, as his father Noah had been in building the ark, and as Moses with the tabernacle, and Solomon with the temple, as the prophet in the text and context shows that the wisdom of the man is often the gift of God. See Moses also. “And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying: See, I have called by name Bezaleel, the son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the Tribe of Judah; and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, in wisdom, and in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship: to devise cunning works, to work in gold, and in silver, and in brass, and in cutting of stones, to set them, and in carving of timber, to work in all manner of workmanship. And, behold, I have given him Aholiab, the son of Ahisamach, of the Tribe of Dan; and in the hearts of all that are wise-hearted I have put wisdom that they may make all that I have commanded thee” (Exodus xxxi. 1–6).
Let us look at this building, for it is a special revelation for these times. For this precise and scientific day God has provided. Science and the Bible are interlocked in this building; they agree, they testify for the same God, yet they witness to the same Christ, the Providence and history of His chosen people. This stone book could not be read till now; it even takes the most precise scientific men of the day to read it. For thousands of years there has been no one in the court of the world able to question and interpret this witness of the Lord in Egypt. The scientists have been asking for some
other revelation than the Bible, for the supernatural in a scientific form, for something beyond man, for something all could see, for something that would answer to pure science, for something that could be seen, handled, measured, tested, and amenable to mathematics; something superhuman, for something in which the human and the Divine blend. Thank Heaven, all they ask is granted in this stone monument. Here we have science forecast for thousands of years; here we have the grandest of problems in science solved, and the sublimest phenomena of religion and science crystalised, symbolising and teaching the most marvellous facts in religion, sociology, and astronomy. It is not a tomb, nor granary, nor temple, but a pillar and witness unto the Lord of hosts. Think of a few facts. 1. Its location, the centre of the land surface of the whole earth. Hence the best zero point on earth for meridianal and latitudinal calculations. Central to clime—here is no rust, moss, nor frosts to destroy, nor earthquake—a well-chosen spot for such a pillar. 2. Its form and size—symbolising the earth quantity in its weight of five millions of tons—the freight of 1,250 of the largest steamers leaving New York. Its shape, or inclination from base to apex, the same as from the pole to the equator. To express this the builder sloped in ten feet for every nine in height. On this building the sun can shine upon the whole of it twice a year without a shadow. This building is the most correctly orient of any structure on the earth. It is the highest, largest, and oldest building on earth, rising to the height of 486 feet and a fraction, which height if multiplied by ten nine times gives the distance of the earth from the sun; or pile a thousand million pyramids one on the other, and the last would touch the sun. As it stood perfect it was the circle squared; for the height is the radius of a circle, whose circumference, if divided into four equal parts, each part would equal one of the surface sides of the base—closer in approximation than Walli’s Indivisibles, or Newton’s Fluxions, or
Liebnitz’s Calculus. The door of entrance was some forty-nine feet from its base, and 300 inches East of the centre, so as at once to express the tilt of the earth’s axis from the plane of its orbit, and by its height from the ground express the Precession of the Equinoxes. What a witness outwardly, when complete, of polished marble, covering some thirteen and a half acres, within and without clean and free from idolatrous marks. But God foretold the place and purpose of this huge pile through the prophet Isaiah (xix. 19, 20): “In that day shall there be an altar to the Lord in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a pillar at the border thereof to the Lord. And it shall be for a sign and for a witness unto the Lord of hosts in the land of Egypt.” Here we see the altar and pillar are one and the same, and a scientific fact is expressed when the prophet says it shall be in the midst and on the border. The position of the Pyramid is such, being at the sector point of Upper and Lower Egypt, thus being on the border of both, yet in the midst. The sector point of the arm is where the wrist joins the hand. The spreading hand represents Lower, and the arm Upper Egypt. (See on frontispiece the sector plate.)
May we ask what the pillar and witness—the Pyramid—has to say on the Jewish question, for it has not left this fact unnoticed? At the junction of the first ascending passage with the Grand Gallery, on the left-hand side, or East, there is a horizontal passage-way leading to what is called the Queen’s Chamber. This chamber is on the twenty-fifth course of masonry. Now, it is allowed, the Grand Gallery expresses the time of Christ’s advent and fulness of time—enlarged liberty. The ascending passage being only four feet high, men were cramped in passing up, but on reaching the Grand Gallery they were free, for it is twenty-eight feet high.
The passage to the Queen’s Chamber is only four feet, and is it not strange that it is altogether Jewish? This low horizontal passage terminates in a grand Sabbatic room,
which symbolises the Jewish Sabbath-week, feasts, and time periods.
From this passage we learn that the Jews rejected Christ, and went off by themselves, refusing the liberty of Christ. So as truly as the coming of Christ had been forecast in this Pyramid, so had His rejection by the Jews.
The very mortar in this chamber is mixed with salt. The chamber is seven-sided. The last seventh of the passage-way sinks down, giving more room to move in. Salt was an article used freely with the Jews in sacrificing. Seven was a sacred number. The sinking of the last seventh part of the passageway floor may mean the enlarging privilege of the Jews in this latter day. Of the civilised nations, only Russia and Spain forbid them citizenship. Even Turkey admits them now as citizens.
The Jews have been represented as being blind in part. The passage-way and chamber have been difficult to explore because of foul air, there being no ventilating tubes as in the King’s Chamber.