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The Spiritual Significance of the Color Yellow

“The holy spirit teaches comparing spiritual with spiritual” (1Co 2:13).

1Co 2:13 Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.

We are going through colors in scripture and we are seeing that colors, when mentioned in the scriptures, all have behind them a spiritual message and meaning. Our color we will examine today is the color yellow.

As with every word in scripture, this word ‘yellow’ has both a positive and a negative application. Today we will concern ourselves mainly with its negative application in the Word of God. The reason for this is that the positive application for this word has as its root the Hebrew word for gold. We all know that ‘gold’ is generally given a positive connotation in God’s Word.

Strong’s Definitions

Since we intend to also cover the spiritual meanings of the various metals mentioned in God’s word in this series of studies, we will not go very deeply into the positive application of this word yellow here today. Here is the Hebrew word for gold and Strong’s definition of that word:

H2091
za ha b
zaw- hawb’
From an unused root meaning to shimmer; gold; figuratively something gold colored (that is, yellow), as oil, a clear sky: – gold (- en), fair weather.

Here are but a few of ways this word is used in God’s Word:

Gen 2:11 The name of the first [river] is Pison: that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; [zahab]

Job 37:22 Fair weather [zahab] cometh out of the north: with God is terrible majesty.

Gen 13:2 And Abram was very rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold.

Yellow is one of the three primary colors: Blue, red and yellow. Here is Strong’s number and definition of the word ‘yellow.’

H6669
tsa ho b
tsaw- obe’
From H6668; golden in color: – yellow.

How ‘Yellow’ Is Used In Scripture

Yellow is found in only four verses in scripture. The first three are in Leviticus where yellow is first found in reference to our spiritually dead and dying condition:

Lev 13:29 If a man or woman have a plague upon the head or the beard;
Lev 13:30 Then the priest shall see the plague: and, behold, if it be in sight deeper than the skin; and there be in it a yellow [H6669 – tsa ho b tsaw- obe’] thin hair; then the priest shall pronounce him unclean: it [is] a dry scall, [even] a leprosy upon the head or beard.

Lev 13:32 And in the seventh day the priest shall look on the plague: and, behold, if the scall spread not, and there be in it no yellow hair, and the scall be not in sight deeper than the skin;
Lev 13:33 He shall be shaven, but the scall shall he not shave; and the priest shall shut up [him that hath] the scall seven days more:
Lev 13:34 And in the seventh day the priest shall look on the scall: and, behold, [if] the scall be not spread in the skin, nor [be] in sight deeper than the skin; then the priest shall pronounce him clean: and he shall wash his clothes, and be clean.
Lev 13:35 But if the scall spread much in the skin after his cleansing;
Lev 13:36 Then the priest shall look on him: and, behold, if the scall be spread in the skin, the priest shall not seek for yellow hair; he [is] unclean.
Lev 13:37 But if the scall be in his sight at a stay, and that there is black hair grown up therein; the scall is healed, he is clean: and the priest shall pronounce him clean.

Who is ‘the priest’ and what is this scall? Here is Webster’s definition of the old English word ‘scall’ which my google spell-check does not even recognize as a word:

Scall
SCALL, n. [See Scald and Scaldhead.]
Scab; scabbiness; leprosy.
It is a dry scall, even a leprosy on the head. Lev 13:30

The Spiritual Application of the Color Yellow

Here is the spiritual application of these verses in Lev 13 concerning the spread of leprosy in the camp of Israel:

1Co 5:5 To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.
1Co 5:6 Your glorying [is] not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?  [Just as leprosy spreads through out the entire camp]
1Co 5:7 Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us:
1Co 5:8 Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened [bread] of sincerity and truth.
1Co 5:9 I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators:
1Co 5:10 Yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters; for then must ye needs go out of the world.
1Co 5:11 But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat.
1Co 5:12 For what have I to do to judge them also that are without? do not ye judge them that are within?
1Co 5:13 But them that are without God judgeth. Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person.

What Is “The Spirit of Truth?”

“The spirit of Truth” is the serum that protects us from the poison of this spiritual leprosy. This phrase ‘spirit of truth’ appears four times in the New Testament. They are very revealing in their connection with our subject, the color yellow and its meaning:

Joh 14:17 [Even] the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.

Joh 15:26 But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, [even] the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me:

Joh 16:13 Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, [that] shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.

How Can We Know Whether We Have This “Spirit of Truth?”

1Jn 4:6 We are of God: he that knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God heareth not us. Hereby know we the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error.

“Us” is not just anyone who says that this “us” is their group. The only way you can know who this “us” is, is to realize that this “us” is speaking of those who are faithful to and abide in “the doctrine of Christ:

1Ti 6:3 If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, [even] the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness;

Now if “the words of our Lord Jesus Christ” to you means words which are “above what is written” then you are a ship adrift on a raging sea full of dangerous and destructive rock and mountains just below the surface. You are there without the benefit of the rudder of “what is written.” You are at the mercy of anyone who points to the heavens and proclaims “Thus saith the Lord” because you have no way to “try that spirit to see whether it is of the Lord.”

1Jn 4:1 Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.
1Jn 4:2 Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the [“same as the children – Heb 2:14] flesh is of God:
1Jn 4:3 And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the [“same as the children”] flesh is not of God: and this is that [spirit] of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world. [That Christ “was made sin” was denied from the days of the apostle John.]
1Jn 4:4 Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.
1Jn 4:5 They are of the world: therefore speak they of the world, and the world heareth them.

So the yellow and deadly doctrine of “the immaculate conception” in its many and varied forms continues and is accepted by the church world to this day. What we are admonished to do to avoid deception is about as popular with the church world as any of the other “doctrines of Christ.”

2Jn 1:9 Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son.
2Jn 1:10 If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your [spiritual “holy place”- priests are not to eat with Levites who are not chosen of God as priests] house, neither bid him God speed:

Heb 13:10 We have an altar, whereof they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle.

How little understood and much despised is this doctrine in the churches of Babylon which teach that today is the only day of salvation through a ten-second sinner’s prayer. All doctrines which conflict both with each other, and with the Word of God, are ‘yellow… leprous… leavened’ deadly false doctrine of “false prophets gone out into the world” and have spread like leaven and leprosy throughout all the camp of Israel. (1Jn 4:1).

The word ‘yellow’ appears one other time in the Bible outside of the book of Leviticus in the book of Psalms:

Psa 68:9 Thou, O God, didst send a plentiful rain, whereby thou didst confirm thine inheritance, when it was weary.
Psa 68:10 Thy congregation hath dwelt therein: thou, O God, hast prepared of thy goodness for the poor.
Psa 68:11 The Lord gave the word: great [was] the company of those that published [it].
Psa 68:12 Kings of armies did flee apace: and she that tarried at home divided the spoil.
Psa 68:13 Though ye have lien among the pots, [yet shall ye be as] the wings of a dove covered with silver, and her feathers with yellow gold.
Psa 68:14 When the Almighty scattered kings in it, it was [white] as snow in Salmon.

This is, of course, a positive application of the color yellow but this is an entirely different Hebrew word. The word translated ‘yellow’ here is:

H3422
yeraqraq
yer- ak- rak’
From the same as H3418; yellowishness: – greenish, yellow.

Here is how this word is translated in the King James Version:

Lev 13:49 And if the plague be greenish [yeraqraq -3422] or reddish in the garment, or in the skin, either in the warp, or in the woof, or in any thing of skin; it [is] a plague of leprosy, and shall be shewed unto the priest:

Lev 14:37 And he shall look on the plague, and, behold, [if] the plague [be] in the walls of the house with hollow strakes, greenish [yeraqraq] or reddish, which in sight [are] lower than the wall;

And the third and last time this word appears in the Old Testament is the verse in Psalms we have referenced above:

Psa 68:13 Though ye have lien among the pots, [yet shall ye be as] the wings of a dove covered with silver, and her feathers with yellow [yeraqraq – 3422] gold.

H3422, yeraqraq, which is translated “greenish” two out of three times, comes from the same as H3418. Here is Strong’s definition of H3418:

H3418
yereq
yeh’- rek
From H3417 (in the sense of vacuity of color); properly pallor, that is, hence the yellowish green of young and sickly vegetation; concretely verdure, that is, grass or vegetation: – grass, green (thing).

Here is how this word is translated in scripture:

Gen 1:30 And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein [there is] life, [I have given] every green [Hebrew: 3418 – yereq] herb for meat: and it was so.

Gen 9:3 Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things.

We will cover this color in much more detail next study, but suffice this verse to indicate the significance of the color green at this time:

1Pe 1:24 For all flesh is as [green] grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away:

Seeing this connection between the Hebrew root of the words for yellow, greenish yellow and gold has given me a new appreciation for the old saying that “all that glitters is not gold.”

The Purpose for “Greenish Yellow” in our Lives”

Before the flood we were not baptized and we could eat only green herbs and survive. Now, after baptism, “every moving thing that lives..” the meat of God’s word, even our enemies, can now be eaten and dealt with as nourishment which just yesterday would have choked us to death.

Num 14:6 And Joshua the son of Nun, and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, [which were] of them that searched the land, rent their clothes:
Num 14:7 And they spake unto all the company of the children of Israel, saying, The land, which we passed through to search it, [is] an exceeding good land.
Num 14:8 If the LORD delight in us, then he will bring us into this land, and give it us; a land which floweth with milk and honey.
Num 14:9 Only rebel not ye against the LORD, neither fear ye the people of the land; for they are bread for us: their defence is departed from them, and the LORD [is] with us: fear them not.
Num 14:10 But all the congregation bade stone them with stones.

Greenish Yellow is our Trials and Tests in This Life

Our greatest trials ought to be our most nourishing moments.

1Pe 3:18 For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit:
1Pe 3:19 By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison;
1Pe 3:20 Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.
1Pe 3:21 The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh [being “under the law], but the answer of a good conscience toward God,) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ: [not by the works of the law].

1Pe 4:11 If any man speak, [let him speak] as the oracles [“That which is written” (1Co 4:6)] of God; if any man minister, [let him do it] as of the ability which God giveth: that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom be praise and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.
1Pe 4:12 Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you:

1Pe 4:17 For the time [is come] that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if [it] first [begin] at us, what shall the end [be] of them that obey not the gospel of God?
1Pe 4:18 And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?
1Pe 4:19 Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls [to him] in well doing, as unto a faithful Creator.

Yereq, Strong’s number 3418, comes from 3417 – yarak – which is:

Num 12:10 And the cloud departed from off the tabernacle; and, behold, Miriam [became] leprous, [white] as snow: and Aaron looked upon Miriam, and, behold, she was leprous.
Num 12:11 And Aaron said unto Moses, Alas, my lord, I beseech thee, lay not the sin upon us, wherein we have done foolishly, and wherein we have sinned.
Num 12:12 Let her not be as one dead, of whom the flesh is half consumed when he cometh out of his mother’s womb.
Num 12:13 And Moses cried unto the LORD, saying, Heal her now, O God, I beseech thee.
Num 12:14 And the LORD said unto Moses, If her father had but spit [yarak-3417] in her face, should she not be ashamed seven days? let her be shut out from the camp seven days, and after that let her be received in again.
Num 12:15 And Miriam was shut out from the camp seven days: and the people journeyed not till Miriam was brought in again.

Deu 25:9 Then shall his brother’s wife come unto him in the presence of the elders, and loose his shoe from off his foot, and spit in his face [yarak-3417], and shall answer and say, So shall it be done unto that man that will not build up his brother’s house.

This is what happens to all who rebel against God’s Word and who seek to bring their brothers linage to an end. It has the same end as eating with the Levites; both end up dying. That, again is the negative significance of the color yellow.

Lev 7:6 Every male among the priests shall eat thereof: it shall be eaten in the holy place: it [is] most holy.

Num 4:15 And when Aaron and his sons have made an end of covering the sanctuary, and all the vessels of the sanctuary, as the camp is to set forward; after that, the sons of Kohath shall come to bear [it]: but they shall not touch [any] holy thing, lest they die. These [things are] the burden of the sons of Kohath in the tabernacle of the congregation.

Heb 13:10 We have an altar, whereof they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle.

How is this applied in our world today?

Col 5:5 To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.

The ‘destruction of the flesh’ is a spiritual statement having to do with the destruction of the “mind of the flesh.”

1Co 5:9 I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators:
1Co 5:10 Yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters; for then must ye needs go out of the world.
1Co 5:11 But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat.
1Co 5:12 For what have I to do to judge them also that are without? do not ye judge them that are within?
1Co 5:13 But them that are without God judgeth. Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person.

“With such an one no not to eat” is the same as “let her be shut out of the camp seven days, and after that let her be received in again:”

2Co 2:6 Sufficient to such a man is this punishment, which was inflicted of many.
2Co 2:7 So that contrariwise ye ought rather to forgive him, and comfort him, lest perhaps such a one should be swallowed up with overmuch sorrow.
2Co 2:8 Wherefore I beseech you that ye would confirm your love toward him.

“Punishment… sorrow… love toward him.” That is God’s formula for keeping “the leaven of the Pharisees” out of His church. It is right here in this same chapter of 1 Corinthians:

1Co 5:5 To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.
1Co 5:6 Your glorying [is] not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?
1Co 5:7 Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us:
1Co 5:8 Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

This is not even talking about what we today call ‘the Lord’s supper.” Neither is it talking about keeping the ‘Passover and the days of unleavened bread.’ ‘This is, rather, speaking of keeping fornication (primarily spiritual fornication) out of the midst of the people in whom God dwells.

Conclusion

Yellow signifies the dying condition of our flesh.

Jer 18:4 And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make [it].

This is the negative application of this word describing this primary color.

By following this word back to it very root, we arrive right back to a leprous condition where there is no spiritual growth, and the camp cannot move while ‘Miriam’ is in this incurable, deadly, diseased condition.

What is this deadly, incurable condition?

Rom 7:24 O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?

We are totally unaware that Adam was created into a “body of this death,” and we all come into this world in “the body of this death,” in a dying condition. We are all, at first, the living dead:

Mat 8:21 And another of his disciples said unto him, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father.
Mat 8:22 But Jesus said unto him, Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead.

Luk 9:59 And he said unto another, Follow me. But he said, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father.
Luk 9:60 Jesus said unto him, Let the dead bury their dead: but go thou and preach the kingdom of God.

Remember that there is another word translated as yellow which has a positive application. I repeat: The word ‘yellow’ appears one other time in the Bible outside of the book of Leviticus in the book of Psalms:

Psa 68:9 Thou, O God, didst send a plentiful rain, whereby thou didst confirm thine inheritance, when it was weary.
Psa 68:10 Thy congregation hath dwelt therein: thou, O God, hast prepared of thy goodness for the poor.
Psa 68:11 The Lord gave the word: great [was] the company of those that published [it].
Psa 68:12 Kings of armies did flee apace: and she that tarried at home divided the spoil.
Psa 68:13 Though ye have lien among the pots, [yet shall ye be as] the wings of a dove covered with silver, and her feathers with yellow gold.
Psa 68:14 When the Almighty scattered kings in it, it was [white] as snow in Salmon.

What is God’s inheritance?

Eph 1:18 The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his [Christ’s] calling, and what the riches of the glory of his [Christ’s] inheritance in the saints,

That is what the scriptures teach. “Christ’s inheritance [is] in the saints.”

Who are these “poor?”

Mat 5:3 Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

This is, of course, a positive application of the color yellow, but this is an entirely different Hebrew word. The word translated ‘yellow’ here is:

H3422
yeraqraq
yer- ak- rak’
From the same as H3418; yellowishness: – greenish, yellow.

H3422, yeraqraq, comes from the same as 3418. Here is Strong’s definition of 3418:

H3418
yereq
yeh’- rek
From H3417 (in the sense of vacuity of color); properly pallor, that is, hence the yellowish green of young and sickly vegetation; concretely verdure, that is, grass or vegetation: – grass, green (thing).

So we conclude this study noticing that yellow is closely associated with the color green. As any professional painter can tell you, green is the result of the mixing of blue (the things of heaven and of life) and yellow (our dying vessel of clay).

2Co 4:7 But we have this treasure in earthen; [yellow – dying) vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God (heavenly – blue), and not of us.

Next study we will see the result of mixing yellow with blue. We will, Lord willing, learn that when our Creator does this, we get an earthly body which is having a heavenly experience, and we will see that this stage of our walk is color coded green.

[Here is the link to the next study in this series.]