America and Britain In Prophecy

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Chapter 1

The Rise and Fall of Ancient Israel

To truly understand the subject of America and Britain in prophecy, it is first imperative that we understand what God reveals about His chosen people of Israel. Have the modern Israelites experienced the fulfillment of prophecies regarding them?

To learn who the modern people of Israel are, we must examine the fascinating facts concerning the history of the ancient people of Israel. In doing so, we need to realize that, of all nations on earth, God Almighty plainly says He has only "known" one nation‑Israel! "Hear this word that the Lord has spoken (concerning)… the whole family (of Israel ) which I brought up from the land of Egypt, saying, ‘You only have I known of all the families of the earth.’" (Amos 3:1‑2).

This does not mean that God does not love all peoples of all nations (John 3:16 ), but there is only one people, on the national level, with whom God has ever had a close, hands‑on, engaged relationship.

God told Israel, "For you are a holy people to the Lord your God; the Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for Himself, a special treasure above all the peoples on the face of the earth" (Deut. 7:6).

But notice what He says next: "The Lord did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any other people, for you were the least of all peoples; but because the Lord loves you, and because He would keep the oath which He swore to your fathers" (vv. 7‑8). Who were these "fathers"? What was so special about them?

National Roots

   Mankind has basically rejected God and His way since the Garden of Eden. Almost 2,000 years from that time, only three men had accepted God’s way of life, according to the biblical record — Abel, Enoch and Noah (Heb. 11). The rest of mankind lived in rebellion against God. His solution was to bring a Great Flood upon the earth and start over with just eight people — Noah, his wife and their three sons with their wives (Gen. 6).

Noah’s three sons became the fathers of the three great families or "races" of mankind. After the flood, God instructed these three families to disperse into those regions of the earth to which He had previously assigned them (Gen. 10‑11).

Yet, within a few generations, men were once again not looking to God, but to their own devices —  striving against God to build the huge Tower of Babel (Babylon) and a world‑class city to prevent themselves from being scattered abroad over the face of the earth (Gen. 11:1‑9).

For that rebellion at the Tower of Babel, God rebuked them sharply and confused their languages, forcing the peoples to separate and migrate out into the areas which He had assigned each of them as their inheritance (Deut. 32:8; Jer. 27:5; Acts 17:26).

The Family of Abraham

   In the course of time, God would choose a unique man named Abram (later renamed "Abraham" by God) and his "seed" to form a new nation by which He would preserve the true religion and carry out certain aspects of His plan upon this earth.

Abraham’s illustrious ancestors are listed in Genesis 11:10‑32. Nine generations before Abraham was Noah’s son Shem, who, generally speaking, was father of the white or Caucasian race. Abraham’s descendants are predominantly white. The term "Semite" is derived from Shem’s name. The Hebrew language is classified as "Semitic," and racial hatred of Jews is called "anti‑Semitism."

Next in this lineage was Shem’s son, Arphaxad. He was father of the Chaldeans — which makes Abraham and his descendants part of them. This makes sense since Abraham came from " Ur of the Chaldeans" (v. 31). Next in line was Salah and then Eber (or Heber), whose descendants are called Hebrews. So Abraham was a "Hebrew." But, because all of Eber’s descendants didn’t come through Abraham, there are more "Hebrews" than just his family!

Next in Abraham’s lineage was Eber’s son Peleg. It was in his lifetime that the Tower of Babel incident occurred — when God assigned Noah’s descendants their allotted portions of the earth (Gen. 10:25). After Peleg was Reu and then Serug, Abraham’s great­grandfather. Next came his grandfather Nahor and, finally, his father Terah.

And "Terah begot Abram (later named Abraham), Nahor, and Haran " ( 11:27 ). "And Terah took his son Abram and his grandson Lot, the son of Haran, and his daughter‑in‑law Sarai (later named Sarah), his son Abram’s wife, and they went out with them from Ur of the Chaldeans (in Mesopotamia) to go to the land of Canaan; and they came to Haran and dwelt there …. and Terah died in Haran " (vv. 31‑32).

The city of Haran was located between the Tigris and Euphrates, also in Mesopotamia. Why were Terah, his son Abram and their clan trekking their way to the " land of Canaan "? Genesis 11 explains: "Now the LORD had said to Abram (while his family was still in Ur): ‘Get out of your country, from your kindred and from your father’s house, to a land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation …. and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed" (vv. 1‑3).

Here was a tremendous promise of God conditional upon Abram’s obedience. This was a real test! Ur was a prosperous city. Abram was asked by God to leave it and go to a backward land far, far from civilization. Could his descendants really become a "great nation" there?

Moreover, by this time, the world had again strayed a long way from God. Society was so deeply entrenched in paganism that the true religion was almost unheard of anymore. Yet what was Abram’s response to God’s command? "So Abram departed as the LORD had spoken to him" (v. 4). There was no grumbling or arguing. Abram simply obeyed God. That’s the unique character he had.

Promises of Ethnic Lineage and Grace

It is fascinating to realize the nature of the promises God made to Abraham. Many have missed the fact that God’s promises were dual. To reconcile the fact that the Jews have never become a "great nation" in the world, some claim that this reference is to the Church only.

It is true that to inherit the spiritual promises of God, everyone must become a descendant of Abraham spiritually (Gal. 3:29 ). It is also true that the Church is called a "royal priesthood, a holy nation" (1 Pet. 2:9). However, as we will see, this promise of a "great nation" was later expanded to include "many nations." That certainly cannot refer to the Church. This is speaking of Abraham’s physical descendants — ethnic lineage.

Many have recognized that when God said, "In you all the nations of the earth shall be blessed," this was primarily a spiritual promise (although there is a physical application even to this, as succeeding chapters will reveal).

God later told Abraham: "In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed" (Gen. 22:18). The singular "seed" here refers to Jesus Christ — the Son of God who would come in the flesh as a descendant of Abraham to offer spiritual salvation to the entire world — grace!

Through Abram’s descendants would come these tremendous dual blessings. God told Abram, "Look now toward heaven, and count the stars if you are able to number them.’ And He said to him, ‘So shall your descendants be.’ And he believed in the LORD, and He accounted it to him for righteousness" (vv. 5‑6).

At Sarai’s prompting, Abram soon had a son, Ishmael, by Sarai’s Egyptian handmaid Hagar. But this is not how God intended to bless Abram.

When Abram was 99 years old, God appeared to him and said, "I am Almighty God; walk before Me and be blameless. And I will make My covenant between Me and you,and will multiply you exceedingly…. and you shall be a father of many nations.

&Quote; No longer shall your name be called Abram (Heb. "Exalted Father"), but your name  shall be Abraham (Heb. "Father of a Multitude"); for I have made you a father of many nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you" (Gen. 17:1‑2, 4‑6).

Numerous prophecies reveal that Abraham’s descendants would become "many nations"! Those prophecies could never have been fulfilled in the Church or in the two small kingdoms of Israel and Judah , which we shall examine later.

"Many" can’t possibly be interpreted to mean only two! So was all of this to be through Ishmael then? Notice what God did next. He changed Sarai’s name to Sarah (Heb. "Princess") and said, "And I will bless her and also give you a son by her; then I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of peoples [plural!] shall be from her" (v. 16).

The main promises of their descendants becoming many nations were not to go through Ishmael. Abraham was happy about Sarah, but he still hoped that his firstborn son Ishmael — now 13 years old — would be his heir: "And Abraham said to God, ‘Oh, that Ishmael might live before You!" (v. 18).

But God answered, "No, Sarah your wife shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac; I will establish My covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his descendants after him. And as for Ishmael, I have heard you.

Behold, I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly. He shall beget twelve princes, and I will make him a great nation. But My covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear to you at this set time next year" (vv. 19‑21). The tremendous promises of national blessings to Abraham were, at first, conditioned upon his complete obedience to God. Would Abraham persevere in obeying God’s commands?

When Abraham later proved his total obedience to God, the Lord rewarded him by making the conditional promises to him unconditional!

"By Myself I HAVE SWORN, says the LORD, because you have done this thing, and have not withheld your son, your only son, in blessing I will bless you, and in multiplying I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your descendants ("race" Fenton translation) shall possess the gate of their enemies (promise of ethnic lineage). In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed (promise of GRACE), because you have obeyed My voice" (Gen. 22:16‑18).

God had now SWORN — it would happen no matter what! Abraham’s physical descendants would be innu­merable — compared to counting stars in the sky or grains of sand on the seashore. And the singular "seed," Jesus Christ, would come through his lineage. What is a "gate"? Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (10th ed.) defines a gate as "a means of entrance or exit" or as a strategic "gateway?’

  The word "gate" in the national blessing means a strategic geographic passageway which controls the movement of trade and military forces for a certain region — such as an important mountain pass or sea passage.  Modern examples of land and sea gates would be the Khyber Pass, the Panama Canal and the Strait of Gibraltar.

Promises to Isaac’s Seed

After Abraham’s death, the unconditional promises of his descendants becoming "many nations" passed to his son Isaac. These incredible promises would devolve upon Isaac’s descendants — not Ishmael’s.

Isaac later married Rebekah. Notice the blessing her family gave her as she left her homeland to go and marry Isaac: "Our sister, may you become the mother of thousands of ten thousands ("many millions!" Living Bible); and may your descendants possess the gates of those who hate them" (Gen. 24:60).

Here, again, this was prophetic. Isaac’s descendants would become many millions and possess the strategic gateways of their enemies. The Jews have NEVER fulfilled this — and it certainly can’t refer to the Church.

Neither can these verses refer to the Jews in the coming Millennium of Christ’s rule — because, after their regathering in the Promised Land, it would take until well into that future age for them to overspread the world and take possession of such gates. And, by that time, there will be NO enemy nations (Is. 2:2‑4).

So this prophecy can only be fulfilled in this present evil age of strife and war, which will soon come to an end. Therefore, we must look for a group of nations — all descended from Abraham —­ that has possessed the vital land and sea gates of the world. We must do this or reject the Bible as fraudulent. There is simply no way around it.

The Birthright for a Bowl of Stew!

Let’s look again at the dual nature of the promises to Abraham. The promises of ethnic lineage and the future availability of God’s grace were unconditional. However, as the New Testament makes clear, actually receiving God’s grace by an individual was conditional upon repentance — turning away from breaking God’s law!

The promise of ethnic lineage, however, required nothing from Abraham’s descendants. Their behavior might have affected the TIMING that God chose for giving them the promised national blessings — but God had bound Himself to give those blessings no matter what. Thus, the promises of lineage now belonged to the descendants of Isaac by RIGHT. Such a right is termed a birthright.

The 1992 American Heritage Dictionary defines birthright as "a right, possession, or privilege that is one’s due by birth?’ It can also mean "a special privilege accorded a firstborn." Notice this note in The New Open Bible (NKJV) from Thomas Nelson Publishers:

"The term birthright appears several times in the Bible. The word refers to the inheritance rights of the firstborn son in a Hebrew family in Old Testament times. The property of a father was normally divided among his sons at his death. But a larger amount, usually a double portion, went to the oldest son (Deut. 21:17), who assumed care of his mother and unmarried sisters" (p. 35)

Normally, the birthright was continued through the firstborn son. But there are instances where God intervened and dictated otherwise. This happened with Isaac.  Ishmael had been Abraham’s firstborn son. Yet God saw this son as the product of a lack of faith — an attempt to bring about God’s promises through human effort. Abraham’s firstborn lawful son, in God’s eyes, was Isaac. "And Abraham gave all that he had to Isaac" (Gen. 25:5).

God later told Isaac, "I will perform the oath which I swore to Abraham your father. And I will make your descendants multiply as the stars of heaven; I will give to your descendants all these lands ("countries" KJV — not just Canaan!); and in your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed; because Abraham obeyed My voice and kept My charge, My commandments, My statutes, and My laws" (Gen. 26:3­5).

We must always bear in mind that Abraham’s descendants were NOT blessed because of racial superiority, but because of Abraham’s obedience.

The birthright blessings were to be passed on to the descendants of Isaac. He and Rebekah had twin boys. At their birth, "the first came out red. He was like a hairy garment all over; so they called his name Esau (Heb. "Hairy"). Afterward his brother came out, and his hand took hold of Esau’s heel; so his name was called Jacob (Heb. "Supplanter" or "Heel‑Grabber")" (Gen. 25:25‑26).

God had prophesied that the birthright wouldn’t go to the firstborn, Esau, in this case — but to the younger son Jacob (v. 23). But Jacob would live up to his name by trying to supplant Esau prematurely. One day Esau came in tired and hungry, desiring some stew Jacob was eating. Jacob sold him the stew in exchange for Esau’s birthright (vv. 27‑34).

God’s Promises to Jacob

   Years later, Jacob even deceived his own father, Isaac, to get the blessings that accompanied the birthright. So Isaac mistakenly blessed Jacob: "See, the smell of my son is as the smell of a field which the LORD hath blessed.

So God give thee of the dew of heaven, and of the fat places ("rich soil" Moffatt translation) of the earth, and plenty of corn ("grain" NK.JV) and wine. Let peoples serve thee, and nations bow down to thee. Be lord over thy brethren, and let thy mother’s sons bow down to thee. Cursed be everyone that curses you, and blessed be everyone that blesses you" (Gen. 27:27‑29 Holy Scriptures, Jewish Publication Society).

These are purely physical promises of national prosperity. Nothing stated here concerns spiritual salvation. Yet what incredible promises these are: ideal rainfall on the choicest agricultural lands on earth to yield an overabundance of produce.

Administrating over the affairs of other nations; enemies brought low and allies prospering. Jacob was promised all this for his descendants! Jacob, despite his character problems, prized and valued the awesome divine blessings promised to Abraham. Esau did not (25:34; Heb. 11:16‑17).

God later confirmed the birthright promises to Jacob in a dream: "I am the LORD God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie (Canaan ) I will give to you and our descendants. Also your descendants shall be as the dust of the earth; you shall spread abroad (colonize) to the west and the east, to the north and the south; and in you and in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed" (Gen. 28:13‑14). Jacob’s descendants would be great colonizers — spreading themselves around the whole world!

Jacob married two sisters, Leah and Rachel, and by them and their two handmaids, fathered 11 sons and a daughter. And, after he repented of his deceit, God changed his name: "Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but ISRAEL (Heb. "Prevailer with God"); for you have struggled with God and with men, and have prevailed" (Gen. 32:28).

So here is the origin of the name " Israel "! Through Israel ‘s 11 sons, God would build His chosen nation.

Each of Israel ‘s sons would be the progenitor of an individual tribe of people. For instance, Jacob’s son Judah was the father of the tribe of Judah. His descendants, as we will see in more detail later, were called "Jews." You need to make sure you understand this because many are confused about it.

Ethnic Jews are only one tribe of Israel. And there are 11 other tribes of Israel besides them. This, then, is the origin of the TWELVE TRIBES OF ISRAEL.

Later, God confirmed Jacob’s new name and the fantastic promises: "And God said to him, ‘Your name is Jacob; your name shall not be called Jacob anymore, but Israel shall be your name.’ So He called his name Israel .

Also God said to him: ‘I am God Almighty. Be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a company of nations shall proceed from you, and kings shall come from your body" (Gen. 35:10‑11). Here again is the promise of a line of "kings," but there is something else here we haven’t seen before — the promise of "a (single) nation and a company ("group" Moffatt) of nations"!

The Ferrar Fenton translation says, "a Nation and an Assembly of Nations." The New International Version renders it, "a nation and a community of nations." A "company," "group," "assembly" or "community" of nations.

This could not be something like the United Nations because its member nations are not all of the same family. No, this would have to be something similar to the Arab League or the British — descended Commonwealth nations. When did such a "company of nations" ever form in ancient Israel ? Never. When has it happened among the Jewish people? It has not. We must, then, look elsewhere.

"The Birthright Belonged to Joseph"

The birthright would next have gone to Jacob’s firstborn son by Leah‑Reuben. But Reuben committed incest with Bilhah, his own father’s concubine (Gen. 35:22; 49:3‑4). Therefore, the birthright fell to the firstborn of Rachel — Jacob’s 11th son, Joseph. First Chronicles 5:1‑2 explains: "The sons of Reuben the firstborn of Israel.

He was the firstborn, but because he defiled his father’s bed his birthright was given to the sons of Joseph son of Israel, so that he (Reuben) is not enrolled in the genealogy according to the birthright; though Judah became prominent among his brothers and a ruler ("the chief ruler" K.JV) came from him, yet the birthright belonged to Joseph)" (NRSV).

Something remarkable happened here! God decided to split the promises of ethnic lineage and grace between two different tribes. Judah would receive the kingly line, referred to as "the SCEPTER" (Gen. 49:10). A scepter is defined as "a staff held by a sovereign as an emblem of authority" or "ruling power or authority; sovereignty" (American Heritage Dictionary).

King David would come from this line and from him would descend the "one seed," Jesus Christ, offering salvation to the world.

No wonder Jesus Christ later said, "Salvation is of the Jews" (John 4:22 ), and Paul wrote of "salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek" (Rom. 1:16 ). The promise of GRACE was to come down through JUDAH .

But the birthright promises of national blessings — ETHNIC LINEAGE — would come through JOSEPH! Get this fixed in your mind. It is an extremely important key to understanding your Bible!

Joseph was Jacob’s favorite son.  Joseph’s brothers saw this favoritism — displayed in such ways as the famous "coat of many colours" (Gen. 37:3 KJV) — and hated him.

One day Joseph told them of a powerful dream he had: ‘"There we were, binding sheaves in the field. Then behold, my sheaf arose and also stood upright; and indeed your sheaves stood all around and bowed down to my sheaf.’ And his brothers said to him, ‘Shall you indeed reign over us? Or shall you indeed have dominion over us?’ So they hated him even more for his dreams and for his words" (vv. 7‑8).

He then had a second dream: "This time, the sun, the moon, and the eleven stars bowed down to me.’ So he told it to his father and his brothers; and his father rebuked him and said to him, ‘What is this dream that you have dreamed?

Shall your mother and I and your brothers indeed come to bow down to the earth before you?’ And his brothers envied him, but his father kept the matter in mind" (vv. 9‑11). As time would prove, these dreams were prophetic — not only foretelling what would happen to Joseph himself, but also what would happen to his descendants far into the future.

What did happen to Joseph himself is amazing. His brothers sold him into slavery and convinced their father Jacob that he’d been killed and eaten by a wild animal. Jacob, of course, was devastated.

Joseph was sold into Egypt and spent years in slavery and then in prison. Yet God miraculously worked it out so that the Egyptian Pharaoh made Joseph the prime minister of all Egypt ! "You shall be over my house, and all my people shall be ruled according to your word; only in regard to the throne will I be greater than you" (Gen. 41:40).

Joseph, a gifted administrator over this great Gentile nation — as his future descendants would also be — directed the project of storing food through "seven years of great plenty" (v. 29) to make it through "seven years of famine" (v. 30).

During this famine, Joseph’s brothers came to Egypt to buy food but did not recognize him. However, after Joseph put them through a test, he finally revealed his identity. Then there was weeping with tears of joy. How prophetic!

The identity of the descendants of Joseph is generally hidden right now. But it will not be that way for long! Also, notice what Joseph told his brothers: " But now, do not therefore be grieved or angry with yourselves because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life…, to preserve a posterity for you in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance" (Gen. 45:5, 7). How true this would be, also, of Joseph’s descendants in the dark days of Nazi Germany — as we will later see!

Joseph asked his brothers to go and get their father and bring him down to Egypt . The Pharaoh was going to give them the choicest lands to dwell in. So the other sons of Israel returned to Canaan to get him.

"Joseph is alive,’ they shouted to him. ‘And he is ruler over all the land of Egypt!’ But Jacob’s heart was like a stone; he couldn’t take it in. But when they had given him Joseph’s messages, and when he saw the wagons filled with food that Joseph had sent him, his spirit revived. And he said, ‘It must be true! Joseph my son is alive! I will go and see him before I die" (vv. 26‑28 Living Bible).

When Jacob and Joseph at last met, "they fell into each other’s arms and wept a long while" (46:29 Living Bible). What a deeply emotional experience this was for the family of Israel — just as it will be again in the very near future when the identity of Joseph’s descendants is revealed!

Why Jacob Crossed His Arms

Pharaoh had given an Egyptian woman, Asenath — daughter of Poti­Pherah priest of On — as a wife to Joseph (Gen. 41:45). She had borne him two sons, Manasseh (Heb. "Forgetting" his previous troubles) and Ephraim (Heb. "Fruitful"). Thus the two boys were half‑Egyptian.

When Joseph heard that Jacob was sick, he took his two sons and hurried to his dying father’s bedside. Jacob managed to sit up to receive them. He told Joseph, "God Almighty appeared to me at Luz in the land of Canaan and blessed me, and said to me, ‘Behold, I will make you fruitful and multiply you, and I will make of you a multitude of people, and give this land to your descendants after you as an everlasting possession" (Gen. 48:3‑4).

Notice that Jacob is speaking to Joseph of only the birthright promises of national greatness here. The promise of kings and of the one "seed," Christ, were for Judah .

"And now your two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, who were born to you in the land of Egypt before I came to you in Egypt , are mine; as Reuben and Simeon, they shall be mine. Your offspring whom you beget after them shall be yours" (vv. 5‑6).

So Jacob adopted these two boys as his own sons in order to pass on the birthright to them. So, instead of being only their uncle, Judah was now also their brother! And notice this: Jacob switched the order of the boys’ names. In verse 1, the order was "Manasseh and Ephraim" — Manasseh being the firstborn.

But here was another instance of divine intervention. Because Jacob’s sight had grown dim with age, he asked Joseph to bring the two boys right up to him. "And Joseph took them both, Ephraim with his right hand toward Israel ‘s left hand (the lesser position), and Manasseh with his left hand toward Israel ‘s right hand (the greater position)" (v. 13).

But look at what happened next: "Then Israel stretched out his right hand and laid it on Ephraim’s head, who was the younger, and his left hand on Manasseh’s head, guiding his hands knowingly, for Manasseh was the firstborn" (v. 14). To do this, Jacob had to have actually crossed his arms. This was clearly intentional!

"And he blessed Joseph, and said: ‘God, before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked… bless the lads (both of them — it was a joint blessing); let my name be named upon them, and the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac; and let them grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth" (vv. 15‑16).

The name " Israel ," then was to be stamped on Ephraim and Manasseh together. That is why most Bible prophecies about " Israel " — and even "Isaac" mentioned here — do not primarily refer to the Jews or any other tribe for that matter.

In end‑time prophecy, " Israel " refers mainly to the descendants of Joseph through Ephraim and Manasseh! This is an incredible fact that few are aware of. Ephraim and Manasseh would jointly become the promised multitude — the nation and company of nations (Gen. 35:11).

Some might try to argue that Judah would be the single nation and the other tribes would form the company of nations. But that just can’t be. This birthright blessing was simply not meant for any tribes other than Ephraim and Manasseh.

At this point, Joseph noticed that Jacob had his arms crossed and wanted his father to switch them. "And Joseph said to his father, ‘Not so, my father, for this one (Manasseh) is the firstborn; put your right hand on his head.’ But his father refused and said, ‘I know, my son, I know. He also shall become a people (a nation), and he also shall be great; but truly his younger brother shall be greater than he, and his descendants shall become a multitude ("group" NIV) of nations.’

So he blessed them that day, saying, ‘By you Israel will bless, saying, "May God make you as Ephraim and as Manasseh!" And he set Ephraim before Manasseh" (Gen. 48:18‑20).

This blessing was NOT a joint one like before. It was broken down individually. Now we see that Manasseh would be the great nation and that out of Ephraim would come the company of nations! Israel told Joseph, "I have given to you one portion above your brothers" (v. 22). Indeed. The double portion belonged to Joseph.

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Prophecies for "The Last Days"

Then Jacob called all of his sons to him: "Gather together, that I may tell you what shall befall you in the last days" (Gen. 49:1). This, certainly, is not some stuffy, outdated scriptural passage. This chapter is about "the last days"!

Space prevents us from explaining the prophecies about each tribe — we will look only at Joseph and one detail of Judah . "The scepter shall not depart from Judah , nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh (a reference to the Messiah) comes; and to Him shall be the obedience of the people" (v. 10). Again, the kingly line and the Savior would come through Judah .

But look at the descendants of Joseph, through Ephraim and Manasseh: "Joseph is a fruitful bough, a fruitful bough by a well; His branches run over the wall (their national boundaries)" (v. 22). In other words, they would grow so numerous as to become great colonizers and expansionists.

"The archers have bitterly grieved him, shot at him and hated him. But his bow remained in strength, and the arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the Mighty God of Jacob" (vv. 23‑24). Ephraim and Manasseh would have great military strength and would be victorious through miraculous divine intervention.

Continuing, "the Almighty… will bless you with blessings of heaven above (perfect climates), blessings of the deep that lies beneath (such as great petroleum wealth), blessings of the breasts and of the womb (great population growth).

The blessings of your father have excelled the blessings of my ancestors, up to the utmost bound of the everlasting hills. They shall be on the head of Joseph, and on the crown of the head of him who was separate from his brothers" (vv. 25-26). What an incredible prophecy!

Let’s take one more glimpse at the birthright that Joseph would receive. Deuteronomy 33 affords us an awesome preview of what was to come upon Israel. The Prophet Moses blessed the various tribes of Israel before his death.

Look at what he revealed about Joseph: "Blessed of the LORD is his land, with the precious things of heaven, with the dew, and the deep lying beneath" (v. 13). What nation and company of nations are blessed with the best climates and possess vast fossil fuel resources? "…with the precious fruits of the sun… the precious produce of the months" (v. 14).

What nations consistently reap the most bountiful agricultural harvests? "…with the best things of the ancient mountains, with the precious things of the everlasting hills, with the precious things of the earth and its fullness" (vv. 15‑16).

What peoples have mined the greatest wealth in precious metals and minerals? "…and the favor of Him who dwelt in the (burning) bush" — God (v. 16). Which nations have seen definite instances of divine intervention in their undertakings?

"Let the blessing come ‘on the head of Joseph, and on the crown of the head of him who was separate from his brothers.’ His glory is like a firstborn bull, and his horns (symbolic of military power) like the horns of the wild ox; together with them he shall push the peoples ("he will conquer nations" Fenton) to the ends of the earth; they are the ten thousands of Ephraim, and they are the thousands of Manasseh" (vv. 16‑17).

So if we want to find the birthright nations of " Israel " today, we must look for the modern descendants of Ephraim and Manasseh. They will have become a great single nation in a special brotherhood with a great company (or community) of nations. They will possess vast natural resources and the choicest agricultural regions on earth. They will have overrun their national boundaries and colonized abroad — over much of the world.

They will have been a global military superpower alliance. They will have been exceedingly rich and affluent above all other nations. They will have ruled over the affairs of many other nations. And they will have been far greater and larger than the Arab empire at its dizzying height. Have there been such nations in the world?

Many will argue that these promises were fulfilled in the ancient Kingdom of Israel . But is that so?

From Mount Sinai to the United Kingdom

The story of Moses and Israel ‘s deliverance from cruel Egyptian bondage is well known. After the Eternal led the Israelites through the Red Sea (c. 1446 B.C.), He took them to the foot of Mount Sinai and gave them His Ten Commandments along with His statutes and judgments.

Israel then entered into a COVENANT with God to keep His laws and became His national "wife." But Israel repeatedly rebelled against her "Husband" and, as a result, had to wait 40 years to enter the Promised Land.

Once in the Promised Land, the tribes of Israel received their territorial inheritances — except for Levi which, instead, served as the nation’s priesthood (Num. 18:20‑32). Then, for several hundred years, God gave His covenant people a long line of judges to serve as righteous leaders to the nation and to teach them His ways.

The Lord worked directly through these divinely appointed judges. That being so, during this period, Israel was a theocracy with God as Ruler. But, still, Israel constantly rebelled and finally wanted a human king — like other nations — to replace Samuel, the last of the judges. This was really a rejection of God as Israel ‘s "King" (1 Sam. 8:7; 11:11 ).

The first divinely anointed king to rule over all Israel (c. 1050‑1010 B.C. — all dates of kings are reigns throughout) was Saul (Heb. "Asked For" — Israel had "asked for" a human king). A young man from the tribe of Benjamin (1 Sam. 11), Saul at first had a self‑effacing, humble attitude.

But that soon gave way to pride, self will and lack of faith! Samuel finally told Saul, "Because you have rejected the word of the LORD, He also has rejected you from being king" (15:23).

God then chose David (Heb. "Beloved") to become Israel ‘s next king (c. 1010‑970 B.C.) and, because of his God-fearing attitude, the Lord promised him an everlasting dynasty (2 Sam. 7:11‑16)!

What was God’s overall opinion of David as king? "I have found David the son of Jesse, aman after My own heart, who will do all My will" (Acts 13:22). Even though David made serious mistakes, he was, on the whole, a man after God’s own heart — that is, he thought like God.

David’s deep reverence and love for God enabled him to serve the Lord with all his might (2 Sam. 6:14 )! As a result of David wholeheartedly following God, the Eternal made an unconditionalpromise that his descendants would forever sit upon his throne somewhere on this earth — ruling over Israel (1 Chron. 28:1‑10; Ps. 89:3‑37).

When King David died, Israel lost her greatest, most righteous human king. "So he died in a good old age, full of days and riches and honor; and Solomon [Heb. "Peaceable"] his son reigned in his place [c. 970‑930 B.C.]" (1 Chron. 29:28).

Like Saul, Solomon began his reign in humility. Initially, he proved to be a wise and understanding ruler. He built God’s Temple in Jerusalem — perhaps the most magnificent building ever erected. Unfortunately, later in his reign, King Solomon initiated Israel ‘s downward slide into idolatry and debauchery.

He took to himself "700 wives… and 300 concubines" (1 Kings 11:3). But worst of all, Solomon’s harem included a number of foreign women, whom he had married for political purposes (v. 1). These women clung to their idolatrous worship, creating quite a problem. "For it was so, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned his heart after other gods; and his heart was not loyal to the LORD his God, as was the heart of his father David" (v. 4).

For Solomon’s betrayal, God informed him, "Because you have done this, and have not kept My covenant and My statutes, which I have commanded you, I will surely tear the kingdom away from you and give it to your servant. Nevertheless I will not do it in your days, for the sake of your father David; but I will tear it out of the hand of your son (Rehoboam).

However I will not tear away the whole kingdom, but I will give one tribe (of Israel in addition to Judah — i.e. Benjamin) to your son for the sake of my servant David, and for the sake of Jerusalem which I have chosen" (vv. 11‑13).

Shortly before King Solomon’s death, God sent the Prophet Ahijah, the Shilonite, to meet an Ephraimite named Jeroboam. "Then Ahijah took hold of the new garment that was on him, and tore it into twelve pieces" (v. 30). God showed Jeroboam that, of all Twelve Tribes of Israel, "ten tribes" (v. 35) represented by ten of the twelve strips of clothing‑would be ruled by him as king (vv. 31‑33).

A Kingdom Divided!

   Israel had grown weary of Solomon’s burdensome taxes. In the time of Samuel, God had warned the Israelites that if they chose human kings, they would surely be oppressed by them: "And you will cry out in that day because of your king whom you have chosen for yourselves, and the LORD will not hear you in that day" (1 Sam. 8:18).

Shortly after King Solomon’s death, his son, Rehab, "went to Shechem, for all Israel had gone to Shechem to make him king" (1 Kings 11:1). The clan chiefs of Israel had sent a message to King Rehoboam, asking him to lighten their taxes, and then they would gladly serve him (vv. 3‑5). 

Unfortunately, the young, arrogant king rejected the counsel of the "old men" in favor of the advice of the "young men" (vv. 6‑15). Rehoboam haughtily told Israel ‘s clan chieftains assembled at Shechem, "My father made your yoke heavy, but I will add to your yoke; my father chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scourges!" (v. 14).

"Now when all Israel saw that the king did not listen to them, the people answered the king, saying, ‘What portion have we in David? We have no inheritance in the son of Jesse. To your tents, 0 Israel ! Now, see to your own house, 0 David!’

So Israel (the northern Ten Tribes) departed to their tents" (v. 16). Some have mistakenly thought that King Rehoboam and the Jews seceded from Israel . But that is not so. Rather the Ten Tribes seceded from the dynasty of David, determined to establish their own dynasty of kings: "So Israel has been in rebellion against the house of David to this day" (v. 19).

Rehoboam’s hard‑nosed reply stirred the Ten Tribes to install Jeroboam as their king (v. 20). From that day onward, the Northern Kingdom would be called the "house of Israel," while the Southern Kingdom would be known as the "house of Judah," which included the tribes of Judah and Benjamin as well as some of the Levites (v. 21).

"Modern Jews thus consider themselves to be descendants of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin or are classed as Levite’s" ("Benjamin," Encyclopedia Britannica, vol. 2, 1991). This is a vital point that many fail to grasp today! Jews and Israelites are not necessarily synonymous terms. As time went on, there would be intermittent, bitter rivalry and outright warfare between the two rival kingdoms of Judah and Israel : "And there were wars between Rehoboam and Jeroboam all their days" (2 Chron. 11:15 ).

An Apostate Nation

The Prophet Ahijah had explained that Solomon’s blatant idolatry was the reason Jeroboam was now ruling over the northern Ten Tribes. Ahijah told Jeroboam that God would build him an everlasting dynasty if he would obey the Lord’s laws and follow in His ways (1 Kings 11:38 ). God’s promise was remarkably similar to what He had said to David.

But despite Jeroboam’s knowledge of the dire consequences of Solomon’s apostasy, as soon as he was made king over the Ten Tribes of Israel, he immediately set up two golden calves, one in Dan and another in Bethel (11:28‑29). He instituted this system of false worship to prevent the Israelites from going to Jerusalem to worship — where they might realign with Judah and the Davidic line (vv. 26‑27). The Kingdom of Israel would never recover from the infectious idolatry which Jeroboam started.

The Northern Kingdom of Israel lasted only 209 years, from around 930 B.C. to 721 B.C. During that 209­year period, the Ten Tribes were ruled by 19 kings representing nine different dynasties! The kings of the Ten Tribes reigned, on average, just 11 years! Of the Northern Kingdom ‘s 19 kings—none of whom returned to truly worship God—eight were assassinated, usually by the next king. One even committed suicide.

A later king, Omri, proved to be one of the Northern Kingdom of Israel’s most capable kings. Though he reigned only 11 years (c. 885‑873 B.C.), Omri exercised political savvy. He moved Israel ‘s capital from Tirzah to a far more defensible position, the "hill of Samaria," where he proceeded to build his new capital. ( Samaria would remain Israel ‘s proud, unconquered capital city until its utter destruction by the Assyrians in 721 B.C.)

Omri became widely known throughout the ancient Near East during his lifetime. Numerous cuneiform inscriptions reveal that the Assyrians were well acquainted with him and his dynasty, and called the Kingdom of Israel "mat‑bit‑Humria" (the land of the house of Omri).

Israel was still referred to as such by the Assyrians in their cuneiform inscriptions more than 200 years after he reigned. The famous Moabite Stone mentions that "Omri, king of Israel " oppressed the Moabites during his reign.

After Omri’s death, his son Ahab reigned in his place (c. 873‑853 B.C.) along with his wicked queen Jezebel. This evil couple promoted even greater idolatry in Israel . During their reign, the menacing cloud of Assyria ‘s rising power began to appear on the horizon. Unfortunately for Israel and Judah , they were situated on the strategic land bridge of the Middle East ‘s Fertile Crescent separating rival powers located in Mesopotamia and in Egypt .

King Ahab was destined to do battle with the Assyrians. One of the well‑known inscriptions Assyria’s King Shalmanese III (c. 859‑824 B.C.) describes the famous battle of Qarqar — which occurred in 853 B.C. between his army and a coalition of western nations allied against him, led by Israel under King Ahab.

Shalmaneser’s inscription says, "I crossed the Euphrates ; at Qarqar I destroyed… 100,000 men of Ahab, the Israelite." Contrary to the Assyrian’s boasting, that crucial battle was Ahab’s greatest military achievement and it momentarily checked the power of the "Colossus of the North." However, the Assyrians would come back again and again during the next 150 years until the fall of their empire in 611 B.C.

Jehu’s Bloody Revolution

   King Jehu, who had been anointed by God to overthrow the house of Omri, was a revolutionary firebrand who reigned over Israel for 28 years (c. 841‑813 B.C.). During Jehu’s reign, Israel began to pay tribute to Assyria in a partly successful effort to buy Assyrian protection (as a vassal state) from the Aramaeans (Syrians).

Another famous inscription of Shalmaneser III recorded, "The tribute of Jehu, son [royal successor] of Omri, silver, gold, bowls of gold, chalices of gold, cups of gold, vases of gold, lead, scepter for the king, and spear shafts, I have received?’

Jeroboam II (c. 793‑753 B.C.), the fourth king of the Jehu dynasty, was one of Israel’s most illustrious kings because he enlarged the Northern Kingdom of Israel to its greatest territorial extent! But "Israelite society, in spite of its healthy appearance, was in an advanced state of decay, socially, morally and religiously" (J. Bright, History of Israel, p. 256).

Prophetic Warnings and Assyrian Inroads

Through the voices of the prophets Amos and Hosea, Jeroboam’s contemporaries, we can still feel the intensity of God’s abhorrence at these backsliding, apostate people. The wealthy gained their money at the expense of the poor and deprived the needy of justice. "Therefore I will send you into captivity beyond Damascus,’ says the LORD, whose name is the God of hosts" (Amos 5:27).

Though the Israelites maintained a form of religion and gave lip service to God, they had forsaken all of His teachings and would reap bitter fruit: “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I also will reject you… because you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children”

(Hos. 4:6). God foretold their society’s collapse. As a result of its social, moral and religious decay, it would be too weak to resist invading armies and ultimate captivity. During King Menahem’s reign (c. 752‑741 B.C.), the Assyrians, under Tiglath‑Pileser (Pul), began to seriously menace the nation. The Assyrians issued a demand that Menahem ("Menihuminu of Samerina" in Assyrian annals) pay them tribute — to which the Israelite king quickly acceded.

Menahem’s reign was overlapped by that of Israel’s next‑to‑last king, Pekah (c. 752‑732 B.C.), who would experience the heavy yoke of the rapidly rising Assyrian Empire. He was a shrewd military officer who ruled for 20 years (2 Kings 15:27‑31).

During King Pekah’s reign, he allied the Kingdom of Israel with Aram (Syria), and they together attacked Judah (2 Kings 16:5‑6). NOTE: Here is the first use of the term "Jews" in the King James Bible and they are at war against "Israel"! Ahaz, king of Judah, sent an urgent appeal to the Assyrians for immediate assistance against his foes—Israel and Syria (v. 7)  — along with a large present. "So the king of Assyria heeded him" (v. 9).

Israel’s Two Assyrian Captivities

Time had run out for Israel! God’s patience with this part of His "covenant people" was at an end. God had warned them repeatedly of the consequences their sins would bring. Through Amos, He had threatened, "Behold, the eyes of the Lord GOD are on the sinful kingdom, and I will destroy it from the face of the earth" (Amos 9:8). But they ignored God. They simply would not heed.

So He delivered them over to the cruelty of Assyrian captivity: "In the days of Pekah king of Israel, Tiglath­ Pileser [III] king of Assyria [745-727 B.C.] came and took Ijon, Abel Beth Maachah, Janoah, Kedesh, Hazor, Gilead, and Galilee, all the land of Naphtali; and he carried them [the Israelites] captive to Assyria" (2 Kings 15:29)!

The Israelites were deported in two separate captivities. The one just mentioned was the first (c. 734‑732 B.C.). Based on the locations just given, this first deportation was also known as the "Galilean Captivity." It included all the Israelites living throughout Galilee and the Plain of Sharon, plus the territories east of the Jordan (Reuben, Gad and the eastern half‑tribe of Manasseh — cf. 1 Chron. 5:26).

Yet some have subscribed to the notion that the Assyrians took only a few thousand Israelites into captivity, leaving the bulk of them still living in the land of Israel. One author even tries to convince his readers that only about two percent of the Israelites were actually removed to the land of Assyria. This is plainly wrong. The areas just mentioned represented about three‑fourths of all the territory of the Kingdom of Israel!

After the Galilean Captivity, only a rather small "rump state" situated around Samaria, Israel’s capital city, remained intact. Regarding this same captivity, Tiglath‑Pileser III himself said, "Bet Omri (House of Omri Israel) all of whose cities I had added to my territories on my former campaigns, and had left out only the city of Samaria …. The whole of Naphtali I took for Assyria. I put my officials over them as governors. The land of Bet Omri, all its people and their possessions I took away to Assyria" (Western Campaign and Gala/Damascus Campaign). Obviously, the vast majority of Israel’s population was carried away.

After becoming a vassal to the Assyrians, Israel’s new king, Hoshea, tried to enlist Egyptian aid to free Israel from that yoke (2 Kings 17:1‑4). This rebellion by Samaria’s last monarch, and the stubborn resistance of a small portion of the Israelites, convinced the Assyrians they would have to completely break both the power and will of the Northern Kingdom of Israel. Their answer?  Israel’s second Assyrian captivity!

The inspired biblical historian says, "Now the king of Assyria [Shalmaneser V] went throughout all the land (of Israel), and went up to Samaria and besieged it for three years (c. 724‑721 B.C.). In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria [a new king, Sargon II, as Shalmaneser had died] took Samaria and carried Israel away to Assyria, and placed them in Halah and by the Habor, the River of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes" (vv. 5‑6).

Did the Assyrians take all the people of Israel out of their land? Or did they only deport a few of them? The inspired Word of God unequivocally answers, "There was none left but the tribe (Heb. sebet) of Judah alone" (v. 18)! Sebet can mean an entire nation with more than one tribe (cf. Jer. 51:19 NRSV, NW).

So only the peoples of the Southern Kingdom of JUDAH were left Notice this too: "Then the king of Assyria brought people from Babylon, Cuthah, Ava, Hamath and from Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria INSTEAD of the children of Israel; and they took possession of Samaria and dwelt in its cities" (v. 24). These Gentile peoples from Babylonia, who totally displaced the Israelites, became known as the Samaritans — as they were still called in Christ’s day.

Both the Bible and the Assyrian state records agree: all the inhabitants of the Ten Tribes were removed from the land of Israel! Apparently, some stragglers were left behind, and a few even moved south to Judah. This explains all biblical references to people from the northern Ten Tribes in the Holy Land following the Assyrian captivity (Hezekiah’s Passover of 2 Chronicles 30 was undoubtedly before Samaria’s fall- cf. 2 Kings 18:9‑10). So all the Ten Tribes, as tribes, were removed — not one single tribe remained!

Finally, after 200 years of rank idolatry and debased morality, God’s patience had worn thin. Israel’s day of reckoning came at the hands of the cruelest of all the heathen conquerors the Assyrian Empire, the rod of God’s anger (Is. 10:5 ‑6). The ancient Kingdom of Israel was destroyed — without ever realizing the tremendous blessings God had promised! In all the days from Joseph until the Assyrian captivity, the Israelites never colonized around the entire globe, inheriting its best agricultural regions. They never came into possession of the most important land and sea gates of the world. They never became a "multitude of nations" — much less the prophesied "nation and a company of nations." And by no stretch of the imagination did they ever become the greatest military superpower nations on the planet!

So these blessings had to wait until the Israelites returned to the Promised Land from captivity — right? NO! For — and here’s the astonishing part — the Ten Tribes of Israel never came back, even to this day! To many historians, they simply disappeared from history and are now known as the "Ten Lost Tribes of Israel." What happened to them? Does anyone know? Were they destroyed from the face of the earth? If they were, then what about all of God’s promises?

We can’t answer this apparent dilemma by looking at what happened to the people of Judah and their modern descendants, the Jews. The Southern Kingdom of Judah, the TWO TRIBES of Benjamin and Judah, continued as a viable kingdom from 930 B.C. until its downfall in 586 B.C. (a period of 344 years), at which time the Babylonians took the peoples of Judah captive to Babylon.  Shortly after the fall of Babylon, in 539 B.C., some of the Jews returned to their former land of Judah and, under Ezra and Nehemiah, re-established themselves as the nation of Judah.

However, only a small portion of the Jews returned to the Promised Land at that time — and not one of the TEN TRIBES returned with those Jews who did! For the most part, the Jews remained a subject people of the great empires of the Middle East except for a very brief period of independence under the Hasmonean dynasty of the Maccabees. At the time of Christ, the kingdom of Judea had become directly subject to Rome (from 47 B.C.). And, almost 40 years after Christ’s death, the Romans, in putting down Jewish insurrection, razed Jerusalem in 70 A.D.

After putting down a later revolt (132‑135) led by Simon Bar Kokhba, the Romans wiped out the Jewish state completely, changing the name of the province to Syria Palaestina (after Israel’s ancient enemy, the Philistines) — out of spite. In following centuries, the Jews were always scattered and persecuted — yet, amazingly, their identity was somehow preserved.

They never had any real homeland up until the creation of the modern Jewish state of "Israel" in 1948. Yet even it contains only a small fraction of the world’s ethnic Jews. And it is a far cry from the national greatness promised Israel’s descendants. IS there an answer to this quandary? There certainly is — as folowing chapters will reveal — and it is one of the most astounding revelations in your Bible!
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Chapter 2

A Great Mystery of History

For their terrible sins, "the LORD rejected all the descendants of Israel, afflicted them, and delivered them into the hand of plunderers, until He had cast them from His sight…For the children of Israel walked in all the sins of Jeroboam which he did; they did not depart from them, until the LORD removed Israel out of His sight, as He had said by all His servants the prophets. So Israel was carried away from their own land to Assyria" (2 Kings 17:20, 22‑23)!

They had been amply warned‑over centuries of time! In fact, shortly before his death Moses had given the Israelites a stern warning regarding what would happen to them if they departed from their God and His covenant: "And it shall be, that just as the LORD rejoiced over you to do you good and multiply you, so the LORD will rejoice over you to destroy you and bring you to nothing; and you shall be plucked from off the land which you go to possess. Then the LORD will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other" (Dent. 28:63‑64)! "I will scatter you among the nations and draw out a sword after you" (Lev. 26:33).

Throughout the entire history of the Northern Kingdom of Israel, God sent many of His prophets to warn the people to reform their ways or else lose their God-given heritage.

For example, after the North’s very first king, Jeroboam, instituted idolatrous worship in the kingdom, God sent the Prophet Ahijah with a chilling message: "For the LORD will strike Israel, as a reed is shaken in the water. He will uproot Israel from this good land which He gave to their fathers, and will scatter them beyond the [Euphrates] River" (1 Kings 14:15).

In this and the next few chapters, we examine one of the greatest mysteries of the Bible: What happened to the northern Ten Tribes of Israel after they were taken into captivity beyond the Euphrates?

Which Tribes Returned to the Promised Land?

Some historians have held the view that the northern Ten Tribes returned to the Promised Land from the areas of their Assyrian captivity at the same time the Jews returned from their later Babylonian captivity — and that the northern Israelites subsequently intermingled with the Jews, losing their separate national identity. But this just isn’t so! The Bible makes it very clear that the overwhelming majority of those who returned to the Holy Land from Babylonian captivity were from the tribes of JUDAH and BENJAMIN, plus part of LEVI.

Many today harbor a common misconception that ALL Twelve Tribes returned to the Promised Land ("Judah" or "Judea") in the late 500s and early 400s B.C. But this can be disproven by two valuable sources: Scripture (especially, the books of Ezra and Nehemiah) and the brilliant Jewish historian, Flavius Josephus (c. 37‑100 A.D.).

Testimony of Ezra: God  "stirred up the spirit" of King Cyrus the Great so he would permit the Jews to "build Him [God] a house at Jerusalem which is in JUDAH" (Ezra 1:1‑2). But which tribes of Israel returned at that time to help build the Temple at Jerusalem?

"Then the heads of the fathers’ houses of JUDAH and BENJAMIN, and the priests and the LEVITES… arose to go up and build the house of the LORD which is in Jerusalem” (v.5). A careful study of the rest of this book clearly reveals that those Israelites who were mentioned were only from the tribes of JUDAH, BENJAMIN and LEVI.

Testimony of Nehemiah: "So I called a great assembly …. And I said to them [the Jews], ‘According to our ability we have redeemed our JEWISH BRETHREN’…. Moreover there were at my table one hundred and fifty JEWS and rulers" (Neh. 5:7‑8, 17). He also says, "And I found a register of the genealogy of those who had come up in the first return (from Babylonian captivity).

And found written in it: ‘These are the people who came back from the captivity, of those who had been carried away, whom Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon had carried away captive (to Babylon—NOT whom Shalmaneser or Sargon had carried to Assyria!), and who returned to Jerusalem and Judah (NOT Samaria and northern Israel), everyone to his own city" (7:5‑6).

The Bible makes it very plain that those who returned were NOT descendants of the northern Ten Tribes who went into Assyrian captivity in the late 700’s B.C. Rather, they were descendants of those Jews taken captive eastward to Babylonia in 586 B.C.

Why, then, does verse 73 say, "So the priests, the Levites… and ALL ISRAEL dwelt in their cities"? Some biblical scholars assume that "all Israel" here refers to all Twelve Tribes. But all of the Jews had not even returned—much less all of the ISRAELITES! So is there a different way to look at this?

Yes — EVERY descendant of Israel (Jacob) is an ISRAELITE in the broad sense of the word! The JEWS who returned to the land of JUDAH traced their lineage back to the tribes of JUDAH, BENJAMIN and LEVI; therefore they all would have been "ISRAELITES." Clearly, when Nehemiah spoke of "all Israel," he meant all the descendants of Israel that were there at the time‑living in the land. And which "Israelites" would they have been? Almost exclusively those of the tribes of Judah, Benjamin and Levi!

Testimony of Flavius Josephus: Writing his history near the end of the first century A.D., Josephus explains, "The entire body of the people [the Ten Tribes] of ISRAEL remained in that country wherefore there are but Two Tribes [Judah and Benjamin] in Asia and Europe subject to the Romans, while the TEN TRIBES are beyond Euphrates till now (c. 100 AD.), and are an immense multitude, and not to be estimated by numbers" (Antiquities of the Jews, bk. 11, chap. 5, sec. 2).

That should settle the matter! More than 600 years after the return of the Jews to the Promised Land from Babylonian exile, the Ten Tribes had STILL not returned from the lands beyond the Euphrates River to which the Assyrians had deported them!

No, they hadn’t returned by then and they still haven’t returned to this very day! Notice this from the Jewish Quarterly Review: "The captives of [the Ten Tribes of] Israel exiled beyond the Euphrates did not return as a whole to Palestine along with their brethren the captives of Judah; at least there is no mention made of this event in [any of] the documents at our disposal" (vol. 1, p. 15). The exiled northern Ten Tribes did NOT return to their former homeland, nor were they later assimilated, as a group, by their relatives, the Jews. Neither were they assimilated by other peoples.  What, then, became of them?

Israel’s Identity Lost

A Jewish historian, Alfred Edersheim, says, "No notice has been taken of those wanderers of the Ten Tribes, whose trackless footsteps seem as mysterious as their after fate …. Josephus [cited above] describes them as an innumerable multitude, and vaguely locates them beyond the Euphrates…. Still the great mass of the Ten Tribes was in the days of Christ, as in our own, lost to the Hebrew nation" (Life and times of Jesus the Messiah, pp. 14‑16).

Another prominent Jewish historian says, "The kingdom of the Ten Tribes of Israel, had in one day disappeared, leaving no trace behind. The country vomited out the Ten Tribes, as it had vomited out the Canaanitish tribes. What has become of them? They have been looked for and believed to have been discovered in the distant East as well as in the far West…. But there can be no doubt that the Ten Tribes have been irretrievably lost among the nations" (Graetz, History of the Jews, vol. 1, p. 265). Graetz, though, was only partially correct.

Unlike the Jews, the Israelites had lost the laws of God that identified them as His people (such as the Sabbath — Ex. 31:13‑17). So when they were put away (Jer 3:8), cast from God’s sight and scattered, the Ten Tribes of Israel, over the course of time, forgot their identity and became the LOST Ten Tribes. As we will later see, Jesus Christ referred to them as the "LOST sheep of the House of Israel" (Matt. 15:24). So they were indeed "lost." But, it is a serious mistake to assume, as did Graetz, that the Ten Tribes have become "irretrievably lost."

Why? Because God’s Word tells us otherwise! Before Israel’s captivity, the Prophet Amos quoted God as saing, "Behold, the eyes of the Lord GOD are on the sinful kingdom [Israel], and I will destroy it from the face of the earth" (Amos 9:8). The political entity of the Kingdom of Israel was indeed destroyed. But the prophecy did not end here. The same verse continues, "…yet I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob." Though God would completely destroy their kingdom, He would not wipe out the people of Israel.

Notice what God says He would do next: "For surely I will command, and will SIFT the house of Israel among all nations, as grain is sifted in a sieve" (v. 9). We have already seen this in other prophecies. The people of the Ten Tribes would be scattered and dispersed abroad.

So would this be the end of Israel? Would the Israelites be assimilated into other nations and disappear as a people? The rest of the verse answers, "…yet not the smallest grain shall fall to the ground." God would SIFT the Israelites through other nations. But, in doing so, He would preserve them intact as a people. They would NOT be amalgamated with other people. Not one of them would be "irretrievably lost."

This is further borne out by the fact that Bible prophecy identifies Israel as a key player in end‑time events. Israel must exist today as "many nations." If we accept the Bible, then we must also accept all of its promises and prophecies regarding the national greatness of Israel, in addition to what it says about Israel’s return from a yet future captivity. If, however, the Israelites have become so lost that they can never be found, then the Bible must be completely rejected as untrustworthy!

The Jewish Quarterly Review cited above says that "the return of the Ten Tribes was one of the great promises of the Prophets, and the advent of the Messiah is therefore necessarily identified with the epic of their redemption…. The hope of the return of the Ten Tribes has never ceased among the Jews in Exile….This hope has been connected with every Messianic rising" (pp. 17, 21).

The Jewish Encyclopaedia says, "As a large number of prophecies relate to the return of ‘Israel’ to the Holy Land, believers in the literal inspiration of the Scriptures have always labored under a difficulty in regard to the continued existence of the tribes of Israel, with the exception of those of Judah and Levi (or Benjamin), which returned with Ezra and Nehemiah. If the Ten Tribes have disappeared, the literal fulfillment of the prophecies would be impossible: if they have not disappeared, obviously they must exist under a different name" ("Tribes, Lost Ten," vol.11, p. 249).

The Jewish Chronicle of May 2, 1897, says, "The Scriptures speak of a future restoration of Israel, which is clearly to include both Judah and Ephraim (or Israel). [See Ezekiel 37:16­-22.] The problem, then, is reduced to its simplest form. The Ten Tribes are certainly in existence. All that has to be done is to discover which people represent them! To do this, we must understand WHEN, according to the Bible, the prophecies we have seen of "a nation and a company of nations" with awesome national wealth would be fulfilled and WHERE God said they would be?

Where Does God’s Word Locate Modern Israel?

The when is the late 1700s, but where does God’s Word locate the birthright holders of Israel in end‑time prophecy? In the book of Jeremiah, God gives instructions to those bearing His message in the end time: "Backsliding Israel hath justified herself more than treacherous Judah. Go and proclaim these words toward the north, and say, Return, thou backsliding Israel, says the LORD" (3:11‑11 KJV). Israel is clearly differentiated from Judah (the Jews) here and was to be found to the NORTH. As such directions in the Bible are always given from the vantage point of Jerusalem , that was certainly true during the time of the ancient Northern Kingdom. But this prophecy was recorded more than 130 years after Israel’s Assyrian deportation.

Notice a few verses later, obviously referring to a yet future time: "In those days the house of Judah shall walk with [KJV margin "to"] the house of Israel, and they shall come together out of the land of the NORTH to the land that I have given as an inheritance to your fathers" (v. 18). As we have seen, this prophesied return has never happened. Israel, then, would be to the north of the Holy Land in the last days.

But some will argue that the areas of northern Mesopotamia and Media to which Israel was anciently deported, although not due north, were, nevertheless, north of the Holy Land . And so they were. They were northeast of the Holy Land. But notice that Hosea 11:1 says, "Ephraim… pursues the east wind." An east wind comes from the east and blows WEST! Hosea also recorded God asking, "How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel?" (11:8). He then states, "I will not again destroy Ephraim…. They shall walk after the LORD…. Then His sons shall come trembling from the WEST" (vv. 9‑10). This cannot, then, refer to the ancient Assyrian captivity of Israel.

Where, to the north and west, would Israel be? In a forthcoming publication, we will examine the fascinating promises God made to King David about perpetuating his throne. Jeremiah was commissioned "to root out" the Davidic throne from Jerusalem and "plant" it elsewhere (Jer. 1:10). As our future brochure will reveal, the line of David would continue to reign over those of the House of Israel — even in its new land! God said regarding the dynasty of "David my servant…. I will SET [plant] his hand [authority] also IN THE SEA" (Ps. 89:20, 25 KJV). So Israel, under the Davidic line, would have authority over maritime trade and travel.

Where is this leading us? Look at another prophecy Jeremiah recorded for "the latter days" (Jer. 30:24; 31:1). God says, "You shall be rebuilt, O virgin of Israel !… You shall yet plant vines on the mountains of Samaria…. For there shall be a day when the watchmen will cry on Mount Ephraim, ‘Arise, and let us go up to Zion, to the LORD our God" (vv. 4­6). So this is clearly referring to end­time Israel. God refers to Israel as "Jacob… the chief of the nations" (31:7). Which modern nations have fulfilled such a role? God then says, "Behold, I will bring them [the Israelites] from the north country, and gather them from the coasts of the earth… for I am a father to Israel , and Ephraim is my firstborn" (vv. 8‑9 KJV).    

The colonization of the earth’s coasts pictured here gives further support to Israel’s dominance at sea. Then, in the next verse, God makes it even clearer: "Hear the word of the LORD, O nations, and declare it in the isles afar off" (v. 10). Isles? Our search is becoming even more intriguing. This fascinating prophecy is corroborated in the book of Isaiah. God says, "Keep silence before Me, 0 coastlands ["islands" KJV]…. You, Israel, are My servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, the descendants of Abraham My friend. You whom I have taken from the ends of the earth, and called from its farthest regions ["chief men" KJV]" (41:1, 8‑9). He further confirms this a few chapters later: "Listen, O coastlands ["isles" KJV], to Me, and take heed, you peoples from afar!… You are My servant, O Israel " (49:1, 3). In verse 11, He states, "Surely these shall come from afar; Look! Those from the north and the west, and these from the land of Sinim.

In the ancient Hebrew language, from which this verse was translated, there was no specific word for "northwest," but that is what was actually meant by "the north and the west." The Latin Vulgate translation gives the word "Sinim" as Australia ("south"). So, not only are the modern Israelite nations specifically NORTHWEST of Jerusalem, they are also spread all over the globe!

Remember that God had told Jacob this long before: "You shall spread abroad to the west and the east, to the north and the south" (Gen. 28:14). And of Joseph’s descendants, Jacob had prophesied, "His branches run over the wall" (49:22) — i.e. they would colonize beyond their national boundaries. This colonial spirit is explained later in Isaiah 49. God, speaking of the future reign of Jesus Christ over all nations, says to Israel, "The children you will have, AFTER you have lost the others [in global catastrophes soon to strike at the end of this age], will say AGAIN in your ears, ‘The place is TOO SMALL for me; give me a place where I may dwell" (v. 20).

Notice this! Some time after being re-gathered to the Promised Land, Israel’s burgeoning populace in the world ahead will express a need for new territories in which to expand. Yet this event is described as happening AGAIN — i.e. it is the repeat of a prior episode. When did the Israelites say this the first time? Certainly not while they still lived in the Holy Land. It must have been later — when their settlement in the "Isles" became too cramped.

We now have all the information we need to identify modern "Israel." Which "nation and a company of nations" began their rise to prominence in the late 1700s, later sitting as "chief of the nations" and possessing greater national wealth than any other political entities in human history? Which peoples have come from the "islands" which are "in the sea" far to the northwest of Jerusalem — who, finding these islands "too small," had to branch out and colonize all over the world? Who has possessed the vital sea gates of the world and, for centuries now, has "ruled the waves"? Is the answer not right here before us? Surely there can be NO mistaking this description!

If we extend a line due northwest of Jerusalem, it crosses the European continent, comes to the sea and then reaches "the isles afar off." Which isles are these? The British Isles! As we will see more closely later, the great single nation that emerged from there — Manasseh — is the United States of America. And the "company of nations" — Ephraim — is clearly the United Kingdom of Great Britain along with the other British — descended nations of the Commonwealth, e.g. Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

Amazing! The Puritan founders of America were more right than they knew! There can be no question, now, that when God’s holy Word refers to Ephraim and Manasseh in prophecy, it means the English‑speaking peoples. There are, however, some questions remaining. Has God simply transferred the names and blessings of His covenant people to different peoples — our peoples? Or, as incredible as it sounds, are our Anglo‑Saxon­Celtic peoples the true physical descendants of the actual tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh that were lost with the other northern tribes of Israel? For that to be so, the footsteps of the Lost Ten Tribes must lead to northwestern Europe. But do they, and if so, can we trace them?

Early Israelite Migrations

Before we try to find where the lost Israelites went after their captivity, we should examine where some of the early Israelites were going long before the Assyrian Empire was even in existence — much less a threat. The historian C.W. Muller noted that, "Hecataeus [of Abdera, Greek historian, 4th century B.C.]… tells us that the Egyptians, formerly being troubled by calamities [the Ten Plagues at the time of the Exodus] in order that the divine wrath might be averted, expelled all the [Israelite] aliens gathered together in Egypt . Of these, some, under their leaders Danuss and Cadmus, migrated into Greece; others into other regions, the greater part into Syria [Canaan]. Their leader is said to have been Moses, a man renowned for wisdom and courage, founder and legislator of the state" (Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum, vol. 2, p. 385).

Diodorus of Sicily (Greek historian, 1st century B.C.) writes, "They say also that those who set forth with Danaus, likewise from Egypt, settled what is practically the oldest city of Greece, Argos, and that the nations of the Colchi in Pontus and that of the Jews, which lies between Arabia and Syria, were founded as COLONIES by certain emigrants from their country; and this is the reason why it is a long‑established institution among these two peoples to circumcise their male children… the custom having been brought over from Egypt" (bk. 1, sec. 23, 1‑5). Circumcision was the sign of the Abrahamic covenant that God made in Genesis 17.

In recent years, the well‑known historical linguist, Dr. Cyrus H. Gordon, has also shown connections between the early Greeks and the Hebrews (Common Background of Greek and Hebrew Civilizations, New York, Norton, 1966). So, too, has Professor Allen H. Jones (Bronze Age Civilization‑The Philistines and the Danites). He traces the Danaans, a name that the famed Greek poet Homer often used for all Greeks, back to the Israelite tribe of Dan ("Danaans and Danites — Were the Hebrews Greek?" Biblical Archaeology Review, June 1976).

Other historians have drawn the same conclusion — that the Danites of Israel and the Danaans or Danoi, an ancient people of southern Greece, were one and the same. A well-known 19th century ethnologist, Dr. Robert G. Latham, definitely believed the Greek Danaans were descendants of the tribe of Dan: "Neither do I think that the eponymous [ancestral name] of the [Greek] Danai was other than that of the Israelite tribe of Dan; only we are so used to confining ourselves to the soil of Palestine in our consideration of the history of the Israelites" (Ethnology of Europe, p. 137). "Yet," Dr. Latham concludes, "with Danai [of Greece] and the tribe of Dan this is the case, and no one connects them." He then mentions that the Danites of Palestine must have had close connections with the peoples of southern Greece.

A book entitled Hellenosemitica (1965) goes to great lengths to show that the Greek "Hellenes" and the Israelite "Semites" were closely related. This book mentions two branches of the Danites ("Danunians" and "Danaans"), and shows that these people once occupied the island of Cyprus. It also mentions the Cyprian "tradition of the Danaan migration from the eastern Mediterranean" (pp. 14, 79). That was the very same area, which was assigned to the tribe of Dan when Joshua led the 11 tribes of Israel into the Promised Land!

"And already Hecataeus of Abdera represented both the Jewish Exodus and the Greek migration of Danaos and Cadmus as episodes of one and the same event…. Thence, the assertion… that the Spartans (whose kings… claimed descent from Danaos) are brothers of the Jews and descend from Abraham’s kindred" (p. 98). This may be surprising. Nevertheless, it is borne out in one historical source after another. According to Josephus, the Lacedemonians (Spartans of southern Greece) were Danites and, therefore,   closely related to the Jews. He relates the incredible contents of a letter from Sparta to Judah: "Areus king of the Lacedemonians, to Onias [Jewish High Priest], sendeth greeting; we have met with a certain writing, whereby we have discovered that both the Jews and the Lacedemonians are of one stock, and are derived from the kindred of Abraham.

"It is but just, therefore, that you, who are our brethren, should send to us about any of your concerns as you please. We will also do the same thing, and esteem your concerns as our own: and will look upon our concerns as in common with yours. Demoteles, who brings you this letter, will bring your answer back to us. This letter is foursquare: and the seal is an eagle, with a dragon [snake or serpent] in its claws" (bk. 11, chap. 4, sec. 10, pp. 296‑297). This seal is revealing because the tribal emblem or ensign of the people of Dan included the image of a "snake" ("Flag," The Jewish Encyclopaedia, p. 405). This symbolism was derived from what Jacob had foretold: "Dan shall be a serpent by the way, a viper by the path, that bites the horse’s heels so that its rider shall fall backward" (Gen. 49:17). Thus the emblem traditionally associated with Dan is an "adder biting horses heels" (Thomas Fuller, Pisgah Sight of Palestine). However, Aben Ezra, a learned Jewish scholar of the 1600’s, said that the emblem of Dan was an “eagle with a dragon in its claws.”

Another Jewish High Priest, Jonathan — somewhat later than Onians — wrote the Spartans "concerning the kindred that was between US and YOU… because we were well satisfied about it from the sacred writings …. It is a long time since this relation of ours to you hath been renewed, and when we, upon holy and festival days, offer sacrifices to God, we pray to Him for your preservation and victory" (Josephus, bk. 13, chap. 5, sec. l, p.3l8). This kinship seems pretty well established. Stephanus Byzantium also wrote that historians Alexander Polyhistor and Claudius Jolaus both affirmed a direct kinship between the ancient Spartans and the Jews (Bryant, Ancient Mythology, vol. 5, pp. 51‑52, 60).

And, for biblical support to all of this, the Prophet Ezekiel mentions "Dan also and Javan going to and fro [as mariners] occupied in thy fairs" (Ezek. 27:19 KJV), So we see a close relationship between Dan and Javan (or Yavan) — mentioned in the Table of Nations (Gen. 10) as a son of Japheth. It is common knowledge among biblical historians that "Javan was regarded as the representative of the Greek race" (Smith’s Bible Dictionary). NOTE: Though they were in close proximity, we must be careful not to confuse the Danites with the true Greeks descended from Javan. So we see that both the Bible and secular history show that some of the Danites settled among the Greeks. Some of Judah’s descendants, through his grandson "Darda" (1 Chron. 2:6; 1 Kings 4:31), established themselves in Dardania, the region of ancient Troy (northwestern Asia Minor). In fact, the Dardanelles were named after them!

Ancient Mariners

The Danaans of Greece, along with many more from the Promised Land, were not content to settle down for long. Many would emigrate overland while many others would travel in ships. According to the Bible, some of the people of Dan early took to the sea. They were the first tribe mentioned as becoming mariners. How did this come about? When the Twelve Tribes of Israel actually took possession of the Promised Land (c. 1406 B.C.), the tribe of Dan was allotted its tribal inheritance in the southwestern area of that land. Dan was situated west‑northwest of the tribe of Judah; its territory extended westward to the Mediterranean Sea, and included the busy port city of Joppa, next to modern Tel Aviv (Josh. 19:40‑48).

The Bible here notes an important characteristic of the Danites when they occupied a place: "The children of Dan went up to fight against Leshem and took it; and they struck it with the edge of the sword, took possession of it, and dwelt in it. They called Leshem, DAN, after the name of Dan their father" (v. 47). But the geographic location of the Danites’ inheritance made it vulnerable to pressure from invading armies whose chariots were effective, lethal weapons against the Israelite infantry on the flat, coastal plain (cf. Judges 1:34). So the Danites decided to look north for new territory: "Then they went up and encamped in Kirjath Jearim in Judah. Therefore, they call that place Mahaneh DAN to this day" (Judges 18:11). This is the second instance where we learn that the people of the tribe of Dan had a regular habit of naming places after their ancestral father, Dan.

"So they [the Danites]… went to Laish, to a people quiet and secure; and they struck them with the edge of the sword and burned the city with fire …. So they rebuilt the city and dwelt there. And they called the name of the city DAN, after the name of Dan their father, who was born to Israel" (vv. 27‑29). This northern city of Dan (formerly Laish) was less than 30 miles inland from the ancient Canaanite port city of Tyre. Thus, the Danites must have had frequent contact with its inhabitants, the Phoenicians, a people famed for trade and navigation (Ezek. 27). They built the great cities of Tyre and Sidon (on the modern Lebanese coast) and, as they spread abroad, far‑flung outposts like Carthage (in what is now Tunisia in North Africa).

In the early 1100s B.C., in a song commemorating a great Israelite military victory, the Judge Deborah lamented that, during the battle, the men of "Gilead stayed beyond the Jordan [River], and [asked] why did Danremain on ships?" (Judges5:17). The Danites were so preoccupied with sea trade that they chose to remain in their ships rather than fight alongside their brethren. So, even before that time, some of the Danites were already engaged in seafaring activities.

"The Ships of Tarshish"

Later, King David and Hiram, the king of Tyre, established a national friendship between Israel and Phoenicia. Then, under Solomon, the relationship grew even more. Notice what happened in those days: "King Solomon also built a fleet of ships at Ezion Geber, which is near Elath on the shore of the Red Sea, in the land of Edom. Then Hiram sent ["him ships by the hand of his servants" 2 Chron. 8:18 and] his servants with the fleet, seamen who knew the sea, to work with the servants of Solomon. And they went to Ophir [possibly India, South Africa or America], and acquired four hundred and twenty talents of gold from there, and brought it to King Solomon" (1 Kings 9:26‑28).

During the reign of Solomon and subsequent kings, it is more than likely that a number of Israelite colonists left Israel for other coastlands — just as Phoenician colonists emigrated from their homeland. Where did the Phoenicians colonize? We have already mentioned Carthage in North Africa. They also settled a number of Mediterranean islands, the Ionian coast of southern Italy and also southern Spain. These were places the descendants of Javan — the Greeks — were already settling. So why did the Phoenicians go to these places? Principally, for trade, of course.

The name of Javan’s son, Tarshish (Gen. 10:4), can be found in the famous ancient port of southern Spain, Tartessus — the "Tarshish" of Solomon’s day. Yet the great "ships of Tarshish," mentioned numerous times in the Old Testament, primarily referred to huge, oceangoing Phoenician and Israelite vessels that would come to Palestine from that far western port. According to 1 Kings 10:22, Solomon "had a fleet of ships of Tarshish at sea with the fleet of Hiram. Once every three years the fleet of ships of Tarshish used to come bringing gold, silver, ivory, apes, and peacocks" (NRSV, cf. 2 Chron. 9:21).

Undoubtedly, the Danites were foremost among the Israelites sailing these vessels. Not only had the coastal Danites been sailing for some time, but even the inland Danites in the north—by virtue of their close contact with Tyre — had probably been sailing with the Phoenicians and their coastal Danite kinsmen who docked there. Moses had prophesied, "Dan is a lion’s whelp; he shall leap from Bashan" (Deut. 33:22). Bashan was the location of the inland Danites! Therefore, a great many of them must have "leapt" from inland Palestine — as probably the majority would later, at the time of the Assyrian invasions of Israel — following their southern Danite brothers to the far‑off Mediterranean colonies of the Greeks and Phoenicians.

But was that the extent of their journeys? By no means! The Phoenicians traveled through the Pillars of Hercules (Strait of Gibraltar) and into the Atlantic Ocean. Herodotus, the Greek "father of history," also attributes the circumnavigation of Africa to them. Furthermore, peacocks, which were brought back by the ships of Tarshish, are native only to Southeast Asia and the East Indies. And it is a widely accepted fact that Phoenician traders sailed north from Spain, establishing commerce links with Ireland and Britain. It should be no surprise, then, to realize that the Danites and other Israelites probably did the same thing—even settling in those beautiful islands.

"Lost Tribes… in Ireland"?

All early histories of Ireland mention a people coming there from Greece called the Tuatha de Danaan. From The Annals of Ireland, we read, "The Danans were a highly civilized people, well skilled in architecture and other arts from their long residence in Greece, and their intercourse with the Phoenicians. Their first appearance in Ireland was 1100 B.C., or 85 years after the great victory of Deborah." It seems pretty clear whom we’re talking about here. Irish historian Thomas Moore says that one of the earliest resident peoples of Ireland—the Firbolgs — were dispossessed by the Tuatha de Danaan, "who after sojourning for some time in Greece… proceeded from thence to Denmark and Norway" (History of Ireland, vol. 1, p. 59).

Who were the Tuatha de Danaan who migrated up from Greece into Denmark and Norway and then over to Ireland? The word tuath simply means "tribe" — "Tuath… Irish history… A ‘TRIBE’ or ‘people’ in Ireland" (New English Dictionary on Historical Principles, vol. 10, pt. 1, p. 441). So they were the tribe of Danaan from Greece. When we consider that the Danaans or Danoi of Greece were Danites of Israel, it is simple logic to conclude that the Tuatha de Danaan was none other than the Israelite tribe of Dan!

Another Irish historian, Geoffrey Keating, mentions that "the Danaans were a people of great learning and wealth; they left Greece after a battle with the Assyrians and went to Ireland; and also to Danmark, and called it ‘DAN‑mares,’ Dan’s country" (History of Ireland, vol. 1, pp. 195‑199). Evidently, when the Assyrians began to invade Israel in the eighth century B.C., the Danites — not only of the Promised Land, but from Greece as well — must have struck out in their ships to find and dwell with the vanguard of those Israelites who had already been settling Ireland for some time.

Do we have further evidence of the tribe of Dan settling in Northwest Europe and the British Isles? We certainly do! Remember that the Danites had a regular habit of naming places after their ancient ancestor, Dan. Notice this interesting fact: "According to late Danish tradition… Jutland [the mainland of Denmark] was acquired by DAN, the… ancestor of the DANES" from whom their name derives ("Denmark," Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th ed., vol. 8). As the Danites migrated in hopes of finding a secure homeland, they continued their habit of naming places after their ancestral father, Dan!

J.P. Green’s Literal Translation of the Bible, which accompanies his Interlinear Bible, renders Genesis 49:17 as, "Let Dan be a serpent on the way." The word "way" can also be "road," "path," "journey" or "direction" (Logos Software, Enhanced Strong’s Lexicon). As a snake leaves a visible trail or path behind it, so would the tribe of Dan leave a trail across those lands they journeyed through — by simply following their old habit of naming places after their ancestor. Since Hebrew was written with only consonants and no vowels, Dan would be spelled "Dn" — and any or no vowel could occur between the two consonants (e.g. Dn, Dan, Deen, Din, Don, Dun, etc.).

By Dan’s "serpent trail," we can follow the Danites’ ancient travels. In addition to their Mediterranean and Atlantic voyages, Danite mariners almost certainly sailed into the Black Sea and up the major rivers of Europe. Moving east to west along the north shore of the Black Sea, we pass by the mouths of the following rivers: Don, Donets, Dnieper, Dniester and Danube. If we follow the Danube River upstream, it takes us into the very heart of Europe, where we find the Rhine and Rhone Rivers‑known in Roman times respectively as the Eridanus and Rhodanus Rivers.

Across northern Europe we find: Danzig in Poland; Sweden (Svea‑Dan); Odense in Denmark (Dan’s Land); Dunkirk and Dinan in France. If you then cross the English Channel to the British Isles, you will find many dozens of cities, towns or rivers containing the name "Dan" — for example in Scotland we notice Dundee, Dunraven, Aberdeen, Duncansby Head and the Don River. But it is in Ireland where such place names are most prominent: Dun Laoghaire, the Dunkellin River, Dundalk, Dans‑Laugh, Dan‑Sower, Dungarvan, Dundrum, Dunglow, Dingle Bay, Donegal Bay and Dunmore Head. (It is certainly no coincidence that the Irish Gaelic word Dun or Dunn means "Judge," just as Dan does in Hebrew!)

Dan’s migrations, then, can be traced. But that doesn’t help us in locating the other Israelite tribes does it? After all, hadn’t most of the Danites escaped the Assyrian conquest and deportations (migrating into Europe) while the rest of the northern tribes of Israel were dragged away captive to northern Mesopotamia and the Medo‑Persian area? Yes, but Jacob prophesied of the last days, "Dan [Heb. "Judge"] shall judge his people as one of the tribes of Israel" (v. 16). Dan’s descendants could not do this very well if they were not located among the other tribes.

So, though the Danites may have parted company with the rest of Israel at the time of the Assyrian captivity, they would all rejoin each other later. Therefore, the proclivity of the Danites to name places by the Hebrew word for "Judge," after their father, was a remarkable CLUE which God planted within their very tribal nature to help us today in searching out ALL of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel which would later follow the Danite migrations. What incredibly detailed planning the Almighty God has done!

Once we understand the racial connection between the Tuatha de Danaan of Ireland and the ancient tribe of Dan, it is easy to see why the song, "0, Danny Boy" is so popular in southern Ireland! With this biblical and historical background, we can also understand why former New York City Mayor Ed Koch made a particular comment. "It was St. Patrick’s Day in America," reported a 1987 U.S. News & World Report about the March 17 holiday commonly celebrated by Irish‑Americans. "For one day everyone was Irish. Cardinal John O’Connor [of Irish descent] had a warm embrace for [Jewish] Mayor Ed Koch, who explained his presence at the head of the grand parade, ‘It’s part of my roots. The Ten Lost Tribes of Israel we [Jews] believe ended up in Ireland" (Mar. 30, p. 7)!

As we’ve seen, history reveals that at least some early Israelites did end up in the Emerald Isle! But what about the rest of the tribes? Just where did they go after their Assyrian captivity ended? Can we find out anything from Christ and the commission He gave to His apostles?

"The Lost Sheep of the House of Israel"

Christ mentioned "OTHER sheep I have which are not of this fold [of Jews living in Judea]; them also I must bring, and they will bear My voice; and there will be ONE flock and one Shepherd" (John 10:16 ). The "house of Israel" is repeatedly referred to in the Old Testament as God’s SHEEP, the sheep of His pasture (Jer. 23:1‑8; Ezek. 34:1‑31). So Christ was clearly referring to the other tribes of Israel. He commissioned His twelve apostles to preach the Gospel to them: "Do not go into the way of the Gentiles, and do not enter a city of the Samaritans [who sometimes claimed, falsely, to be Israelites]. But go rather to the LOST SHEEP of the HOUSE OF ISRAEL" (Matt. 10:5‑6; cf. 15:24)!

Obviously, Christ knew the whereabouts of the Ten Lost Tribes and would have made certain His apostles also knew. Why do we hear absolutely nothing about Peter and the other apostles still being in Jerusalem and Judea during the years immediately preceding the fall of Jerusalem in 70 A.D.? The twelve apostles knew the Jews had not been totally "lost." So after taking the Gospel to the Jews in Judea, and after preaching to the Jewish communities in the big cities of the Near East, Greece and North Africa, Peter and the apostles then took Christ’s Gospel to the dispersed "lost sheep of the house of Israel." Some of these dispersed Israelites were then living around the Black Sea. But by the first century A.D., many of the Ten Lost Tribes had already left Western Asia and had migrated else­where. But to where?

Scotland ‘s most treasured document, the Declaration of Arbroath (also called the Scottish Declaration of Independence), was drawn up in 1320 A.D. In it, King Robert the Bruce (1306‑1329) popularized in the 1995 box‑office hit movie, Braveheart — and his Scottish nobles solemnly appealed to Pope John XXII to persuade the King of England (Edward II) to allow the Scots to live in peace, unmolested by their English tormentors.

The declaration states that the Scots "journeyed from Greater Scythia [present‑day southern Russia] by way of the Pillars of Hercules [Gibraltar], and dwelt for a long course of time in Spain …. Thence they came [c. 250 B.C.], twelve hundred years after the people of Israel crossed the Red Sea, to their home in the west where they still live today" (para. 2). Why did the Scots solemnly preserve, as an important milestone in their nation’s history, this reference to the crossing of the Red Sea?

The declaration reminds the pope how the Scots received Christianity: "Nor would He [Christ] have them confirmed in that faith by merely anyone but by the most gentle Saint ANDREW, the Blessed Peter’s brother" (para. 4), So the Apostle Andrew obeyed Christ’s command to go "to the lost sheep of the house of Israel" ­some of whom then lived in Scotland!

The Story of Joseph of Arimathea

Many Britons believe that Joseph of Arimathea — the important rich man in Judea who buried Christ and had secretly been His disciple (Matt. 27:57; Mark 15:43; John 19:38)­once lived in what is now Glastonbury, England, using that village as his home base from which to preach the Gospel to many of the British people. "Joseph, Saint, Of Arimathea (fl. c. A.D. 30), a Jew who undertook the burial of Jesus and whom later legend connected with the Holy Grail of Glastonbury …. A mid­thirteenth century interpolation.., by William of Malmesbury relates that Joseph went to Glastonbury in England as head of 11 missionaries sent thither by the Apostle Philip" ("Joseph, Saint," Encyclopedia Britannica, 1970).

Tradition maintains that Joseph’s oldest brother was the father of Mary, Jesus’ mother. If true, that would make him Christ’s great uncle. And a common saying in the English countryside is that "Joseph was a tin man." Tin mining was big in early Britain. In fact, the British Isles were known in ancient times as the Cassiterides ("tin islands"). And, through Phoenician established commerce links, the tin trade between Britain and the Eastern Mediterranean world was quite substantial. Thus, Joseph was probably involved in tin trade between the British Isles and the Near East. In going to Glastonbury in Somerset, he may have been returning to a familiar place, where he could effectively preach the Gospel.

Collier’s Encyclopedia says, "Glastonbury Abbey, a ruined abbey in Somerset shire, about 6 miles south of Wells, England. Tradition has it that it was here that Joseph of Arimathea established the first Christian Church in England" (vol. 9, 1959, p. 110). "According to the legends… the first church of Glastonbury was a little wattled building erected by Joseph of Arimathea as the leader of the twelve apostles i.e. the 11 "missionaries" mentioned above] sent over to Britain from Gaul by St. Philip" ("Glastonbury," Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th ed., vol. 11). Notice that Philip preached the Gospel to the lost Israelites then living in Gaul (modern France and Belgium)! Some Britons also believe that Peter himself took the Gospel to England.

But can these "legends" be believed? Nearly every English —language encyclopedia contains at least one article attesting to these strong British traditions. There are often kernels of truth in many legends; of course, not every detail of a persistent legend is necessarily true. But consider this: Britain was an integrated part of the Roman Empire in the first century A.D. To move from Judea, an eastern province of the Empire, to a western location would be just as feasible as moving from New York to California in the 1800s! "Mediterranean traders had been visiting the country from at least as early as the fourth century B.C…. There was a good deal of cross‑channel trade and migration in the centuries before the Roman conquest" (T.W. Potter, Roman Britain, British Museum Publications Ltd., 1983, p. 5).

So it seems clear that at least some of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel in the days of Christ and His apostles were in Europe‑some having gone even as far as the British Isles. How did they get there? The most widespread people in Europe at this time were the Celts. In fact, the areas of Britain, Ireland, Gaul and even the southern Black Sea region — the areas in which we just located some people from the Ten Tribes — were ALL Celtic at the time.

But surely there couldn’t have been very many Israelites among the Celts, could there? After all, the Celts were a European, not Middle Eastern, people, right? Besides that, most of the Celts were later overrun by Germans. Hasn’t history pretty well established that Britain and the other Northwest European countries are Germanic nations? English is even a Germanic language! Surely someone couldn’t seriously think that some scattered Israelites lost amid the great mass of Celtic and Germanic peoples could possibly constitute the greater part of the Ten Lost Tribes.

America seems an even more unlikely candidate. After all, isn’t it just one big "melting pot" of many peoples? In the next chapter, we will examine the roots of the major ethnic groups, which make up America and Britain—showing where they came from. And you may be very surprised at what you learn!
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Chapter 3

Anglo-American Ethnic Roots

What are the ancestral roots of the British and American peoples? Is America just a blend of all manner of ethnicities — a "mongrel nation" as Adolph Hitler lbeled it? And what about the Britons? Aren’t they primarily a Germanic people? Who are these peoples really? These are some of the fascinating questions we will be answering in this chapter.

Is America a "Melting Pot"?

In his 1976 book, Destination America, Maldwyn A. Jones says that most Americans have preferred to mix culturally, socially and religiously with those of their own ethnic background: "They seldom intermarried and it was soon clear that intermingling, far from producing social unity, generated ethnic discord which could erupt into open violence. Insofar as the melting pot functioned at all, it did so slowly and imperfectly" ("Myth of the Melting Pot," p. 145).

In an interesting Los Angeles Times article, Ernest W. Lefever (a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C. ) reported, "Most Americans seem to have given up the dream of a serene melting pot — as both unrealistic and perhaps a bit un‑American. Many of us have settled for a less demanding metaphor of America as a bountiful and variegated salad bowl" ("America Is Being Ripped Apart," Aug. 8, 1993).

Of what ethnicity are most Americans? A July 7, 1986, article in U.S. News & World Report revealed that, based on 1980 census figures, nearly 80 percent of Americans polled claimed descent from Northwest Europe: "The government found out that there were 134 different ethnicities living in the United States. The largest number — nearly 50 million, or 22 percent of the population [at the time]  — claimed English lineage. Americans of German ancestry are almost as numerous. Just behind them are people with Irish ancestors."

According to that article, here are the actual figures given in the 1980 census: English, 49.6 million; German, 49.2 million; Irish, 40.2 million-mainly Scots-Irish; French, 11.9 million; Scottish, 10 million; Dutch, 6.3 million; Swedish, 4.3 million; Norwegian, 3.5 million; Welsh, 1.7 million; Danish, 1.5 million. This adds up to a total of 179.2 million U.S. citizens who claimed descent from the peoples of Northwest Europe.

Americans who are not of Nortwest European ancestry make up only about one quarter of the total U.S. population.  Later population figures reveal that blacks constitute only 11.9 percent of the American populace while Hispanics make up only 9.5 percent (Encyclopaedia Britannica 1995 Book of the Year, p. 741).

A Whole Nation "Sifted"

Remember from chapter two that God said He would "SIFT the house of ISRAEL among all nations, as grain is sifted in a SIEVE; yet not the smallest grain shall fall to the ground" (Amos 9:9). An interesting "parallel" has occurred in American history. For years, immigrants to the U.S. were greeted by the Statue of Liberty on their way to America’s chief port of entry, Ellis Island. Notice what Maldwyn Jones says: "Ellis Island was a gigantic SIEVE, whose sole function was to keep out undesirables …. [and serve as a gateway] to America for sixteen million immigrants" (pp. 54, 64).

It is interesting to note that U.S. immigration laws and policies — during much of America’s critical, formative years and up until the middle of the 20th century — deliberately favored the peoples of Northwest Europe while, at the same time, limiting white peoples from southern or eastern Europe. This idea of a "sieve" has circulated since the early American settlements — and God was seen as the One doing the sifting: "The Puritan founders of New England never doubted that they were, in a quite special way, God’s chosen people. One of their leaders spoke of God’s having ‘SIFTED a whole nation’ in order to find the instruments which were to work out His purposes in the new world" (p. 18).

American President Calvin Coolidge echoed this sentiment in 1923: "It has often been said God sifted the nations that He might send choice grain into the wilderness [of America]. Who can fail to see in it the hand of destiny? Who can doubt that it [the U.S.] has been guided by the hand of God?"

John Jay, the first chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, made this incisive statement in 1787: ‘Providence [had] been pleased to give this one connected country to one united people — a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs." Yes, the peoples who formed the 13 original British colonies were overwhelmingly of British stock and spoke the "mother tongue," English.

As we learned in the last chapter, the British Isles — and most of continental Europe — were populated in ancient times by the Celts. However, Great Britain was eventually overrun by peoples from the east known as the Angles and Saxons. In time, the Anglo‑Saxons would come to dominate all the countries, which made up the British Isles — the Angles even giving their name to England (Angland). The Celts were pushed west. Yet, even today, a substantial portion of the British population remains Celtic.

Who Were the Celts?

Who were the Celtic peoples?  The Britannica states, "Celt… the generic name of an ancient people, the bulk of whom inhabited the central and western parts of Europe" ("Celt," 11th ed., vol. 5). World Book Encyclopedia says, "The first Celts were a mixed people. They tended to be fair haired and light skinned, but some had darker colored hair and complexion [brunets]. They were taller than many of their neighbors, but not so tall as the Norsemen" ("Celts’ vol. 3).

The same entry continues, "Little is known of the Celts until about 500 B.C. Then they were found mainly in southwestern Germany, but later, the Celts ranged east, west, and south. They soon spread over most of western Europe. In the British Isles, they were divided into two branches. One branch, which included the Irish, the Manx, and the Highland Scots, spoke Goidelic [Gaelic]. The other branch to which the Welsh [Cyrnry], the Cornish [of Cornwall, England], and the Bretons [of Brittany, France] belonged, spoke Brythonic. The Celts in Europe developed the Gaulish language.’

History clearly shows that, eventually, few of the Celts remained east of the Rhine River. In the days of Julius Caesar (1st century B.C.), the Celtic lands included northern Italy, northeastern Spain, France, Belgium, Demark, western Germany and Switzerland. Also a small group of Gauls (Celts or "Galatians") settled in central Asia Minor and was still there in the first century A.D. As a wide‑ranging, on‑the­move people, the Celts were united in their languages, dress and culture and in their pagan religion (druidism). Caesar wrote about the Celts in his Gallic Wars. But his is not the definitive history to which we will look for the ancient origins of these peoples. For that, we must turn elsewhere.

Of the many thousands of books dealing with ancient history, none has presented ancient British origins in as clear and accurate a light as the monumental, multi‑volume work, The History of the Anglo‑Saxons from the Earliest Period to the Norman Conquest by the well‑respected English historiographer, Sharon Turner (1768‑1842). He says, "Europe… has been peopled by three great streams of population from the East, which have followed each other, at intervals so distinct, as to possess languages clearly separable from each other. The earliest of these… comprised the Cimmerian and Celtic race.

 The second consisted of the Scythian, Gothic, and German tribes; from whom most of the modern nations of continental Europe have descended" (vol. 1, p. 3). According to Turner, the ‘Third and most recent.’ ethnic group to migrate into Europe was the "Slavonian and Sarmatian nations.., who have now established themselves in Poland, Bohemia, Russia, and their vicinities. It is from the first two  generations of the European population [Celts and Scythians] that the ancient inhabitants of England successively descended… The earliest of these that reached the northern and western confines of Europe, the Cimmerians and Celts, may be regarded as our first ancestors; and from the German or Gothic nations who formed, with the Scythians, the second great flood of population into Europe, our Anglo-Saxon and Norman ancestors proceeded" (pp. 4, 21).

Samuel Lysons wrote about "the Cimmerians seeming to be the same people [as] the Gauls or Celts under a different name; and it is observable that the Welsh, who are descended from the Gauls, still call themselves Cymri or Kymry" (Our British Ancestors, 1865, pp. 23, 27).

Turner mentions that the ancient Celtic and Cimmerian languages were the same. He also says "that the Kimmerioi of the Greeks were the Kimbroi of the Greeks, and the Cimbri of the Latin writers…. Diodorus Siculus expressly says, that to those who were called Kimmerioi, the appellation of Kimbron was applied in the process of time … Plutarch, in his Life of Marius, also identifies the Kimbri with the Künnerioi" (footnote, p. 28). Turner also noted that the Keltoi (Celts) were the same people as the Galatai, and that they, in turn, were the same as the Galli (the Gauls), and that the Keltoi were "one of the branches of the Cimmerian stock" (p. 36).

Who Were the Anglo‑Saxons?

According to the 1980 U.S. Census figures previously cited, "Germans" were the second‑largest ethnic group in America after the English. Of course, if we count all peoples of British stock (English, Scots, Irish and Welsh), we find them more than twice as numerous as the Germans. Still, the "Germans" represent a sizable portion of America’s ethnic background. Moreover, even the English have descended from early "Germanic" invaders of Britain. Exacly who were these people?

Teutons or "Germans" migrated to England as Angles, Saxons and Jutes in the decades immediately following the departure of the Roman legionnaires from Britain around 410 A.D. In The Story of English, a 1986 companion book to the PBS television series of the same name, authors McCrum, Cran and MacNeil say, ‘The tribes which now threatened the Celtic chiefs of Britain were essentially Germanic …. There are, Tacitus [famed Roman historian, c. 55-110 A.D.] writes, seven tribes …. One of these seven barbarous tribes was the Angli, known to history as the Angles, who probably inhabited the area that is now known as Schleswig‑Holstein [immediately south of Denmark on the Jutland Peninsula]….The speech of the Angli belonged to the Germanic family of languages" (pp. 56‑58).

According to Encyclopaedia Britannica, the Angli (Angles) definitely had a close affinity with the Saxons ("Saxons," 11th ed., vol. 24). The Story of English continues, "To this day the [cultural] gap between the English on the one hand and the Welsh, the Scots and the Irish on the other, is often huge ….To the Celts, their German conquerors (Angles, Jutes and Saxons) were all Saxons" (p. 61). So historians are generally agreed in referring to all the major peoples who followed the Celts into Britain as "Germans." But, as we will examine shortly, they were quite different from other tribes, whose descendants today inhabit Germany. Still later, some of those so‑called "Germans" who had settled in Britain migrated to America as British colonists. After the British North American colonies were founded, numerous other "Germans" left Germany and began flooding into those British colonies.

Who were the "Germanic" Saxons? Sharon Turner says, "The Saxons were a… Scythian tribe; and of the various Scythian nations which have been recorded, the Sakai or Sacae, are the people from whom the descent of the Saxons may be inferred with the least violation of probability. Sakai‑Suna or the Sons of Sakai, abbreviated into Sakcun, which is the same sound as Saxon, seems a reasonable etymology of the word ‘Saxon.’ The Sakai who in Latin are called Sacae, were an important branch of the Scythian nation. They were so celebrated, that the Persians called all the Scythians by the name of Sacae; and Pliny [the Elder, Roman historian, A.D. 23‑79]… speaks of them as among the most distinguished people of Scythia (Pliny, lib. vi. c. 19). Strabo [Greek historian, c. 63 B.C.‑ 24 A.D.] places them eastward of the Caspian [Sea]" (p. 87)!

According to historian William Camden, the Saxons and the Getae (Goths) were related Scythian peoples. He writes, "But that [opinion] of the most learned German seems most probable and worthy to be embraced, which makes the Saxons descend from the Sacae, the most considerable people of Asia, and to be so called quasi Sacasones, or Sons of the Sacae, and to have gradually overspread Europe from Scythia or Sarmatia Asiatica, with the Getae, Suevi, Daci, and others. Nor is their opinion ill‑founded, which brings the Saxons out of Asia" (Encyclopaedia Britannica, vol. 1, p. 151). Herodotus says, "For the Persians call all the Scythians Sacae" (Polymnia, bk. 7, para. 64).

The famous English poet and histrian, John Milton — author of the classic work, Paradise Lost—wrote, "They [the Saxons] were a people thought by good writers to be descendants of the Sacae, a kind of Scythians in the north of Asia, who with a flood of other northern nations came into Europe, toward the declining of the Roman Empire [c. 400s A.D.]" (History of England, bk. 3, 1835, pp. 406‑407). Scythian artifacts from many thousands of tombs have been found all across southern Russia and as far west as Berlin.

Anciently, the vast, sparsely inhabited land stretching from eastern Europe far into Asia was known as "Scythia. " In fact, at one time or another, the Scythian people were scattered from the Carpathian Mountains, eastward across the Steppes of southern Russia, all the way to the Great Wall of China! The area north of the Black Sea, however, was their main center from about the fifth century B.C. until they migrated westward from that region during the first centuries of the Christian Era.

The westward migration of the Scythians into Europe greatly diminished their numbers in their Asian homeland. This enabled them to be pushed completely out of Asia and eastern Europe by the Sarmatians — the ancestors of the Slays. Many modern nations of Europe can claim descent from the Scythians: "This second stock of the European population [the Scythians] is peculiarly interesting to us [Anglo‑Saxons], because from its branches not only our own immediate ancestors, but also those of the most celebrated nations of modem Europe, have unquestionably descended.

"The Anglo‑Saxons, lowland Scots, Normans, Danes, Norwegians, Swedes, Germans, Dutch, Belgians, Lombard’s and Franks have all sprung from that great fountain of the human race, which we have distinguished by the terms SCYTHIAN, German, or Gothic" (Turner, pp. 82‑83)! For his unparalleled work in ancient historiography, Turner is certainly to be highly respected. But is his identification of the Scythians with the Germans accurate?

 
Are the Anglo‑Saxons True Germans?

Most true Germans are characterized by "Alpine" round skulls. Yet ethnologist Madison Grant writes, "In the study of European populations the great and fundamental fact about the British Isles is the almost total absence there today of true Alpine round skulls" (See Box: Who were the Germans? Pg. 29). Ripley, in The Races of Europe, says, "The most remarkable trait of the population of the British Isles is its head form; and especially the uniformity in this respect which is everywhere manifested. The prevailing type is that of the long and narrow cranium, accompanied by an oval rather than broad or round face" (p. 303). Remember that this is the same as the northern Celtic type. It is also the same as the Teutonic, Scandinavian type‑the Scythian type!

In a 1915 article — "Are We Cousins to the Germans?" — Sir Arthur Keith wrote that "the Briton and German represent contrasted and opposite types of humanity" (The Graphic, Dec. 4, p. 720). He explained, "The radical difference in the two forms leaps to the eye. In the majority of the Briton — English, Welsh, Scottish and Irish — the hinder part of the head, the occiput, projects prominently backwards behind the line of the neck; the British head is long in comparison with its width" (p. 720).Keith then pointed out that "in the vast majority of Germans," the back of the head is "flattened" — indicating "a profound racial difference. Even in the sixteenth century, Vesalius, who is universally recognized as the ‘father of Anatomy,’ regarded the flat occiput as a German characteristic …. He came, rather unwillingly, to the conclusion that the vast majority of modern German people differed from the British, Dutch, Dane and Scandinavian in head form.

"The explanation," according to Keith, "is easy. With the exodus of the Franks to France and the Anglo‑Saxons to Britain in the fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth centuries of our era, Germany was almost denuded of her long‑headed elements in her population." So the land of Germany seems to have been operating as a massive SIEVE — while the round‑headed population elements were retained, the long‑headed elements passed through. This is rather astounding! Could something like this have happened by chance alone? Surely there was something more at work here!

Did any more of the Scandinavian long‑headed type leave? Yes — to America! Look at the entry on "Germany" in the Britannica: "There have been great oscillations in the actual emigration by sea. It first exceeded 100,000 soon after the Franco‑German War (1872, 116,000), and this occurred again in the years 1880 to 1892. Germany lost during these thirteen years more than 1,700,000 inhabitants by emigration. The total number of those who sailed for the United States from 1820 to 1900 may be estimated at more than 4,500,000 …."The greater number of the more recent emigrants [to the U.S.] was from the agricultural provinces of northern Germany‑West Prussia, Posen, Pomerania, Mecklenburg, Schleswig­Holstein and Han-over, and sometime the emigration reached 1% of the total population of these provinces. In subsequent years the emigration of native Germans greatly decreased" (11th ed., vol. 11).

What is so special about northern Germany ? Notice this reference from Ripley’s Races of Europe: "Northwestern Germany — Hanover, Schleswig, Holstein, Westphalia — is distinctly allied to the physical type of the Swedes, Norwegians, and Danes. All the remainder of the Empire — no, not even excluding Prussia, east of the Elbe — is less Teutonic in type; until finally in the essentially Alpine broad-headed populations of Baden, Wurttemburg, and Bavaria in the south, the Teutonic race passes from view" (p. 214).

It is generally known that the northern "Low Germans" differ from the southern "High Germans." But there were differences even among the Low Germans. Another source comments, "A separate study, in the case of Germany at least would seem to indicate that those [immigrants] who went to the U.S.A. in the 1800s were somehow different from those who stayed behind and German officials themselves remarked on such a difference. The claim for such a distinction is based on consideration of physical types, areas‑of‑origin within Germany, religious orientation and social outlook" (Yair Davidy, The Tribes, Russell‑Davis Publishers, p. 430). It seems America’s Puritan founders were indeed right in believing that God was sifting a whole nation!

It is clear, then, that the Anglo­Saxon peoples are not Germanic — at least in the modern sense of that term. Neither are the Teutonic peoples of Scandinavia and the rest of Northwest Europe who sprang from the Scythians. These people who overran the British Isles were in many respects the same as the Celts who were already living there. Notice what Professor Huxley’s Racial Origins says: "The invasion of the Saxons, the Goths, the Danes and the Normans changed the language of Britain, but added no new physical element. Therefore we should not talk anymore of Celts and Saxons, for THEY ARE ALL ONE. I never lose an opportunity of rooting up the false idea that the Celts and Saxons are different races." Winston Churchill was of the same opinion (History of the English­ Speaking Peoples, vol. 1, preface).

The Celtic people are certainly not German either. The modern Germans (Deutsch) represent an altogether different group of people located today in Greater Germany — i.e. Germany, Austria, western Poland, the western Czech Republic and the Rhineland of eastern France. We will learn the true identity of these people later in this brochure.

From Where Did the Celts Arise?

When did the Celts or Cimmerians begin migrating into Europe? And from where did they come? Though they have since moved on, a large Celtic populace spent a considerable amount of time in Spain. There they were known as the Celtiberri or Celtiberians — thus Spain and Portugal are located on the "Iberian Peninsula." This is quite interesting since Iberia was the name of a region between the Black and Caspian Seas, just south of the Caucasus Mountains and north of Armenia! Notice this from the multimedia encyclopedia, Microsoft Encarta ’95: "Iberia, ancient name for both the Iberian Peninsula and the country lying between the Greater Caucasus and Armenia, approximately coextensive with present‑day Georgia [south of Russia]" ("Iberia," Microsoft Corp. and Funk and Wagnall’s Corp., 1994).

This word is also the probable origin of the name, Ireland! The name Ireland comes from Eire‑land ("Eire" being what the Irish call it). Traditionally, this name came from "Erin." The Romans called it Hibernia or Ivernia. It sometimes appears as Iberon. But where did these names come from? The late Harvard professor Barry Fell wrote, "One of the ancient names of Ireland is Ibheriu, pronounced as Iveriu, a fact that suggests that the word is derived from a still‑earlier pronunciation, Iberiu. Now this is very interesting, for the Gaelic histories assert that the ancestors of the Gaels came to Ireland from Iberia, the old name of Spain. Could Iberiu be the same as Iberia, the name of the older homeland having been transferred to the younger? Many people, including some linguists, think this may well be the case" (America B. C.: Ancient Settlers in the New World, 1976, p. 43).

Could such Irish forebears in Spain have come from the area of Iberia just south of the Caucasus Mountains? The Anglo‑Saxon Chronicle (c. 891 A.D.), the primary source for the early history of England, says Southwest Asia was at one time the home of the Celts: "The first inhabitants [of England] were Britons [Welsh or Kymry], who came from ARMENIA, and first peopled Britain southward" (p. 21, translated by James Ingram).

Some people argue that the compilers of the Anglo‑Saxon Chronicle used the word "Armenia" by mistake. They cite the fact that A History of the English Church and People by Bede (673‑735 A.D.), which was used as one of the sources for the Chronicle, has a similar sentence using the word "Armorica" instead — i.e. modern Brittany in northwestern France. However, those who argue in favor of this should consider that the Anglo‑Saxon Chronicle was a monumental work overseen by MANY people. Bede was just ONE person. More than likely, it was he who made the slip by using the word "Armorica"! Samuel Lysons’s history also traces the "Cimbri" to Armenia. And remember that Armenia was just south of Iberia and the Caucasus!

Observe this from the 11th edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica: "Cimmerii… Herodotus (iv. 11‑13), in his account of Scythia, regards them as the early inhabitants of South Russia (after whom the Bosporus Cimmerius q.v. and other places were named), driven by the Scyths along by the Caucasus into Asia Minor, where they maintained themselves for a century…. "Certainly it is that in the middle of the seventh century [650s] B.C., Asia Minor was ravaged by northern nomads (Herodotus iv., 11), one body of whom is called in Assyrian sources Gimirrai and is represented as coming through the Caucasus. To the north of the Euxine [Black Sea] their main body was merged in the invading Scyths. Later writers identified them with the Cimbri of Jutland [present‑day Denmark], who were probably Teutonized Celts" ("Cimmerii," vol. 6, p. 368).

This is quite strange. Around the 650s B.C., 70 years after Israel’s second deportation in 721, a group of Scythians — evidently southeast of the Cimmerians — were pushing some Cim­merians north through the Caucasus and some west through Asia Minor. Yet, the Cimmierians who went north through the Caucasus encountered more Scythians coming from the east! How was this possible? The answer will become clear when we later learn who the Scythians actually were.

Armenian Homeland?

Dr. Robert Owen says, "In leaving the Far East, they [the Cimmerians, Cimbri or Kymri] must have occupied a country south of the Caucasus, extending from the river Araxes [between the Caspian and Black Seas], to the… Sea of Azov [north of the Black Sea ], where Herodotus remarks on the many places yet bearing the name of Kimmerian in his time" (The Kymry, p. 11). Owen discovered "in the nomenclature of rivers and mountains some grounds for inferring the occupation of the country east of the Euxine Sea [Black Sea] by Celts or traces of their presence, which any temporary irruption [forcible entry] in later times will never suffice to explain" (p. 11).

So we see a great deal of historical evidence that the Celtic people traveled north through the Caucasus region into Eastern Europe. Dr. Owen continues, "It is not impossible that some of the Kimmerioi, who retired from their Asiatic home before the onset of the Scythians, took a northern course, which the pursuers afterwards followed… from the Sea of Azov to the shores of the Baltic" (pp. 26‑27). Thus the Cimmerians moved north, along the eastern side of the Black Sea, and were then forced westward by the advancing Scythians —who were coming around the north side of the Caspian Sea from the east.

When did this merger and struggle between the Cimmerians and Scythians occur? Dr. Edwin Guest says, "Our most trustworthy authorities agree in fixing these events in the latter part of the sixth century B.C." (Origines Celtica, vol. 1, 1883, p. 17). He thinks that historic event occurred in the late 500s B.C, — two centuries after the Israelites had been taken captive, and about a century after the Assyrian Empire was destroyed (611 B.C.). This time frame makes sense. Remember that World Book says little was known of the Celts until the 500s B.C. Notice also: "The Celts [began] to emerge from the anonymous mass of the non‑literate peoples of Europe during the late sixth century B.C." (Vencelais Kruta, Celts of the West, pp. 10‑11).

As the Cimmerians came up around the Black Sea, they migrated to the Crimea, north of that sea: "Crimea [called by the Russians by the Tartar name Krym or Crim]… a peninsula on the north side of the Black Sea …. The earliest inhabitants… were the Celtic Cimmerians, who were expelled by the Scythians during the seventh century B.C." ("Crimea ," Encyclopaedia Britannica, vol. 7). Under Scythian pressure, these "Celtic Cimmerians" were forced into Europe and on around the Black Sea to its southwestern shores. There they converged with other Celts (Cimmerians), who had been pushed westward across Asia Minor by a different group of Scythians, and had crossed the Bosporus Strait into Thrace — present‑day European Turkey. Sharon Turner wrote, "The Kymry came from the eastern parts of Europe, or the regions where Constantinople [Istanbul, Turkey] now stands" (p. 32).

The Danube River formed the northern border of Thrace. The migrating Celtic Cimmerians followed the Danube westward, then — as we’ve seen — fanned out over Europe into France, Belgium, Switzerland, northern Italy and northern Spain. Some of them settled in the "Cimbric Chersonosus," the Jutland Peninsula of modern Denmark (though some writers have also used this name for the Crimea). Others moved northwest into Scandinavia, while a considerable number of them migrated further westward into Britain and Ireland.

Lysons’s history summarizes these facts quite well: "The chain of evidence seems to be complete. Appian [of Alexandria, Greek historian, 2nd century A.D.J… says the Cimbri were Celts. Diodorns [of Sicily] says that the Cimbri were Gauls or Celts; Gauls were Galatae… Geltae or Keltae. The names are synonymous …. The Cymric Celts [migrated] from Armenia to Britain… it confirms all the traditions of the Welsh, the views of Nennius [9th century British monk and historian] and the Anglo‑Saxon Chronicle and all our earliest histories, and to anyone who has studied the question, seems most convincing" (p. 27).

How and when did the Scythian fathers of the Anglo‑Saxon and other Northwest European peoples come into Europe? Madison Grant wrote, "The Nordics [Scythians]… migrated around the northern and eastern sides of the Caspian‑Aral Sea" (p. 214). Sharon Turner says, "Herodotus, besides the main Scythia, which he places in Europe, mentions also an Eastern or Asiatic Scythia, beyond [east of] the Caspian [Sea] and Laxartes [River]" (p. 82). But where did the Scythians come from? Remember that the name Saxon was from "Sak­sun" which came from "Sakai‑Suna."

This branch of the Sacae is actually mentioned in ancient history: "They seized Bactriana, and the most fertile part of Armenia, which, from them, derived the name Sakasina; they defeated Cyrus; and they reached the Cappodoces on the Euxine. "This important fact of a part of Armenia having been named Sakasina, is mentioned by Strabo… and seems to give a geographical locality to our primeval ancestors, and to account for the Persian words that occur in the Saxon language, as they [the Saxons] must have come into Armenia from the northern regions of Persia" (Turner, p. 87)! So at this point the Scythian Saxons were in the same region as the Cimmerians! What’s going on here?

The Master Key Linking Two Great Peoples

The real masterkey to unlocking the mystery of why the Cimmerians and Scythians were both coming from the same places — around the south Caspian Sea region — is to be found in the well‑known BEHISTUN ROCK INSCRIPTIONS (also called Bisutun Inscriptions).

While exploring Persia in 1835, a British army officer, Sir Henry Rawlinson, noticed a great rock rising about 1,700 feet above the main road from Babylon to Media. On the face of that perpendicular rock cliff, 400 feet above the road, Rawlinson noticed a smoothed surface with cuneiform (wedge‑shaped) engravings. Upon further investigation, Sir Henry noticed that those inscriptions were written in three languages: Persian, Susian (Elamite or Median) and Babylonian. These inscriptions had been engraved around 520 B.C. at the command of Persian Emperor Darius 1 — or "Darius the Great" (ruled 521‑486 B.C.) — to commemorate his reign and military successes.

Rawlinson performed a great service for historical scholarship when he made squeezes (clay impressions) of the inscriptions. For modern historians, those trilingual cuneiform inscriptions proved to be a master key to understanding the ancient languages of the Near East, thereby unlocking to the world the vast treasures of Assyrian and Babylonian literature: "In 1835 the difficult and almost inaccessible cliff was first climbed by Sir Henry Rawlinson, who copied and deciphered the inscriptions (1835‑1845), and thus completed the reading of the old cuneiform text and laid the foundation of the science of Assyriology" ("Behistun," Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th ed., vol. 3).

Do the Behistun Rock Inscriptions help us in understanding our Celtic (Cimmerian) and Anglo‑Saxon (Scythian) heritage? Yes! They list 23 provinces, which then constituted the Persian Empire (c. 520 B.C.).  According to the translation by L.W. King and R.C. Thompson (Inscriptions of Darius the Great at Behi stun, British Museum, 1907), the 19th province listed, in the Persian language, is called "Scythia" (phonetic: Saka‑ Rawlinson has Sacae). It is also named "Scythia" (phonetic: Sakka) in the Susian (Median) language. But, in the Babylonian language, that same province is called "the land of the Cimmerians" (phonetic: Gimiri)! The Cimmerians and Scythians must have been of the SAME PEOPLE!

Notice the following extract from The History of Herodotus: "The ethnic name of Gimiri first occurs in the cuneiform records of the time of Darius Hystapses [Darius I], as the Semitic equivalent of the Arian name Saka [Sacae = Scythians = Saxons] …. The nation spoken of contained at this time two divisions, the eastern branch, named Humurga… and the [western branch] Tigrakkuda or ‘archers,’ who [shared a common border]… with the Assyrians" (translated by U. Rawlinson, H. Rawlinson and J.G. Wilkinson).

Here is more about these eastern and western branches of the Scythians: "A group of Amyrgian Scythians in the time of Darius, king of Persia, were reported as then dwelling on the Tigris [River] banks. They were led by a chief Saku’ka and revolted against the Persian rulers. In a bilingual inscription these Amyrgians are called Saka Humuvashka in Persian and Gimirri Umurgah in Babylonian. Gimirri [in the Babylonian version] means either ‘Tribes’ or Cimmerians or perhaps both since the Scyths and Cimmerians were originally ONE ENTITY" (Davidy, p. 360).

Sir Henry Rawlinson was also of this opinion: "The identification of the Persian Sacae or Scythians with the people named by the Greeks Kimmerioi [Cimbri = Celts]… would seem highly probable" (Proceedings of the Royal Asiatic Society, May 11, 1849, p. xxi). How about that! Incredibly, history reveals that the Celts (Cimmerians) were merely the western branch of the wide‑ranging Scythians! Madison Grant concurred with this conclusion, writing that the Cimmerians, the Sacae (Saxons) and the Massagetae all sprang from the Scythians (p. 194). So these great peoples, seemingly originating in northern Mesopotamia and in Persia, were basically the same. The Cimmerians (to the west) and the Scythians (to the east yet always advancing westward upon the Cimmerians) were actually branches of the same great family!

Dating the Emergence of the Celto‑Scythians

When did the Scythian people first come on the scene? "The term ‘Scythians’ [Gk. Skythes] is used both to describe specific tribes which inhabited the north and east of the Black Sea beginning in the seventh century B.C. and as a generic word for horse‑riding pastoralists [shepherds]" ("Scythians," Anchor Bible Dictionary, vol. 5). Turner confirms this: "The emigrating Scythians crossed the Araxes [in Armenia], passed out of Asia, and invading the Cimmerians, suddenly appeared in Europe, in the seventh century before the Christian Era [600s B.C.]" (p. 85).

Chambers Encyclopedia says, "Scythians: Greek Skutha Latin Scythae Assyrian Ashguzai… the Persians called all people like them Saka, were the first nomadic people of which we have any real knowledge …. Herodotus said that the Scyths came out of upper Asia crossing the Araxes… somewhere about 700 B.C., and fell upon the Cimmerians… so that part [of the Cimmerians] were destroyed… and part driven through the Caucasus into regions about Armenia and Media" ("Scythians," vol. 11).

Many have tried to argue that the Cimmerians were north of the Caucasus first and then migrated south through the Caucasus — later going back north again (by this reasoning, the only way to explain the northward migration that we definitely know transpired). Yet we see nothing of the Celtic Cimmerians north of the Caucasus until around 500 B.C. However, historical evidence clearly places them south of the Caucasus, in Armenia, when the Scythians met them in about 700 B.C. And they must have been there for at least a short while before that. So when the Cimmerians did go north through the Caucasus, that was almost certainly their first time being there.

What else can we learn of this time? Chambers continues, "For the whole seventh century [600s B.C.] Scythians and Cimmerians played their part in the confusion that reigned in western Asia during the last days of the Assyrian empire and the resurgence of Babylon. The Scythians were mentioned in Assyrian records first under Esarhaddon (681‑669 B.C.); whereas the Cimmerians were hostile to the Assyrians, the Scythians [at this lime] seem to have been friendly…. [The Scythians] are said to have ruled Asia 28 years, penetrating as far as the borders of Egypt, and taking a part in the siege of Nineveh, 611 B.C. No one has satisfactorily fitted this 28 years into the chronology of Media and Babylonia . Herodotus represented the Scyths as returning after it into south Russia and reestablishing their dominion there. Here we may regard them as continuously dominant from 700 B.C. till the last century B.C."

The Anchor Bible Dictionary entry on "Scythians" also mentions Esarhaddon’s reign: "The Scythians… apparently first appear in written history in the annals of Esarhaddon, and seem to be centered at that time in what is today Northwest Iran. According to Herodotus (1.103‑6) the Scythians ruled over all of the Near East for 28 years after entering the area from the north; traditionally this period of rule is assigned to the seventh or sixth century B.C…. By the third century B.C., the Scythian presence in the Near East is restricted to the Crimea and the shores of the Black Sea. Ovid [famous Latin poet, banished to the Black Sea for unknown reasons in 8 A.D.] records Scythian life in the first century A.D., by which time their power is spent; the Scythians shortly after fade from history."

The same article reveals that Scythian "grave goods [artifacts recovered by archaeologists from tombs] demonstrate economic interaction with the local settled populations, in the seventh and sixth centuries with Urartians [people of Ararat Armenians] and other northeast groups and in the fifth and fourth centuries with Greeks…. Although the Scythians primarily lived in tents [as wanderers among the nations!], there is some evidence in the North Steppe of settlements dating to the seventh or sixth century B.C."

Many scholars have believed that the Scythians originated in the Russian Steppes and LATER moved south around both sides of the Caspian Sea. In fact, the very opposite is true! Archaeologists have examined a great number of graves in the Steppes and have confirmed that Scythian culture in that area didn’t begin until the end of the seventh century B.C. (Fromthe Lands of the Scythians: Ancient Treasures from the Museums of the U.S.S.R. 3000 B.C.‑100 B.C., Metropolitan Museum of Art and Los Angeles Museum of Art, p. 99).

There is NO archaeological evidence showing that Scythians were in south Russia prior to the late 600s B.C. — certainly not thousands of years prior, as some modern scholars have claimed! Yet there is much evidence of Scythians around the southern Caspian area well before 600 — and even back to 700 when they clashed with the Cimmerians in Armenia!

Herodotus realized that these people weren’t originally from there. So he picked another place of origin — to the north. Yet, as we’ve just seen, that can’t be! Where did they come from then? Earlier, we read Sharon Turner’s conclusion that these fathers of the Saxons must have come from southeast of Armenia —from PERSIA. Thus the Scythians must have been in Persia, south of the Caspian, even shortly before 700 B.C. And, in fact, Turner informs us that Homer dated the rise of these people to that time.

Important Note: We have established that the emergence of the Cimmerians (Celts) In Armenia and their Scythian (Saxon) brothers in Persia, south of the Caspian Sea, occurred in the 700s B.C. Yet those places were not their original cradles. This is a very significant fact of history.

Language Says It All!

Can we derive any clues about the origins of the Celts or Scythians based on their languages or traditions? It may come as a surprise to learn that Encyclopaedia Britannica reports, "For many centuries the affinities of the Celtic languages were the subject of great dispute. The languages were in turn regarded as descended from Hebrew, Teutonic and Scythian" ("Celt," 11th S., vol. 5). "Hebrew"? How could that be possible?

Samuel Lysons says, "Thus I propose to show in the course of these pages, when we come to the relics of British worship remaining in this country… the remarkable similarity between those names and the Hebrew and Chaldee languages. The same theory holds good in the names of some of our old British families" (p. 21). Continuing, he writes, "Now whatever may be the historical value of the Welsh poems, it is undoubted that Taliesin [renowned 6th century Welsh poet] in his Angar Cyfridawd, says that his lore had been ‘declared in Hebrew, in Hebraic" (p. 22).

Thus, Lysons argued that the Celtic tongue was closely related to the Hebrew language. "Yet this we gather from the names attaching to the British monuments… that there is a strong affinity between these British names and that language of which Hebrew is either the original or one of its earliest off‑shoots; and that therefore Hebrew, Chaldee, or some other very near cognate, must have been the language of the first inhabitants [the Celts or Kymry] of this island" (p. 83). Isn’t that amazing?

But Lysons isn’t the only one who sees a kinship between the ancient Celtic tongue spoken by the Kymry and the Hebrew language. Robert Owen writes, "Most Welsh scholars have employed their time on the production of grammars and dictionaries. The Hebrew learning of Dr. John Davies of Mallwyd seems to have influenced his countrymen to accept the Puritan atavism [resemblance to remote ancestors] of referring Welsh to the language of Moses [Hebrew] as its fountain" (p. vi).

What about the Scythians? Is their language also related somehow? The Scyths spoke Scythiac, which is classified thus: "Scythiac… Scythian [language]… There is a strong similarity between the Hebrew and the Scythian languages" ("Scythiac," New English Dictionary on Historical Principles, 1971, vol. 8). Then why isn’t English, our language through the Anglo-Saxons, like Hebrew? Undoubtedly, as the Scythians were "sifted through" the true German peoples, they must have adopted much of the early Germanic language from which modern English is descended. Still, it is truly remarkable that the Celtic and Scythian languages were both tied to Hebrew! Isn’t it becoming more and more clear who these people were?

In his authoritative 1913 work, Scythians and Greeks, Ellis H. Minns wrote of the "Scythians …. Next in importance to their horses came the cattle used for drawing their great wagons …. They had sheep as well, for mutton bones are found in cauldrons in the tombs, as for example at Kul Oba. They made no use of pigs either in sacrifice or any other way …. [and] regarded swine as tabu”(p. 49), Where did this prohibition against eating pork originate? Could it have been from the Hebrew Bible? Leviticus 11:7‑8 says, "And the swine is unclean to you. Their flesh you shall not eat, and their carcasses you shall not touch" (cf. Deut. 14:8). As is commonly known, the Orthodox Jews of today still strictly observe this dietary principle.

Robert Owen relates another interesting detail: "Some of their Celtic traditions resemble Semitic records of antediluvian patriarchs" (p. 33). This historian then shows that, like the Israelites of old (2 Kings 21:1‑5), the ancient Britons worshipped "Baal, the sun, and the hosts of heaven …. Our British ancestors were devoted to that kind of worship which they brought with them from the East, whence they came at a very early period, even close upon the Patriarchal time of Holy Writ" (pp. 93‑94).

Sharon Turner noted the following remarkable practice of the ancient Britons: "The Kimbri swore by a brazen bull, which they carried with them" (p. 34). This fact is a grim reminder of the idolatrous "calf worship" which Jeroboam (first king of the Ten Tribes of Israel) introduced into the Northern Kingdom. Where, then, is all of this leading us?

An Inescapable Conclusion!

Remember from chapter one that the northern Ten Tribes of Israel had been carried away in two separate captivities. The first one, which took place around 734‑732 B.C., was the huge "Galilean Captivity," in which about three‑fourths of the Northern Kingdom was carried away, including the Israelite tribes dwelling on the EAST side of the Jordan River.

This latter aspect of the first deportation is described in 1 Chronicles 5:26: "So the God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Pul king of Assyria, that is, Tiglath‑Pileser…. He carried the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half­tribe of Manasseh into captivity. He took them to Halah, Habor, Hara, and the river of Gozan to this day." These places, according to The Macmillan Bible Atlas, were located in Assyria in northern Mesopotamia (Yohanan Aharoni and Michael Avi‑Yonah, pp. 96‑97). These locations were in the immediate vicinity of Armenia!

The second deportation of Israel occurred with the fall of Samaria, following a three‑year siege. This captivity of the rest of the Northern Kingdom ­the small "rump state" left around the capital city — is described in 2 Kings 17:5‑6: "Now the king of Assyria went throughout all the land, and went up to Samaria and besieged it for three years. In the ninth year of Hoshea [c. 721 B.C.], the king of Assyria took Samaria and carried Israel away to Assyria, and placed them in Halah and by the Habor, the River of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes."

How are we to understand this verse? Were those of the second captivity taken to the same places as those in the first captivity — the only additional destination being "the cities of the Medes," i.e. ancient Media, the territory south of the Caspian Sea ? Notice this important missing detail provided by the Jewish historian, Josephus: "The king of Assyria… besieged Samaria three years and quite demolished the government of the Israelites, and transplanted all the people into Media and Persia" (Antiquities, bk. 9, chap. 14, sec. 1).

So the vast majority of the people in the second captivity were taken to the lands south of the Caspian Sea! To see this even more clearly, did you know that the word "Scythian" is in your Bible? It IS — but only once. It occurs in Colossians 3:11, in which the Apostle Paul says that, within God’s Church, physical status does not matter: "Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian [nor] Scythian, slave nor free, but Christ is all and in all." The missing "nor" here was provided in the same way that the New King James Version and other Bible translations provide the missing "no?’ between "slave" and "free."

Each of the four pairs mentioned here contain two contrasted types of people. The first two clearly contrast Gentiles and Israelites. Undoubtedly the same is true for "barbarian" (Gentile) and "Scythian" (Israelite). In any case, they are viewed as opposites. Scythians are looked upon here as not being barbarians — i.e. not Gentiles. God’s Word, then, supports this conclusion!

Corroborative  Evidence

Now let’s look at the apocryphal book of 2 Esdras — which claims to be a series of apocalyptic visions to Ezra the Scribe. Though it cannot be trusted as Scripture, it can nevertheless give us a historical perspective. Zondervan Publishers’ New Revised Standard Version notes that the bulk of this book was probably written at the end of the first century A.D. Notice the following passage: "And as for your seeing him gather to himself another multitude that was peaceable, these are the nine tribes [footnote: Other Latin manuscripts say "ten" and the Armenian says "nine and a half’] that were taken away from their own land into exile in the days of King Hoshea, whom Shalmaneser, king of the Assyrians, made captives; he took them across the river [Euphrates], and they were taken into another land" (13:39‑40 NRSV).

Perhaps the missing tribe here, if there was one, was Dan since, as we saw in chapter two, many Danites probably "leapt" west from the Promised Land (Deut. 33:22) before and during the Assyrian invasions. Though, undoubtedly, there were still a number of Danites who went into captivity with the rest of their brothers of the Northern Kingdom.

Look at what happened next to the Israelites in Assyrian captivity: "But they formed this plan for themselves, that they would leave the multitude of the nations and go to a more distant region, where no human beings had ever lived, so that there at least they might keep their statutes that they had not kept in their own land. And they went in by the narrow passages of the Euphrates river [undoubtedly the mountain passages north of Lake Van from the Euphrates to the Araxes Rivers] …. Through that region there was a long way to go, a journey of a year and a half; and that country is called Arzareth" (2 Esclras 13:41‑43,45 NRSV).

The Euphrates‑Araxes passages just mentioned would take them NORTH toward the Caucasus Mountains. What about Arzareth — or Arsareth, as it is often spelled? It has traditionally been identified with the region of the Sareth or Siret River — which flows south along the east side of the Carpathian Mountains in eastern Romania until it meets the Danube just before flowing east into the Black Sea. (Remember that it took a "year and a half’ to get there from south of the Caucasus.) Incredible! This migration pattern from south of the Caucasus, moving northwest around the north side of the Black Sea until entering Eastern Europe was exactly the same path we have already established for the Cimmerians! Clearly, this is more than freak happenstance, isn’t it?

Was it mere coincidence that the Celtic and Scythian languages both had strong linguistic roots in Hebrew? Was it through unrelated circumstances that the Scythians and Israelites both considered pork taboo? Was it insignificant that the Celts and Scythians were white (Caucasian) people who must have descended from Shem‑just like the Israelites? The parallels are manifold. There can be NO DOUBT — WE HAVE FOUND THE LOST TEN TRIBES OF ISRAEL! They are the Northwest Europeans who have descended from the Celts and Scythians! Isn’t this incredible? God performed a great miracle by preserving the Israelites as a people — as He promised (Amos 9:9).

This is not a new idea. Notice what Encarta ’95 says: "The so‑called Anglo‑Israelite theory, which gained considerable credence in the 17th century, is that the Ten Tribes were the ancestors of the Anglo‑Saxon peoples; many Jews were admitted into England about that time based on the strength of the theory" ("Lost Tribes"). Yet it is more than just a theory! The historical proof is simply overwhelming that the Celto‑Scythians were none other than the dispossessed Israelites.

Yet the greatest and, by far, the strongest proof that our Northwest European heritage can be traced back to ancient Israel lies in the pages of the Holy Bible‑in its record of prophecies and God’s promises concerning national greatness. Only among the Anglo‑Saxon‑Celtic peoples have the tremendous birthright blessings promised to Abraham’s descendants been realized. And it is through the Bible that we are able to identify the sons of Joseph who have specifically received the birthright — America and the British — descended nations.

What about the rest of the Lost Tribes? Though not recipients of the birthright promise of dominance, nevertheless, as God’s chosen people also, they have been greatly blessed with material prosperity. There is some debate about which of these tribes form which Northwest European nations today. And, for lack of space, we are not able here to explore all the possible reasons for thinking that a particular nation may represent a specific tribe. Still, it can be stated with a fair amount of certainty that these other tribes may be found in France, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Iceland. God Almighty kept His promise! HE REALLY KEPT IT! What tremendous trust and faith in God this should inspire in us.

Here is certain, living proof of a REAL GOD! And this God — the Lord OUR God, the God of OUR FATHERS, ABRAHAM, ISAAC, JACOB AND JOSEPH — is not disinterested, far removed or uninvolved. Our God is an intimately INVOLVED God — the God who keeps promises and who answers prayers! Our Father Abraham trusted in God completely. And, for that, we, his descendants — as well as the non‑Israelites who dwell in our lands‑have been lifted to the heights of the world, blessed as no other peoples have ever been. We should fall on our knees before God in continual thanks for what he has done for us‑for these awesome blessings that we are so unworthy of! In the next chapter, we will examine how God specifically fulfilled the birthright promises. It is truly an awe‑inspiring story‑filled with amazing evidence of miraculous, divine intervention!

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Chapter 4

The Birthright Finally Realized!

How did God at last fulfill the birthright promises of a GREAT NATION and a COMPANY OF NATIONS (Gen. 35:11; 48‑49)? The answer is a story, which should be quite familiar to most Americans and Britons — because it is simply the story of the modem history of our nations!

Of course, the vast majority of our people do not comprehend this most important aspect about our nations’ history. Many of us fail to grasp the reason for the incredible rise of the English­speaking peoples to unparalleled greatness and prosperity. As Winston Churchill said before the U.S. Congress on December 26, 1941, "He must indeed have a blind soul who cannot see that some great purpose and design is being worked out here below."Let’s now examine the last few centuries of American and British history from the awesome perspective of God’s Word.

The World’s Greatest Colonizers

By the early 1500s, Spain had become the most powerful nation in Europe — enjoying almost total naval supremacy. England, on the other hand, was only an average power. But then came England’s victory over the Spanish Armada in 1588. Amazingly, the Armada was defeated — not so much by English might as by stormy weather! Winston Churchill later wrote that "the defeat of the Armada came as a MIRACLE… One of the medals struck to commemorate the victory bears the inscription ‘Afflavit Deus et dissipantur‘ — ‘God blew and they were scattered’"(History of the English Speaking Peoples, vol. 2).

From that day forward, English sailors confidently believed they could more than hold their own against their Spanish counterparts. It was England’s naval confidence on the high seas, which gave her the courage to make permanent settlements around the world. Chief among the world’s colonizing nations were the Anglo‑Saxon‑Celtic peoples from the British Isles. Only Bible prophecy explains why, beginning in the early 1600s, the colonizing instinct became so strong in these peoples. God, remember, had promised Jacob, "Your descendants shall be as the dust of the earth; you shall spread abroad to the west and the east, to the north and the south"<(Gen. 28:14. So Jacob's descendants were destined to become the world's foremost colonizers!

Remember, also, that Joseph’s descendants would become the chief colonizers of Israel: "Joseph is a fruitful bough, a fruitful bough by a well; his branches run over the wall" (Gen. 49:22). But where would they "run over the wall" (colonize)? Verse 26 "Up to the utmost bound of the everlasting hills." Genesis 27:28 says they would be given the "fat places of the earth" (JPS). Fulfillment of some of these blessings can be seen in the words of the song, "America the Beautiful," by Katherine Lee Bates: "O beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain, for purple mountain majesties above the fruited plain!"

By itself, the cozy island of Britain is an incredibly beautiful and productive land. Yet remember that, according to prophecy, the people there would someday say, "The place isTOO SMALL for me; give me a place where I may dwell" (Is. 49:20). So, from this small homeland, Britons went forth and colonized nine‑tenths of the North American continent, the whole continent of Australia, the beautiful, rich lands of New Zealand, parts of South Africa and numerous other islands and territories. There is no other instance in the entire history of the world where such a small, seemingly insignificant people spread out around the globe, successfully colonizing such enormous, rich tracts of land — thereby becoming many nations!

How did Britain become "too small" — creating the need to colonize? Historians reveal that various factors (war, famine, disease) kept the population of Britain from increasing very rapidly until the Industrial Revolution (17501850). Then, suddenly, a population explosion occurred. British historian, Cohn Cross, observes that "one of the unexplained mysteries of social history is the explosion in the size of the population of Great Britain between 1750 and 1850. For generations the British population had been static, or rising only slightly. Then in the space of a century it almost trebled ­from 7.7 million in 1750 to 20.7 million in 1850. Why it happened is unknown…. It must just be recorded that human reproduction and vitality follows unpredictable patterns…. Britain was a dynamic country and one of the marks of its dynamism was the population explosion" (Fall of the British Empire, p. 155).

Very striking here is the time element! As we saw earlier, Israel had to wait 2,520 years from the time of her Assyrian oppression and captivity before receiving the actual fulfillment of the birthright promises. This coincides exactly with Britain’s population explosion, which gave the British the impetus to spread abroad.

Lord Curzon, Viceroy of India, in 1907, expressed the belief that God had put in the Englishmen a divine impulse to establish colonies around the globe: "I would describe the [British] Empire… as the result, not of an accident or a series of accidents, but of an instinct—that ineradicable and divinely implanted impulse, which has sent the Englishman forth into the uttermost parts of the earth, and made him  there the parent of new societies and the architect of unpremeditated creations" (The British Empire, BBC TV and Time‑Life Books, p. 2,466.

A Nation and a Company of Nations

As Creator, Possessor and Ruler of this earth, it is within God’s prerogative to give any nation or individual whatever portion of this earth He chooses (Gen. 14:19; Acts 17:23‑26). The French assemblyman Alexis de Tocqueville made these incisive comments in his famous 1835 work, Democracy in America: "The Indians occupied but did not possess the land. It is by agriculture that man wins the soil, and the first inhabitants of North America lived by hunting…. Providence [God] when it placed them amid the riches of the New World seems to have granted them a short lease only; they were there, in some sense, only waiting. Those coasts so well suited for trade and industry, those deep rivers, that inexhaustible valley of the Mississippi­ in short, the whole continent — seemed the yet empty cradle of a GREAT NATION" (p. 24).

De Tocqueville further stated, "When the Creator handed the earth over to men, it was young and inexhaustible, but they were weak and ignorant; and by the time that they had learned to take advantage of the treasures it contained, they already covered its face, and soon they were having to fight for the right to an asylum where they could rest in freedom. It was then that North America was discovered, as if God had held it in reserve and it had only just arisen above the waters of the flood" (p. 258).

North America was indeed held "in reserve" by God for the descendants of Israel. As God had inspired Moses to write, "When the Most High divided their inheritance to the nations, when He separated the sons of Adam, He set the boundaries of the peoples [all other nations] according to the number of the children of Israel [whose population size He foresaw and planned for]" (Deut. 32:8)!

Great Britain established its first permanent colony in North America at Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607. In 1620, the Mayflower landed at Plymouth Rock with its Pilgrim settlers. The Puritans arrived soon afterward to establish the Massachusetts Bay Colony. By the early 1700s, a string of 13 thriving British colonies were firmly established along the eastern seaboard of North America. In the 1763 Treaty of Paris, France ceded to Britain her Canadian colonies, as well as all the Louisiana Territory east of the Mississippi River ­excluding the city of New Orleans. Thus the die had been cast toward making the Anglo-Saxon‑Celtic peoples the dominant ethnic group in North America.

Remember, Joseph’s descendants were to become a "great nation" and a "company of nations." Only 11 years after the first Treaty of Paris in 1763, the 13 British colonies in North America rebelled against the Mother Country. During their War of Independence (1775­1783), the upstart Americans threw off the Old World’s yoke.

Subsequently, the second Treaty of Paris was signed on September 3, 1783 — this time by British and American diplomats. In this treaty, Britain officially recognized the United States as a sovereign nation and ceded all of her North American territories south of the Great Lakes to the victorious rebels. Spain’s Florida Territory then formed the southern boundary of the new Republic, and the Mississippi River formed its western boundary. Now it could rightly be said that America was assured of becoming the GREAT NATION God had promised.

Again, the time period for all of this is extremely significant, as we saw in chapter two. If we begin counting the seven prophetic times (2,520 years) of Leviticus 26 from the initial Assyrian incursions into Israel around the mid-740’s to early 730’s B.C., we would end our count around A.D. 1776 (the signing of the Declaration of Independence) or 1783 (the Treaty of Paris recognizing American independence). If we begin counting from Israel’s first Assyrian deportation (c. 734‑732 B.C.), we arrive at 1787‑1789. The U.S. Constitution was signed in 1787, ratified in 1788 and put into force in 1789. Thus was established the long‑prophesied great single nation of Manasseh (Gen. 48)!

What about counting from the three‑year siege of Israel’s capital city of Samaria (c. 724‑721 B.C.) — the final end of the Kingdom of Israel at the time of its second deportation? That takes us to 1797‑1800. As we will shortly see, it was in this time frame that, by defeating the French, unquestioned naval supremacy fell to the British‑enabling modern Ephraim to become the prophesied "company of nations”!

 It is also an astounding fact that exactly 2,520 years after the ancient capital of Samaria fell in 721 B.C., U.S. federal offices were moved in 1800 from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to a NEW capital city — Washington, D.C.! Truly, only the great, omnipotent God could have orchestrated such events to happen on such a precise time scale! Finally, after the passing of the seven times, there would be no more delay! The incredible birthright promises of "a nation and a company of nations" would be fulfilled. This required separating the two brothers, Ephraim and Manasseh. So, in the late 1700s, God did just that.

He certainly guided the outcome of the Revolution, or the Americans would have been crushed by the far — more powerful British. Benjamin Franklin reminded the Constitutional Convention in 1787, "In the beginning of the contest with Great Britain, when we were sensible of danger, we had daily prayer in this room for the divine protection. "Our prayers, sir, were answered. All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of a superintending Providence in our favor. To that kind Providence we owe this happy opportunity of consulting in peace on the means of establishing our future national felicity."

This, however, does NOT mean that God favored the Americans (Manassites) over the British (Ephraimites). He was simply working out His purpose. God gave the Americans victory when they fought in their own land — but NOT when they advanced into British Canadian territory: "From the beginning, America’s first campaign of territorial conquest [into Canada] seemed dogged with misfortune. Everything went wrong…. The annexation of Canada was clearly not in God’s plan for the United States…. It was as if God had a different plan for Canada… a plan separate and distinct from His plan for America" (Peter Marshall and David Manuel, The Light and the Glory, pp. 292, 295‑296). And so He did. God, we now know, had reserved that area for Ephraim! Thus, God divided the descendants of Ephraim and Manasseh politically and began to bless them in their separate courses — yet not so separate, for these sons of Joseph are close brothers. The Declaration of Independence even mentions "the ties of our common kindred"!

America’s "Manifest Destiny"

Following right on the heels of the end of the 2,520 — year delay in bestowing the promised birthright blessings, Napoleon Bonaparte’s war‑weary French Empire made an incredible deal with U.S. President Thomas Jefferson in 1803. France sold the Louisiana Territory to America for about $15 million, a paltry five cents per acre! By the "Louisiana Purchase," the U.S. acquired more than 500 million acres of the richest, most fertile farmland on earth — the "Breadbasket of the World." And, by this awesome purchase, the size of the U.S.A. grew by about 140 percent! Napoleon is said to have remarked, "This accession of territory affirms forever the power of the United States." Robert Livingstone (U.S. ambassador to France) is said to have commented, "From this day the United States take their place among the powers of the first rank." Never before in the history of mankind had any nation struck such a wonderful deal!

Massive territorial expansion continued, and many Americans came to believe in "Manifest Destiny" — that God had foreordained the American people to possess the vast land between Mexico and Canada, "from sea to shining sea." During the 1840s, the idea of America’s "Manifest Destiny" swept the nation like a religious revival. In The United States Magazine and Democratic Review, John L. O’Sullivan wrote of "the fulfillment of our manifest destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence [God] for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions." He argued that America’s claim to the Oregon Territory was "the right of our manifest destiny to over spread and possess the whole continent which Providence has given us for the development of liberty and federative self‑government."

In exactly 70 years, 1783‑1853, the United States acquired all the territory of the original contiguous 48 states. Never before in the entire history of the world had any nation acquired so much land so cheaply! But that was not the end of U.S. territorial acquisitions!

America’s hunger for new land was still not fully satisfied. So, in 1867, the U.S. purchased "Russian America" (Alaska) from Russia for the unbelievably low price of $7,200,000 — only about two cents per acre! Despite the extremely low cost, the fantastic purchase of Alaska was ridiculed by some Americans as "Seward’s Icebox" and "Seward’s Folly" (William Seward was America’s Secretary of State who negotiated the purchase). But those foolish Americans soon came to see their own folly when GOLD was discovered in the Klondike region in 1896. Furthermore, the "Alaskan Pipeline" is now a major source of American OIL! And the sale of Alaskan fish, lumber, minerals, petroleum and other commercial products nets the U.S, tens of billions of dollars annually!

With the purchase of Alaska in 1867, America had acquired her final territorial acquisition in continental North America. Thus, during a period of a mere 84 years (1783‑1867), the United States received legitimate titles to all of the contiguous 48 states, plus the mineral‑rich land of Alaska! Later, America would receive titles to Hawaii, Puerto Rico and other beautiful and strategically important islands.

Prophesied Anglo‑American Military Might

During Israel’s 40‑year sojourn in the desert, its enemies hired Balaam, a false prophet, to employ enchantments against the people of Israel — hoping to curse them. But, God forced Balaam, against his will, to prophesy good things regarding Israel (Num. 22‑24).

Balaam asked, "How shall I curse [Israel] whom God has not cursed? And how shall I denounce whom the LORD has not denounced? … How lovely are your tents, O Jacob! Your dwellings, O Israel! … He has strength like a wild ox [‘unicorn" KJV‑symbolic here of a very powerful nation]; he shall consume the nations, his enemies; he shall break their bones and pierce them with his arrows. He bows down, he lies down as a lion; and as a lion, who will rouse him? Blessed is he who blesses you [Israel], and cursed is he who curses you” (23:8; 24:5, 8-9).

The Prophet Micah also revealed that the modern descendants of Israel would be like the king of beasts among the nations of this earth: "And the remnant of Jacob shall be among the Gentiles, in the midst of many peoples, like a lion among the beasts of the forest, like a young lion among flocks of sheep, who, if he passes through, both treads down and tears in pieces, and none can deliver. Your hand shall be lifted against your adversaries, and all your enemies shall be cut off" (Mic. 5:8‑9)!

Remember from chapter one that, of Israel’s descendants, Joseph’s offspring were prophesied to become the most powerful in military prowess. In fact, they would become the most powerful nations on earth! Of Joseph "in the last days," Jacob said, ‘The archers [his enemies] have bitterly grieved him, shot at him and hated him. But his bow remained in strength, and the arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the Mighty God of Jacob… who will help you" (Gen. 49:1, 23‑25). Clearly, Joseph’s descendants would become MIGHTY in miltary power "in the last days."

We also saw a similar picture of modern Joseph given to Moses: "His glory is like a firstborn bull, and his horns [weapons] are like the horns of a wild ox ["unicorns" KJV]; together with them he shall push the peoples [Gentile nations] to the ends of the earth; they are the ten thousands of Ephraim, and they are the thousands of Manasseh" (Dent. 33:17). How did God fulfill His many promises regarding the people of Israel becoming as powerful as a lion or a wild bull among the nations of this world?

As mentioned earlier in this chater, a global power shift occurred in the last few years of the 1700s. Napoleon Bonaparte attempted to seize Egypt, fully intending to gain control of the Mid-east and, eventually, to wrest India from the British as a prized imperial possession. But he was thwarted by the British navy. In 1798, Britain’s Admiral Horatio Nelson tracked Napoleon’s French fleet to Aboukir Bay, Egypt, and then almost destroyed it at the famous Battle of the Nile. Overnight, the Mediterranean became an English sea. Napoleon’s army, although intact, was stranded in Egypt. Bonaparte could not march to India which was his plan — without a fleet behind to supply him. He tried to move up through the Levant [Eastern Mediterranean] but a British naval squadron stopped him at Acre.

‘If it had not been for you English, I’d have been Emperor of the East,’ he said later. ‘But wherever there is water to float a ship we are sure to find you [English] in the way’ " (British Empire, vol. 1, p. 274). One of history’s most significant naval engagements occurred in 1805, when British Admiral Lord Nelson virtually annihilated a combined French and Spanish fleet off Cape Trafalgar and captured 20 enemy ships. Although Lord Nelson died in battle, France, Spain and other nations were forced to acknowledge British supremacy over the high seas. British historian James Morris, in his Par Britannica, writes, "The presence of the sea, at once insulating the Mother Country and linking it with the Empire, gave the British an imperial confidence" (p. 46).

Britain’s pride in her supremacy over the seven seas was aptly illustrated by the words of British Admiral St. Vincent: "I do not say the French cannot come. I only say they cannot come by sea." In the fateful years 1853‑1854, American naval power, under Commodore Matthew C. Perry, persuaded the Japanese leaders to crawl out of their isolationist cocoon, thereby opening Japan to the outside world. And American sea power later enabled the U.S. to achieve a quick victory over Spain in the Spanish-American War of 1898.  

Anglo‑American dominance of the high seas was crucial in their victory over the Central Powers in World War I and the Axis Powers in World War II. Even though Germany and Japan seriously challenged the U.S. and Britain on the high seas during World War II, Anglo‑American naval strength — aided by Almighty God — finally won out!

A major reason for British‑American supremacy on the high seas is something else that was prophesied thousands of years ago. Recall that God told Abraham, "Your descendants shall possess the GATE of their enemies" (Gen. 22:17)! This blessing was reiterated to Israel’s mother: "May your offspring gain possession of the gates of their foes" (Gen. 24:60 NRSV). The Anglo‑Americans have possessed, over a period of four centuries, most of the major "sea gates" —vital maritime choke points — of the world.

The Greatest Empire in All History!

"It is likely that if a public opinion poll had asked a representative cross-section of Englishmen in the late 1890s whether they would accept the following two propositions — that the British people had a divinely ordained calling to hold and rule an overseas empire, and that they ruled their Empire better than any other European power—the overwhelming majority would have answered ‘yes’ to both" (British Empire, p. 2,466).

Lord Archibald, British prime minister (1894‑1895), made some revealing comments while speaking to students at Glasgow University in November 1900. Referring to the British Empire, he called its construction "human, and not wholly human, for the most heedless and the most cynical must see the finger of the divine reaching with a ripple of a restless tide over tracts, and islands and continents, until our little Britain woke up to find herself the foster‑mother of nations and the source of united empires. Do we not hail in this, less the energy and fortune of a race than the supreme direction of the Almighty?" (p. 2,466).

Just what did God direct Ephraim’s descendants to inherit? In its heyday, the enormity of the British Empire was staggering to contemplate. As it was spread out around the entire globe, a popular saying of the time was, "The sun never sets on the British Empire ." Just how big was it? "It was the largest empire in the history of the world, comprising nearly a quarter of the land mass of the earth, and a quarter of the population…. "In fact.., it continued to grow until 1933, when its area was 13.9 million square miles and its population 493 million …. The Roman Empire in its prime comprised perhaps 110 million people in an area of 2 1/2 million square miles" (Morris, pp. 21,27,42). Thus we see that the British Empire was more than five times the size of the Roman Empire, and included within its jurisdiction more than four times the number of subjects!

Was the Empire the result of an intelligent, carefully‑thought‑out British plan, or was it something which the British stumbled onto — almost in spite of themselves — because they, unknowingly, were being used by God to fulfill His Word, written nearly 4,000 years ago? "It was [British historian] Sir John Seeley who remarked that the Empire had been acquired ‘in a fit of absence of mind" (p. 37).

Morris answers, "Their Empire, hitherto seen as a fairly haphazard accretion of possessions, now appeared to be setting into some gigantic pattern …. They felt their power was self­engendering, that they were riding a wave of DESTINY, sweeping them on to fulfillment …. The acquisition of it all had been a jerky process. Absence of mind it never was, but it had happened so obscurely that to the ordinary Briton the rise of the Empire must have seemed more like some organic movement than the conscious result of national policies. There seemed no deliberation to it. One thing simply led to another" (pp. 22,42).

He further explains, "Wherever there was [vacant land with a temperate climate].., the British had seized and occupied it, filling in the empty spaces of the world, and setting up their own kind of society wherever they went. Such was, so the romantic idealists thought, the Manifest Destiny of the Empire" (p. 41). "During Queen Victoria’s remarkable reign [the longest in British history, 1837‑1901] the empire had grown by more than ten times, from a scatter of disregarded possessions to a quarter of the land mass of the earth, and a third of its population. It had changed the face of the continents with its cities, its railways, its churches, its myriad cantonments, and it had changed the manner of life of entire peoples, stamping its own values upon civilizations from the Cree to the Burmese, besides creating several fully‑fledged new nations of its own.

"The powers of the world, envious of the British Empire’s splendor, reluctantly acknowledged its supremacy. Even the German Kaiser [Wilhelm III congratulated his aunt [Queen Victoria] upon her glorious Diamond Jubilee in 1897" (James Morris, Heaven’s Command, p. 539). The British Empire was the "forge" or the "crucible" by which the British—controlled territories were transformed into actual separate, completely sovereign "nations" of the Commonwealth.                                     

“Chosen For Service”

James Morris also noted, "It was not merely the right of the British to rule a quarter of the world, so the imperialists thought, it was actually their duty. They were called. They would so distribute across the earth their own methods, principles and liberal traditions that the future of mankind would be reshaped. Justice would be established, miseries relieved, ignorant savages enlightened, all by the agency of British power and money" (Pax Britannica, p. 26).

Many Britons believed that the task of ruling their Empire was a divine assignment, and they took it very seriously. They felt an immense sense of pride in their imperial achievements. "Never since the world began… did any nation assume anything like so much responsibility…. The British had no doubts about the superiority of their civilization and its faith…. ‘In the Empire we have found,’ George Curron once magnificently announced, not merely the key to glory and wealth but the call to duty, and the means of service to mankind.’

Like our ancient father Joseph, the British and American peoples have served as able administrators over other nations (Gen. 27:29). But we Britons and Americans must never forget that God has blessed us, not because of our own innate intelligence, goodness or imagined superiority, but for His own high purpose! We have been chosen by God to fulfill a special purpose in His Great Master Plan (Ex. 19:4‑6 Amos 3:2). Dr. Curzon said, "If we dare to use the [expression] ‘a chosen people,’ all boasting will be excluded if we remember that in the language of true religion ‘chosen’ means chosenfor service, perhaps for suffering, never for favoritism" (Brian Williams, Judgment on Britain, 1966, p.11)!

Even the military supremacy of Ephraim and Manasseh has been used for service. The United States of America emerged from the Second World War as the greatest superpower nation the world has ever seen. Winston Churchill later reflected on the brotherhood his nation shared with its chief ally. Speaking before the House of Commons on October 28, 1947, he said, "I must turn to the United States, with whom our fortunes and interests are intertwined…. The Americans… have become today the greatest state and power in the world, speaking our own language, cherishing our common law, and pursuing… the same ideals.

Paul Kennedy, in The Rise and Fall of Great Powers, pointed out that, at the end of World War II, the U.S. was more powerful in relation to other nations than it has ever been: "America alone, he noted, held the secret to the atomic bomb. It also held two­thirds of the world’s gold reserves, half its manufacturing production and half its ships and supplied one‑third of the globe’s exports" (Los Angeles Times, Aug. 27, 1989).

What incredible power in the hands of a single nation! But how did America use that enormous wealth and influence? To browbeat other nations into submission? No! America set out to rebuild the nations of Europe through the Marshall Plan —including Germany! The U.S. governed Japan for a few years, reconstructed the war torn country and gave it a new constitution. Germany and Japan are global economic powers today, thanks, in part, to the great generosity of the American people —for which all credit really belongs to God!

In recent years, the Soviet Union has disintegrated as a superpower. American President George Bush explained in his January 28, 1992, "State of the Union" address, "A world once divided into two armed camps now recognizes one sole and preeminent power, the United States of America. And they regard this with no dread. For the world trusts us with power, and the world is right. They trust us to be fair, and restrained. They trust us to be on the side of decency. They trust us to do what’s right." These words followed the Persian Gulf War in which the American‑led coalition liberated Kuwait from Iraq.

Israel — a Blessing to Other Nations!

Here, then, is the fulfillment of the physical aspect of God’s promise to Abraham that "in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed" (Gen. 11:3). Not only would spiritual salvation come through Abraham’s descendant, Jesus Christ, but also Abraham’s modern descendants would be a great blessing to other nations.

The United States and Britain have spent multiple billions of dollars in providing foreign aid to other countries. Historically, our nations are the ones that have always raced to the rescue of those in need. Untold millions of tons of food and humanitarian supplies have been unloaded on foreign docks bearing such labels as, "From the people of the United States."

Notice the incredible parallel drawn by Royal Society member Sir Oliver Joseph Lodge (1851‑1940), a British physics professor and university principal: "We [British], too, are a chosen people. It were blasphemy to deny our BIRTHRIGHT and responsibility. Our destiny in the world is no small one. We are peopling great tracts of the earth and carrying thither our language and our customs.  The migration of that primitive tribe from Uri of the Charles under the leadership of that splendid old chief, Abram, into the Land of Promise, was an event fraught with stupendous results for the human race." If Lodge only knew how true his words were! 

But there is a spiritual side even to this. A British minister, C. H. Spurge on (1834‑1892), once said, "I judge that God has blessed the two great nations of the Anglo­ Saxon race —England and the United States‑and given them preeminence [so that]… they may spread abroad the knowledge of the glory of God" (Treasury of the Old Testament, viol. 2, cp. 145).  How true! The Anglo‑American peoples have sent hundreds of millions of Bibles, in virtually every known tongue, into all nations! And it has been primarily through those same peoples that the true Gospel of the Kingdom of God has been preached worldwide — and must yet be preached and published globally (Matt. 24:14; 28:19; Mark 16:15)! Americans and Britons have been chosen NOT for favoritism—but for SERVICE toward the other nations of the world!

Again, God fulfilled His promises in amazing detail. Ishmaelite’s descendants, the Arabs, may have become an empire larger than Rome’s, but that pales into insignificance when compared to what became of Isaac’s descendants. Ephraim ALONE became the greatest empire in human experience — FIVE times as big as that of the Romans — on which the sun never set! From it emerged a "multitude of nations"! Manasseh became the greatest single nation that has ever existed. Since World War II, it has been the undisputed leader of the free world.

The descendants of these two sons of Joseph came into possession of the most bountiful lands on earth. God gave them the vital sea gates of the world. They rose to military dominance and national prominence as no other nations ever have. They became industrial super giants. And how did they use their new‑found power? As a blessing to other peoples of the globe! And it all happened right on schedule—exactly as prophesied. Can you think of a more amazing proof of a living, intervening God?

Here, then, is Israel — not the tiny Jewish state in the Middle East, (which, incidentally, owes its very existence to the continued support of its Josephite brother, the U.S.A.), but superpower nations sitting astride the geopolitical landscape, controlling world affairs! Here, then, is Israel — not scratching in the dust to grow meager amounts of food to barely survive on, but helping to feed the entire planet from the superabundance of the richest soil imaginable! Here, then, is Israel—not looking elsewhere for new tools, but always leading the world in advancing the cutting edge of technology. And here, then, is Israel — not constantly defending her flag from stronger enemies, but planting her flag on the surface of the moon!

Can there be any doubt that the mighty hand of God has directed all of this? How thankful are we for what God has done? In the next chapter, we will see how well our American and British peoples have fared in living up to their divine calling and purpose — and what is prophesied to happen to them.

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Chapter 5

What Is Now Prophesied?

What does the future hold for our American and British peoples? Despite the tremendous, incredible blessings God has poured out on our peoples, not all is well with Britain and America. In fact, something terribly wrong has happened. Following World War II, the sun finally set on the mighty British Empire as it quickly vanished from the global scene — almost overnight! Today, Britain’s foreign holdings continue to dwindle. For example, Hong Kong reverted to China in 1997. The British Commonwealth is no more. (There is still a "Commonwealth," but its 50 member nations are no longer subject to the British Crown and are predominantly non‑British in descent.)

The United States, once the greatest creditor nation in earth’s history — even forgiving many other nations many billions of dollars of debt — has now become the greatest debtor nation the world has ever seen! Our society is plagued by persistent unemployment, broken homes and crime. Instead of gleaming "alabaster cities," many of our urban centers are like festering scabs—just waiting to erupt in racial strife and uncontrollable violence. Our inner cities are breeding grounds for rioting, gang violence, murder, substance abuse, poverty, illiteracy, teenage pregnancy and increasing misery of every sort.

Tragically, Britain and America have mostly failed in God’s purpose for them of being a blessing and good example to other nations. Moral debasement and a rejection of God by far too many have exacted a huge toll. In this chapter, we will see how this has happened to the English‑speaking peoples and why God is going to have to violently SHAKE us out of our evil ways.

"Too Privileged"?

The American author, John Steinbeck (1902-1968), once said, “If I wanted to destroy a nation, I would give it too much and I would have it on its knees, miserable, greedy and sick.” Compared with the one billion impoverished human beings lacking adequate food, many Americans, Britons, Canadians, Australians and New Zealanders are overfed and overweight! Have we been so blessed that we have taken these God‑given blessings for granted? Have we been too blessed for our own good?

Japan’s late Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka once said, "I often wonder why you [Americans] worry so much about domestic problems when you have such an abundance of resources. For example, look at American agricultural productivity. It’s easy for the U.S. to expand its output whenever it chooses. We can’t do that in Japan. When I compare the situation here in Japan with the situation in your country, I think that as a nation you are too privileged…. God has not been very fair in the distribution of resources…. Americans have the most stable economy, they have an abundance of resources available within their own country, and they have more investments abroad than any other country" (U.S. News & World Report, Nov. 26, 1973).

Have we, indeed, been "too privileged"? As we read in the previous chapter, it is God’s prerogative, as the Creator and Possessor of Heaven and Earth, to distribute resources to whomever He wills — to fulfill His supreme purpose. But we, the recipients of the fabulous birthright blessings, need to always appreciate them, giving Almighty God thanks for everything we have, remembering that "every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights" (Jms. 1:17). Yet we Anglo‑Americans have not always kept this important fact in mind.

"We Have Forgotten God"

President Abraham Lincoln eloquently summarized our forgetful attitude as the American Civil War raged: "We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven; we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity; we have grown in numbers, wealth, and power as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand, which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own.          

"Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self‑sufficient to feel the necessity of [God’s] redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us!" (Proclamation, Mar. 30, 1863). God even foresaw this mind set— and warned Israel against it: "Beware that you do not forget the LORD your God by not keeping His commandments, His judgments, and His statutes which I command you today, lest —when you have eaten and are full, and have built beautiful houses and dwell in them; and when your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and your gold are multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied… your heart is lifted up, and you forget the LORD your God …. Then you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gained me this wealth" (Deut. 8:11‑14, 17).

How does God answer this? "And you shall remember the LORD your God, for it is He who gives you power to get wealth, that He may establish His covenant which He swore to your fathers …. If you by any means forget the LORD your God… I testify against you this day that you shall surely perish" (vv. 18‑19). But, frighteningly, this is exactly what most of our peoples HAVE done! Surely national destruction cannot be far behind.

God’s prophecies reveal a broken and devastated Israel at the very end of this age—sorely punished for forgetting and rebelling against God. "Indeed all the nations will wonder, ‘Why has the LORD done thus to this land? What caused this great display of anger?’ They will conclude, ‘It is because they abandoned the covenant of the LORD, the God of their ancestors" (Deut. 29:24‑25 NRSV).

Frankly, then, we have only ourselves to blame. In President Lincoln’s solemn words, "If danger ever reaches us it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher." He was right. It is our grievous national sins that separate us from God (Is. 59:1‑2)!

If Israel had continued to worship and obey God, it would have become a model nation for all the other nations to follow! Moses made this point clear: "Now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and the judgments which I teach you to observe, that you may live… for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples who will hear all these statutes, and say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.’ For what great nation is there that has God so near to it, as the LORD our God is to us … And what great nation is there that has such statutes and righteous judgments as are in all this law which I set before you this day?" (Deut. 4:1, 6‑8).

Yet notice what would happen if the Israelites betrayed their special relationship with God: "0 children of Israel… ‘You only have I known of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities" (Amos 3:1‑2). God believes in accountability! "But they [the Israelites] rebelled and grieved His Holy Spirit; so He turned Himself against them as an enemy, and He fought against them" (Is. 63:10). What a frightening thing it is when we make God — the most powerful Being in the universe — our enemy!

During the Korean War, on December 11, 1951, General Douglas Mac Arthur alerted his fellow Americans: "In this day of gathering storm, as the moral deterioration… spreads its infection… it is essential that every spiritual force be mobilized to defend and preserve the religious base upon which this nation was founded. For it is that base which has been the motivating impulse to our moral and national growth. History fails to record a single precedent in which nations subject to moral decay have not passed into political and economic decline. There has been either a spiritual reawakening to overcome the moral lapse, or a progressive deterioration leading to ultimate national disaster" (A Soldier Speaks, pp. 285‑286). As horrible as it is to contemplate, this is exactly where America and Britain are heading!

"I Will Break the Pride of Your Power!"

Remember from chapter two that Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28 outline blessings for Israel’s obedience to God and curses for disobedience. These were not for Old Testament times only! Some believe that, because God divorced ancient Israel (Jer. 3:8) and because the Old Covenant marriage ended with Christ’s death, God no longer deals with His physical people based on these principles. While the Husband/wife relationship based on the Sinai covenant HAS ended between God and physical Israel, the God/people relationship based on much earlier promises to Abraham has certainly NOT ended! The conditional prophecies of blessings and curses were not the Old Covenant itself. Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28 simply express how God would deal with His physical people — even today!

Through Moses, God solemnly promised the Israelites that if they obeyed Him, He would bless them and their descendants in their cities and countryside. They would be given peace, prosperity, overflowing happiness and every blessing imaginable! This included unquestioned military supremacy: "You will chase your enemies, and they shall fall by the sword before you. Five of you shall chase a hundred, a hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight" (Lev. 26:7‑8).

But if they flagrantly broke God’s covenant, His laws and statutes, then God Almighty said He would remove those blessings and punish them for their unfaithfulness. They would have drought, crop failures, famine and pestilence. The aliens in their land would rise up very high above them until they were destroyed as a nation (cf. Deut. 28:43).

Moreover, God warns: "But if you do not obey Me, and do not observe all these commandments… but break my covenant, I will do this to you: I will even appoint terror over you, wasting disease and fever …. I will set my face against you, and you shall be defeated by your enemies. Those who hate you shall reign over you, and you shall flee when no one pursues you. And after all this, if you do not obey Me, then … I will break the pride of your power" (Lev. 26:14‑19)! Not only did this apply to ancient Israel — it also applies to modern Israel — the Anglo‑Saxon‑Celts!

Have we witnessed warning signals that our power is already being broken? Many claim that Britain has been reduced to a "fourth‑rate power." The U.S. has been called a "paper tiger" or described as "all bark and no bite." Has America lost the will to win? When we fought North Korea, along with our U.N. allies, we reached a stalemate. When we fought the Vietnamese, our soldiersnever lost a major military engagement. But politics and public scorn forced us to shamefully crawl out of that war torn country on our bellies. Of course, we Anglo‑Americans have won a few police actions in such places as Grenada, the Falkland Islands and Panama.

More recently, we and our allies fought Iraq in two Persian Gulf Wars. Early in the conflict, U.S. President George H.W. Bush called on all Americans to pray to God for divine help and the safety of our men. It is striking that there were remarkably few losses! President Bush responded admirably to this outcome by again calling on Americans to pray — this time to thank God for answering the nation’s prayers. However, in general, our people have not truly turned to God in heartfelt repentance — rejecting their sinful ways and embracing God’s commandments. Thus, the pride we had in our military power remained broken. In fact, even though we could have vanquished Iraq, totally eliminating the threat it posed to our national interests, we stopped short of marching in and deposing the "Butcher of Baghdad."  Being forced to return later to complete the task under President George W. Bush.

The Coming  "Great Tribulation"

One of the most detailed prophecies in the Bible is found in Jeremiah 31‑32. The Prophet Jeremiah wrote about 130 years after the northern Ten Tribes of Israel were taken captive in 721 B.C. Therefore his prophecies couldn’t possibly refer to ancient Israel prior to that time. (That would be like a prophet today "foretelling" the American Civil War.) Jeremiah’s prophecies can only refer to the end time—our day! They are addressed to both "Israel and Judah" (Jer. 30:4), meaning both the Anglo‑Saxon‑Celtic peoples and our kinsmen, the Jews.

Jeremiah writes, "For thus says the LORD: ‘We have heard a voice of trembling, of fear, and not of peace. Ask now, and see, whether a man is ever in labor with child? So why do I see every man with his hands on his loins like a woman in labor, and all faces turned pale? Alas! For that day is great, so that none is like it; and it is the time of JACOB’S trouble, but [after going through it] he shall be saved out of it" (vv. 5‑7)!

The Prophet Daniel, who wrote his prophecies even later than Jeremiah —nearly 200 years after the ancient captivity of the Ten Tribes — also mentions a time of trouble for Israel "at the time of the end" (Dan. 11:40). "At that time Michael shall stand up, the great prince ["the archangel" Moffatt] who stands watch over the sons of your people [Jacob’s descendants]; and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation, even to that time. And at that time [after enduring this horrible "trouble"], your people shall be delivered" (11:1).

In Matthew 24, Jesus Christ spoke of what could only be the same traumatic time of unprecedented worldwide human suffering: "For then there will be great tribulation [Gk. thlipsis megale, "mega­misery"], such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be. And unless those days were shortened [by God], no flesh would be saved ["alive” Moffatt]; but for the elect’s sake [i.e. the sake of those who genuinely turn to God in repentant obedience and faith] those days will be shortened" (vv. 21‑22; cf. Mark 13:19‑20). Only in our modern age — with the proliferation of nuclear weaponry — has it been possible that if a great conflict were not halted, "no flesh would be saved alive."

Christ said, concerning this Great Tribulation, "For it will come as a SNARE on all those who dwell on the face of the WHOLE EARTH" (Luke 21:35). Yet Jesus has promised those who remain faithful to Him, "Because you have kept my word of patient endurance, I will keep you from the hour of trial [Tribulation] which is coming on the whole world to test the inhabitants of the earth" (Rev. 3:10 NRSV)!

When we put these verses together, we see that ALL of them refer unmistakably to the SAME TIME. There cannot be more than one worst time ever! These passages describe a unique time in man’s history — a time of great trouble so traumatic that no other period in the entire history of the earth will have ever been so bad. In all the bloodstained, awful history of humanity, never has any people experienced the intensity of horrors prophesied to come on a global scale.

The Prophet Ezekiel, writing between the times of Jeremiah and Daniel — about 150 years after the Ten Tribes went into Assyrian captivity—also mentioned this unparalleled time of Jacob’s trouble. God, in Ezekiel 5, tells modern Israel , "Because you have multiplied disobedience more than the nations that are all around you, and have not walked in My statutes, nor kept My judgments… I, even I, am against you and will execute judgments in your midst…. And I will do among you what I have never done, and the like of which I will never do again" (vv. 7‑9).

But why would a loving God allow such a terrible calamity to befall His people? "A disaster, a singular disaster; behold, it has come!… Doom has come to you, you who dwell in the land; the time has come, a day of trouble [the Great Tribulation] is near, and not of rejoicing …. Now upon you I will soon pour out My fury, and spend My anger upon you; I will judge you according to your ways, and I will repay you for all your abominations. "My eye will not spare, nor will I have pity; I will repay you according to your ways, and your abominations will be in your midst. Then you will know that I am the LORD who strikes" (7:5, 7‑9). Idolatry, sorcery, murder, rape, adultery, incest and homosexuality and numerous other loathsome acts are all "abominations" in the eyes of God (Lev. 20:1‑27).

But in the eyes of our society, homosexuality is accepted as a "lifestyle choice" — even with signs held aloft at parades for "gay pride" with blasphemous slogans such as, "God is gay!" God will not let such wickedness go unpunished (cf. Gen. 19; 1 Cor 6:9‑10). Also, the murder of countless millions of innocent unborn children (i.e. "legalized" abortion) is a terrible blot on the Anglo‑American national conscience (Num. 35:33; Ezek. 7:23; Is, 59:3). Rest assured—God is going to repay our peoples for such great evil! Shamefully, the Anglo-Saxon‑Celtic peoples are flagrantly breaking God’s laws—committing not only religious crimes such as idolatry and Sabbath breaking (cf. Ezek. 20:11-­24; Is. 59:1‑15), but also many heinous sins and perversions.

Horrifying World War III!

In Ezekiel 5, the Almighty describes future pestilence, famine and warfare on an almost unimaginable scale: "ONE‑THIRD of you shall die of the pestilence [disease epidemics, such as cancer, AIDS, Ebola, etc.], and be consumed with famine in your midst; and ONE‑THIRD shall fall by the sword [warfare] all around you; and I will scatter ANOTHER THIRD to all the winds, and I will draw out a sword after them. Thus shall My anger be spent, and I will cause My fury to rest upon them, and I will be avenged; and they shall know that I, the LORD, have spoken it in My zeal, when I have spent My fury upon them" (vv. 11‑13)!

What a staggering death toll! If one‑third of our people die of disease and famine, and one‑third die by war, this would mean the deaths of approximately 200 million modern Israelites — since there are now about 300 million Anglo‑Saxon‑ Celtic descendants of the ancient Patriarch Jacob living in Northwest Europe, North America and Australasia. Also, ONE‑THIRD of all mankind in general will die during the terrible coming crises at the close of this age (Rev. 9:11-­21)! Such awful, nightmarish destruction could happen only by a horrifying World War III!

At the time when the Anglo-Americans have become, among other nations, “like a lion among the beasts of the forest” with all our enemies “cut off” (Mic. 5:8‑9), God says that, because of our skyrocketing sins and crimes, He will bring sudden destruction upon us — giving us over to crushing defeat at the hands of a cruel enemy! The very next verses in Micah make this quite clear: "And it shall be in that day… that I will cut off your horses from your midst and destroy your chariots [tanks, artillery, armored cars]. "I will cut off the cities of your land and throw down all your strongholds [military installations]. I will cut off sorceries from your hand, and you shall have no soothsayers [no more psychic phone hotlines!]. Your carved images [which fill our churches and religious shrines] I will also cut off …. You shall no more worship the work of your hands …. Thus I will destroy your cities" (vv. 10‑14)!

How will this happen? Ezekiel 6:6­7 makes it even more plain: "In all your dwelling places the cities shall be laid waste…. The slain shall fall in your midst, and you shall know that I am the LORD." This never happened in the destruction of ancient Israel — it must refer to a time soon coming! What, then, is meant here? Think about it: cities like New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Toronto, Montreal, London, Glasgow, Sydney, Melbourne, Auckland — ALL LAID WASTE!

Coupled with Christ’s remark that "no flesh would be saved alive" if God didn’t intervene (Matt. 24:22), this almost certainly indicates horrific nuclear warfare or some other advanced method of mass destruction. It is a terrifying fact that man has never invented a weapon he has not later used. Missiles packing multiple nuclear warheads will, more than likely, prove to be no exception.

In the aftermath of the coming conflagration, a lack of sustenance will produce ghastly consequences: "I will let loose the sword of war on you, in punishment for your breach of compact, and you shall huddle inside your towns; I will send pestilence among you, and you shall fall into the hands of an enemy. When I deprive you of the bread that sustains you, ten of your women will need but one oven for their baking, and your bread shall be doled out in rations, till you never have enough to eat. If all this will not make you listen to me, if you continue to defy me, then I will defy you in my fury …. You shall be forced to eat the flesh of your sons and of your daughters" (Lev. 26:25‑29 Moffatt).

The starving, emaciated descendants of modern Israel (the Anglo‑Americans) will even stoop to CANNIBALISM! Ezekiel also prophesied this tragic condition: "Therefore fathers shall eat their sons in your midst, and sons shall eat their fathers" (Ezek. 5:10). The Word of God relates the gory details of this vile episode in Deuteronomy 28:53‑57 (cf. 2 Kings 6:25‑29).

National Captivity — Again?

Correction from God is absolutely necessary. Just as any loving parent will sometimes discipline his or her children for their ultimate good, so it is with God (Heb. 11:5‑11). Our merciful God promises, "Though I make a full end of all nations where I have scattered you [Israel’s countries today], yet I will not make a complete end of you. But I will correct you in justice, and will not let you go altogether unpunished" (Jet 30:11). The United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand — all of these political entities will disappear from history. But, as with the ancient Kingdom of Israel, the citizenry of these countries will not be completely wiped out (Amos 9:8‑9). What will happen to those who are not destroyed?

As we saw in Ezekiel, though two-thirds of modem Israelites will die by war, disease and famine, another third (about 100 million people) will be scattered. How will this be accomplished? God says, "Yet I will leave a remnant, so that you may have some who escape the sword among the nations, when you are scattered through the countries. Then those of you who escape will remember Me among the nations where they are CARRIED CAPTIVE" (Ezek. 6:8‑9).

"Carried captive"? Many contend that Ezekiel, himself a Jewish exile in Babylonian captivity, was …exile in Babylon captivity, was writing here about the Jews. That is simply not so. God told him to direct his words to the "mountains [prophetic symbol for nations] of ISRAEL" (v. 3). When shown this, many then conclude that these words refer to ancient Israel’s Assyrian captivity. But could that be so? No — for, as mentioned previously, Ezekiel wrote his prophecies a century and a half after that captivity. Thus God, through Ezekiel, was here referring to a yet future captivity and deportation IN OUR DAY!

The Almighty tells our peoples, "I will scatter you [as He did the Ten Tribes in the 700s B.C.] among the nations and draw out a sword after you; your land shall be desolate and your cities waste …. You shall perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up. And those of you who are left shall waste away in their iniquity in your enemies’ lands" (Lev. 26:33, 38‑39). How very similar to the concentration camps of Nazi Germany!

In Jeremiah’s prophecy, God explains the nature of the coming captivity which Israel and Judah will yet be led out of (something that has NEVER happened before): "For  behold, the days are coming… that I will bring back from captivity My people Israel and Judah " (30:3). In ancient times, Israel’s captivity (721 B.C.) occurred 135 years before Judah’s captivity (586 B.C.).

But, during "Jacob’s Trouble," the captivity of Israel and Judah will occur simultaneously. What will God be delivering them from? "For it shall come to pass in that day… that I will break his YOKE from your neck, and will burst your BONDS; foreigners shall no more enslave them" (v. 8). When Britons sing "Rule Britannia," they boast that "Britons never will be slaves!" But, despite those lyrics, modern Britons, and Americans too, will be herded into slavery — scattered over the globe to work in their captors’ mines, factories, fields, etc.

Prophecy reveals that, during the coming, horrendous World War III, both the Anglo‑Americans and the Jews will suffer together at the hands of the coming "Beast" (Rev. 13, 17, 19 — God’s name for a revival of sorts of the Holy Roman Empire of the Middle Ages in a ten‑nation European power bloc, as well as its leader. This system is also referred to as "Babylon" (Is. 47; Rev. 18). Even as you read these words, this coming political, economic and religious superpower is forming in Europe under the auspices of the European Union. Other prophecies show that Germany will provide its dynamic heart.

Israel’s captivity will be a horrific time of unparalleled suffering, during which the vast majority of modern Israel will die. Isaiah wrote: "Then I said, ‘Lord, how long will it be before they are ready to listen?’ And he replied, ‘Not until their cities are destroyed —without a person left — and the whole country is an utter wasteland, and they are all taken away as slaves to other countries far away, and all the land of Israel lies deserted! Yet a TENTH — a remnant — will survive; and though Israel is invaded again and again and destroyed, yet Israel will be like a tree cut down, whose stump still lives to grow again" (Is. 6:11‑13 Living Bible).

Think of it! Of the 100 million scattered Israelites taken into captivity, only a mere fraction will survive! How might this happen? Are you, the reader, aware that the Nazi gas chambers and ovens of Auschwitz , Dachau, Bergen‑Belsen, Treblinka, etc.  — by which millions of Jews, Slavs and others were slaughtered during the Second World War — have not been dismantled? They stand right now as monuments of great human atrocities. Yet they could be put back into macabre service almost overnight! All of this should shake us out of lethargy!

After Calamity — the "Good News"!

Will the Israelites finally heed God after suffering the Great Tribulation? God says, "If they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers, with their unfaithfulness in which they were unfaithful to Me… and that I also have… brought them into the land of their enemies… if [they]… are humbled, and they accept their guilt — then I will remember my covenant with Jacob… with Isaac and.., with Abraham …. [The Israelites] will accept their guilt, because they despised My judgments and because their soul abhorred My statutes.

"Yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not cast them away, nor shall I abhor them, to utterly destroy them and break My covenant with them; for I am the LORD their God. But for their sake I will remember the covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt, in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God: I am the LORD" (Lev. 26:40‑45).

This will indeed happen! Our Anglo‑American peoples will eventually come to their senses and bitterly cry out to God when He allows our plight to become desperate! Jeremiah quotes God as saying, "In those days and in that time… the children of ISRAEL shall come, they and the children of JUDAH together; with continual weeping they shall come, and seek the LORD their God. They shall ask the way to Zion… saying, ‘Come and let us join ourselves to the LORD in a perpetual covenant that will not be forgotten" (Jer. 50:4‑5).

Our peoples will say, "Come, and let us return to the LORD; for He has torn us, but He will heal us; He has stricken, but He will bind us up. After two days [speaking prophetically, each day equals one year — Num. 14:34; Ezek. 4:6] He will revive us; on the third day [year] He will raise us up, that we may live in His sight" (Hos. 6:1‑2)! Ancient Israel’s bondage lasted many years, but modern Israel’s enslavement will apparently only last about two and a half years (yet, as we’ve seen, it will be far worse).

Following this, repentant Israelites will be spared the next year — "the day of the LORD," mentioned over and over in Scripture — in which God will discipline all nations! At the end of that year, the Messiah, Jesus Christ, will at last return to earth in all power and glory to establish His peaceful Kingdom over all nations for 1,000 years (Rev. 20:1‑4; Dan. 2:44). At that same time, Christ will destroy the "Beast" and "the false prophet" (Zech. 14; Rev. 19), who will have put a "yoke of bondage" on the neck of modern Israel (Is. 47:1‑6). Notice what Isaiah prophesied: "It shall come to pass in that day that the LORD shall set His hand again the second time to recover the remnant of His people who are left, from Assyria [Greater Germany] and Egypt.. and the islands of the sea [British Isles, New Zealand, etc.] He will set up a banner for the nations, and will assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth" (Is. 11:11‑11).

 Isaiah is describing a SECOND EXODUS! Also note that, at the time of the end, Israel and Judah will still be two separately identifiable peoples. The prophet continues, "For the Lord will have mercy on Jacob, and will still choose Israel, and settle them in their own land [the Promised Land]" (14:1).

Who will lead this return and restore the Twelve Tribes to God’s favor? Through Isaiah, the Messiah states, "And now the LORD says, who formed Me [Christ] from the womb to be His Servant, to bring Jacob back to Him, so that Israel is gathered to Him …. ‘It is too small a thing that You should be My Servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved ones of Israel; I will also give You as a light to the Gentiles, that You should be My salvation to the ends of the earth" (49:5‑7).

Israel’s Family Reunion

In the wonderful world ahead, when the Jewish people and continental Northwest Europeans have finally learned their own true identities, they will at last recognize the Anglo‑Saxon‑Celtic peoples of America and Britain as their long lost brother Joseph. With great tears of joy, they will again shout, "Joseph is alive!" — just as the sons of Israel did almost 3,700 years ago. What a great and marvelous family reunion that will be!

Then, God will again unite the Anglo‑Saxon‑Celts with the Jews as one people (Ezek. 37:15‑17). He says, "Surely I will take the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel, his companions; and I will join them with it, with the stick of Judah, and make them one stick, and they will be one in My hand ….

"Surely I will take the children of Israel from among the nations, wherever they have gone [into captivity], and will gather them from every side and bring them into their own land; and I will make them one nation in the land …. They shall no longer be two nations, nor shall they ever be divided into two kingdoms again" (vv. 19, 21‑22). Ezekiel 48 reveals that all the Twelve Tribes will then be reassigned their own tribal allotments in the Promised Land — which will be much bigger in area than in biblical days. This will, at first, accommodate the millions of Israelites returning from captivity.

But remember what God told Israel would soon happen at that time: "The children you will have, after you have lost the others [in the Great Tribulation], will say again in your ears [as they did in Great Britain before], ‘The place is too small for me; give me a place where I may dwell" (Is. 49:20). So what will God do? "Those who come He shall cause to take root in Jacob; Israel shall blossom and bud, and fill the face of the world with fruit" (Is. 27:6).

At the time when God gathers the remnant of Jacob, He will make a "perpetual covenant" with both Israel and Judah: "Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the House of Israel and with the House of Judah …. I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people …. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more" (Jer. 31:31, 33‑34). After being converted by God’s Spirit, Israel will finally stop rebelling against Him!

Some people think that God has abandoned His purpose for the physical descendants of Israel. That is totally false! God promises, "If those ordinances [of the sun and moon] depart from before Me… then the seed of Israel shall also cease from being a nation before Me forever" (v. 36). He also adds, "If heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, says the LORD" (v. 37)!

Through Jeremiah, God clearly prophesied, "If My covenant is not with day and night, and if I have not appointed the ordinances of heaven and earth, then I will cast away the descendants of Jacob …. For I will cause their captives to return, and will have mercy on them" (33:25‑26). Look at what the Apostle Paul stated in the New Testament: "I say then, has God cast away His people? Certainly not! For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God has NOT cast away His people whom He foreknew" (Rom. 11:1‑2). Paul shows that God will yet save Israel’s physical descendants. "And so all Israel shall be saved, as it is written: ‘The Deliverer will come out of Zion, and He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob; for this is My covenant with them, when I take away their sins" (vv. 26‑27).

This is a prophecy for the future. Presently, God has ordained that He will call both physical Israelites as well as Gentiles into His Church: "I say then, have they [the Israelites] stumbled that they should fall ["beyond recovery" NIV]? Certainly not! But through their fall ["transgression" NIV], to provoke them to jealousy, salvation has come to the Gentiles. Now if their fall is riches for the world, and their failure riches for the Gentiles, how much more their fullness!" (vv. 11‑11).

This is profound! Spiritual salvation has been opened to some Gentiles now to prod Israel to look at her own condition and start obeying God. In this way, Israel’s failure has been a blessing to many Gentiles. Yet how much GREATER will the blessing for the Gentile nations be when Israel learns to finally set the example God intended from the beginning? Israel will yet be the wonderful model nation God meant her to be all along. This is truly incredible!

For Gentiles Too!

But God loves all peoples (John 3:16) — not just Israelites! He is "no respecter of persons" — or nations (Acts 10:34‑35). How, then, do the Gentiles co ­inherit the vast riches and wealth, both physical and spiritual, which was promised to the ISRAELITES? Paul reveals more of this "mystery" by saying, "Those who are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God; but the children of the promise are counted as the seed [of Abraham]" (Rom. 9:8).

Clearly, all of God’s covenants and promises were given to Israel, and the only way Gentiles can partake of those promises is by them being grafted spiritually "into a good olive tree" (Israel), thereby becoming partakers of the fabulous riches which Almighty God promised the Israelites (Rom. 11:15, 17‑21).

Paul also explained this mystery to the Christians at Ephesus, who were Gentiles: ‘Therefore remember that you, once Gentiles in the flesh — who are called Un circumcision by what is called the Circumcision made in the flesh by hands — that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world" (Eph. 2:11­11)! But the apostle does not stop there. "Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God" (v. 19).

He told the Gentile converts of Galatia, "For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus …. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise" (Gal. 3:26 , 28‑29). God’s Old Testament " Church " was a nation of physical, carnal‑minded people who, as a group, never had God’s Holy Spirit within them to empower them to do His will. But God’s New Testament Church — the "Israel of God" (Gal. 6:16 ) — is composed of only those who repent of their sins, receive His Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38 ) and "keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ" (Rev. 11:17).

The New Testament "Church of God" includes people of all races! But it is a serious mistake to assume that true Christianity is a "Gentile" religion. Paul explained that this was not so (Rom, 9:3­4; 11:16‑24). He told the Gentile saints at Rome , "For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh; but he is a Jew who is one inwardly" (Rom. 2:28‑29). Everyone must become a spiritual Jew. Paul told the Ephesians, "But now in Christ Jesus you [Gentiles] who once were far off have been made near by the blood of Christ" (Eph. 2:13 ). "For through Him we both [Jews and Gentiles] have access by one Spirit to the Father" (v. 18). With God’s Spirit in us, we, as spiritual Israel can succeed where physical Israel has not.

The main lesson of Israel is one of utter failure without God’s Holy Spirit! God gave the Israelites everything. Yet they just could not keep His law. By the New Covenant, Israel will finally be given the spiritual POWER to actually obey God and His law "in spirit and truth" (John 4:24 ). But if you, the reader, have begun to understand the importance of submitting your life to God and obeying Him totally, you don’t have to wait until then! You can partake of the New Covenant’s terms right now (Heb. 8:1‑13).But you need to realize that you can’t do it alone. To truly obey God with all your being, it takes Jesus Christ, as your personal Savior, living in you through the power of the Spirit of God (Col. 1:27; Gal. 2:20 ). How do you receive that blessing? By deeply REPENTING before God of breaking His spiritual laws, accepting in FAITH the tremendous sacrifice of Jesus Christ as payment for your sins, being BAPTIZED and then receiving the priceless gift of God’s HOLY SPIRIT (Acts 2:38‑39).

This is how to become a spiritual Israelite (Gal. 6:16 ) and partake of the New Covenant’s terms right now. It doesn’t matter whether you are a physical Israelite or not. All humanity desperately NEEDS God’s Holy Spirit — to obey Him and truly worship Him. This is what God desires from you—and, more importantly, FOR you!

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