The Geography of Sinai and Kadesh

This is not the first post I've made on that subject.  I have for various reasons become more interested in Kadesh then Sinai.  That includes the extent to which the Wandering in the Wilderness has typological significance to aspects of the End Times.

Among people trying to argue for alternatives to the traditional site of Mt Sinai, those who are merely moving it further north in the peninsula still accept the traditional sites of Kadesh-Barnea and Paran and everything else just about.  But I feel you can't make the argument that the traditional Sinai is based on probably wrong European guesses but keep all the others, because those identifications came even later and are derived from that Sinai location. 

It really doesn't matter that you think they aren't compatible with each other, the people who first choose current Barnea either didn't consider the 11 days verse from Deuteronomy, or had reasons for thinking it fit just fine.  I've seen people specifically argue for the 11 days journey fitting locations even further apart, so I frankly am uninterested in using that as an argument at all.

Frankly I suspect even Empress Helena gets too much credit/blame, I think a lot of what's attributed to her is more folklore then history.  I do think she went to Jerusalem and played a role in choosing the Church of the Holy Sepulture, but I have my doubts she went down to those remote parts of the Sinai.

Paran is a good one to start with.  Both Eusebius and Jerome place Paran in Arabia Deserta.  That is a lot more specific then just saying Arabia, that is a precise Roman Geographical term for the Arabian Desert that was distinct from and between Arabia Petraea/Nabataea and Arabia Felix(Yemen).

This witness to Paran being in Arabia Deserta has been used to support the Paran of Hagar and Ishmael being the Hejaz and Mecca, but most Biblical evidence places the Ishmaelite Tribes in or very near modern Jordan.  Mecca and Medina/Yathrib are south even of most lands associated with the sons of Keturah, though Josephus says her sons were settled in Arabia Felix which is basically Yemen.

Contrary to what some Jabal el-Lawz enthusiasts will tell you, Arabia in antiquity did sometimes include the Sinai Peninsula.  But the basis for that is mostly the Sinai being part of the Roman Province of Arabia Petraea which before Trajan conquered it was the Nabataean Kingdom.  The Sinai was also known to have been inhabited by Qedarites in the 5th Century BC.  

Biblical support for a Trans-Jordan Paran begins with Genesis 14 where El-Paran and Kadesh are associated with Seir and the Horites and various other obscure tribes that later Torah passages associate with the lands of Edom, Moab and Ammon.  And that is further backed up by the very first verse of Deuteronomy.

I'm not entirely decided on if I think Kadesh-Barnea and Kadesh-Meribah are the same location, but at this moment I lean towards them being the same, since both have equally valid reasons for being placed in Jordan.  It could be possible they are sperate specific encampments but still close enough that a modern city could encompass both.

Kadesh-Meribah is used in Ezekiel 47:19 and 48:28 as a marker for Israel's southern border.  Basically you're supposed to draw an east-west line from Kadesh-Meribah to a river that flows into the Mediterranean Sea (probably the Wādī al-ʻArīsh).  That supports it being a location on or very near the border between Israel and Jordan.

Josephus in Antiquities of The Jews Book 4 Chapter 4 Section 7 identifies Petra as a Metropolis of the Arabs and as where Aaron died.  Now strictly speaking that is Biblically Hor not Kadesh-Meribah.  However the area of Petra includes sites locally identified with everything in Numbers 20.  It's possible that at one time this was not all considered one city.  Numbers 20 implies Kadesh is on the King's Highway which fits Petra but not the traditional location.

All that is how I was thinking about the Josephus reference.  Now I know that the Petra linked Mount Hor is technically South West of Petra proper.  Since Numbers 20:21 says they turned away from Edom when they went to Hor that can fit the city of Kadesh being North of Hor.  It still seems weird that Josephus didn't mention the name of Petra sooner.

Kadesh and Hor were not under Edom's control at the time of Moses but are near Edom's border according to both Numbers 20 and Josephus.  But Petra did become Edomite for awhile later during the Kingdom period being the city known as Cela/Sela/Selah in 2 Kings 14:7 and Isaiah 16:1, but also sometimes simply translated Rock in Obadiah verse 3 and Jeremiah 49:16.  Cela is a city also named in the Amarna Letters and is in fact the Semitic equivalent of the Greek Petra.

This Hebrew word for Rock first appears in The Bible in Numbers 20 verses 8, 10 and 11, being used of the Rock Moses stuck.  The first Meribah incident in Exodus 17 at Rephidim where Moses did what he was supposed to do uses different words for rock/stone, cagal in verse 4 and tswur in verse 6.  So is it possible the use of this word for rock is circumstantial evidence we are in the future Edomite Cela?

[Apparently the Petra=Sela assumption is outdated, Edomtie Sela is now identified as a place further north.  I still think Moses using this word for Rock here and not at Rephidim could reflect this location being the same mountain range and thus same kinds of rocks.  Petra being on the King's Highway but to the South of Edom arguably fits Kadesh of Numbers 20 even better.  Isaiah 42:11 does refer to a Cela being inhabited by Kedar.]

Numbers 13 places Kadesh-Barnea in Paran.  Genesis 21:21 identifies Paran as where Hagar raised Ishmael.  And I feel it's reasonably implied Hagar returned to the same location as her earlier temporary exile from Genesis 16:14, the well between Kadesh and Bered.

Petra as Kadesh lends credence to the Petra was the original Mecca theory of Dan Gibson which I've discussed in a few posts on a different blog already.  What Mecca claims to be Biblically is basically the Kadesh and Paran of these verses of Genesis.  Though there is still no Biblical support for Abraham building a House of Worship there, he only did that at future Israelite locations, Shechem, Bethel and Mamre near Hebron.  However the meaning of the name Kadesh suggests it was considered Sacred by someone.

Of course Kadesh could be one of a number of Genesis place names that appear as an editorial decision from Moses and not names already used at that time.  A Samaritan source known as Sharḥ al-Asāṭīr claims that Mecca was build by the sons of Nabojath (Nabateans).

Sinai I do now lean towards placing in the Sinai Peninsula.  It being described by Josephus as "between Egypt and Arabia" best fits that location, yet is also consistent with being sometimes placed in Arabia because it was part of the Roman Province and the Nabataean kingdom.

That said what Paul says in Galatians I don't even think we should consider geographically useful.   Paul is using Sinai as a symbol, and his association of Sinai with Hagar suggests he's combing Sinai and Kadesh of Paran in his symbolism.  However if both were part of the Domain of Aretas when Paul was writing that makes his fusing them together as both Hagarene work.

I find it amusing when Jabal El-Lawz proponents use Josephus calling Sinai the largest mountain in the area against Jebel Musa and then talk about how tall their mountain is.  When Mount Catherine right next to Jebel Musa is taller then Jabal El-Lawz.  That said I am also interested in more northern theories.  Being the tallest in the region isn't a Biblical detail and in fact I think it's a very secular mindset that would want that to be the case, God doesn't need to prove how Big He is the way Men do.

Some people will also place Sinai in Petra, Jebel al-Madhbah (the Mountain of the Altar).  Clearly however that is too close to the Numbers 20 events I now place there.  But maybe this mountain has some importance to the Petra=Mecca theory?  Maybe it's the original Jabal al-Nour, since after all that mountain's role in Muhammad's biography tempts one to thematically compare it to Sinai.  Question is does Madhbah have a cave that could work as the Cave of Hira?  I would hope whoever first tried to convince people this was Sinai/Horeb made sure there was a cave for Elijah in 1 Kings 19:8-9?

Maybe Jebel al-Madhbah is the Mount Paran of Deuteronomy 33:2 and Habakkuk 3:3.

The only East of Aqaba location I'm currently willing to consider for Sinai is Jabal Ahmad al Baqir in southern Jordan.  It kind of perfectly fits the Deuteronomy picture of the Seir mountains being between Sinai and Kadesh-Barnea if the later is indeed Petra.  Unfortunately no one has made documentaries on this mountain and I can't find the 19th Century book that proposed it online, and Amazon has no copies at the moment.

Another variation of the Seven Heads of Daniel 7 view.

I laid out my view of the Seven Heads of Daniel 7, and then improved it a bit in my Basra post.  This view is predicated on saying seven heads are implied in Daniel 7, 3 beasts with 1 head each and 1 beast with 4 heads.

The most controversial aspect of that was making Rome the seventh head instead of the 6th, defining it as yet future in John's time because it hadn't taken Babylon yet.  And that still may be the best way of looking at Daniel 7.  But I have recently devised a variation that keeps the basic premise but returns Rome to being the 6th and then present head.

Basically, it makes Rome not the 4th Beast anymore but the fourth head of the Leopard.  The Leopard and his heads I associate with Javan and his four Sons, and there have long been reasons to justify associating Kittim with Rome.  Rome was very influenced by Greece.  In the Eastern Empire Greek was always the more popular language, and after the western Empire fell the Eastern Empire eventually even flat out made Greek it's official Language.  So Rome as it was to it's Eastern conquests including Judea, was always very Greek, Paul used Greek and Gentile interchangeably even though he wrote during the Roman period.

My initial form of this Daniel 7 view was based on it being Babylon/Shinar's POV of history, for this we return to the focal point being the Land/Erets of Israel.

The Four Heads of the Leopard are thus Alexander, the Ptolemies, the Seleucids and the Caesars.

Naturally, the fourth beast/seventh head must thus be the Islamic Empire.  Chris White bases his objection to Islam as the 7th head mainly on saying you can't possibly define Islam as having a short reign.  However in this theory, that's where the Horns come in.

Just as the Four Horns in Daniel 8 represent a Kingdom being divided.  The 10 Horns/Toes represent Islam being divided.  Initially it was just a split in two, the Sunni/Shia split, hence the Two Legs of the Statue in Daniel 2.  But has since fractured even more.

It was a united Islam that had a comparatively short reign over the Eretz of Israel.  It was the second Caliph who captured Judea, and then the Split was cemented as soon as the fourth died.  All of the first five were people who knew Muhammad, meaning this all happened in the course of one lifetime.

If I'm going to look for a specific individual to identify with the Seventh Head, it would be Ali ibn Abu Talib based on what I've discussed elsewhere.

This does not necessarily prove an Islamic Antichrist view, it makes Islam relevant, but I still feel the Eight King of Revelation 17 is one of the first 5, not the seventh.

How should we define the Fourth Beast in terms of the Table of Nations?  Since we know the first three are Asshur, Madai and Javan?

The thing is Arabia was a very ethnically mixed region.  The word Arab is in the Hebrew texts spelled the same as the Hebrew word for an ethnically mixed person (sometimes translated Mongrel), when Israel is called a "Mixed Multitude" at the Exodus "Mixed" is also Arab there.  And it's the same when Daniel 2:41 describes the toes of the Statue as "Iron mixed with Miry Clay".

Arabia had Cushites and possibly also Mizraimites from Ham, and also I think some Canaanite presence, particularly the Sinites.  From Shem it had the Joktanites, the tribes of Ishmael the firstborn of Abraham, and also Abraham's sons by Keturah, by the time of Joseph Midianite and Ishmaelite became interchangeable. The Trans-Jordan tribes were often in conflict with Ishmaelites as 1 Chronicles 5 shows.  And I think 1 Chronicles 4 shows Simeon migrated to some Ishmaelite lands, and I think the clan of Jamin specifically went to Yemen and provided Yemen it's name.  My defining Arabia as being not just the whole peninsula but also everything between the Jordan and Euphrates rivers, also puts within it Moab, Ammon, and Edom, including the Amalekites who are linked to both Seir and Kadesh.

Edom is perhaps the most important.  Removing Rome as the Fourth Beast would destroy my support for seeing Edom as Rome, because the foundation of that was largely how the Fourth Beast's unique fate of being completely destroyed with no national identity left in the Messianic Era, is outside Daniel given only to Edom and Amalek, some cities may be described similarly but no other whole nation.  We see this in Balaam's Prophecies and in Obadaiah.  Jeremiah 46-49 also foretells judgment on several nations, but with Edom lacking a promise of restoration.  Isaiah 34 and Ezekiel 35-36 also seem to see Edom as the last Nation to be destroyed before The Messianic Era begins.

And it's possible Edom could be linked to more of Arabia then is traditionally assumed.  Where you place Sinai and Kadesh-Barnea inevitably effects your view of how far Edom's borders stretch, and I've gone back and forth between a few theories that place Sinai at least pretty far away.  And his having a grandson named Teman can justify linking Edom to Yemen.  Genesis 14 links the Amalekites to the same region Ishmael would later settle.

It's also interesting thematically how all the passed over First Born lines from Abraham can be linked to Arabia.  Ishmael's status is the one tied directly to Islamic theology.  But Esau was also originally considered the firstborn of Isaac.  And then the fact that some Tribes of Israel can be linked Arabia, they include Reuben, the firstborn of Jacob, and eastern Manasseh who was the firstborn of Joseph.   Perhaps the Little Horn is an attempt by Satan to create an heir to all these lines?

It also could be viable to in Daniel 2 see the Iron as the peoples of Arabia and the Miry Clay as the Ottomans.

Chad Schafer's The World in the Bondage of Egypt: Under the Triumphal Arch of Titus

Is a book that came out recently.

The World in the Bondage of Egypt: Under the Triumphal Arch of Titus Paperback – September 15, 2016

And here is him on Rob Skiba's Radio Show talking about it.
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFwo3YkkIOs
[Update: here is part 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUb08RIbj0g]

A part two may happen in the future, if so once it's up on YouTube I'll edit this post to add it.
 [Update: here is part 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUb08RIbj0g]

I'm also going to add here some Screencaps of Comments I left there that aren't visible on the video for some reason.

This idea has the potential to tie into a lot of what I've talked about on this Blog about Egypt (and also Edom with the Eagle on the Arch of Titus).

However I still believe actual geographical Egypt is important.  That where ever the Beast of The Sea comes from, or whatever nation he first takes over.  He will set up his Capital in Egypt, where Satan's Seat will be his Throne.

Update.

In part two he makes some Jordan Maxwell level etymology errors, but I can give him a bit of a pass on that.

It is amusing to me how this is mostly evidence of the whole world becoming Roman.

I also think he's mistaken that Jesus was alluding to Daniel 9 in Matthew 24, the exact phrase "Abomination of Desolation" is in Daniel 11 and 12.  Daniel 9 uses a similar term about possibly the same thing, but not that exact phrase.  The 70th Week of Daniel is not about 70 AD or the End Times, it's about 30-37 AD.

Lilith and Edom

Obviously I do not believe Adam had a wife before Eve.  But I do like to speculate on the origins of the whole Lilith mythology.  My previous references to her on these blogs have been in the context of her possible connection to Izanami of Japanese mythology.

The fact that the name comes from a Hebrew word for Night leads me to consider that she might be related to other Night goddesses.  Like Nyx from Greek mythology, called Nox by the Romans, from whom comes Noc as the modern German word for night.  And Egyptian Mythology has three goddesses who are sometimes defined as night goddesses.  Nut, Nebthet, and Kauket.  Nut is the wife of Geb who could be argued to be an Adam figure of sorts since his name means earth, and with him the mother of Osiris, Isis, Seth and Nebthet.

I've noticed recently how the name is technically in a plural form (the feminine singular would be Lilah), ending with a th is a feminine plural in Hebrew.  Lots of feminine Hebrew names end that way without it being significant, possibly just so female names can have variety, so they don't all end with H.  But for a mythological context however it may be worth noting.    Likewise if you want to speculate it's a code for something.

And also, I can't believe it took so long to occur to me that it might be significant that the one verse that gives the name a Biblical precedent is in a Prophecy about Edom, Isaiah 34 (the "Screech Owl" of the KJV).  Edom is in the Hebrew spelled the same as Adam, but pronounced differently.  Edom is the name of a the nation, but also a name for Esau himself, like Israel is for Jacob.

Esau first married at least two Canaanite women, but then because his parents didn't like that, he married a third wife, a daughter of Ishmael.  I said at least two, because either these women go by multiple names, or there could be up to 6 wives involved.  Genesis 26/28 names them all differently from Genesis 36.

Is it possible the Lilith mythology might have it's origins in the Canaanite wives of Esau feeling displaced by the Ishmaelite?

There has also been a tendency to depict Lilith as having Red Hair, I'm not sure how far back that goes.  And Esau has also been associated with Red Hair, since Red is is what Edom, when pronounced that way, means.

In Genesis 36 one of them seems to descend from the Horite clan, which I've speculated elsewhere could be the origin of some of the deities of Egyptian mythology.  Thus allowing a possible connection to the Egyptian goddesses I mentioned above.

But it's the connection to Nox that could be interesting to the Edom/Rome connection.  The Vulgate of Isaiah 34 translated Lilith as Lamia however, which can be interpreted to mean Nocturnal spirit.  Lamia is sometimes in mythology the daughter of Belos/Belus of Egypt, who might be connected to the Hyksos, who might have included Amalekites.  Lemures could also be a variation of Lamia.

Coming full circle, the traditional burial place of Izanami of Japanese mythology is in Izumo which is sometimes archaically pronounced Idumo.  If the Japanese were partly descended from the lost tribes (and maybe some Edomites came with them) then this could have come from a tradition about Lilith being buried in Edom.

Israel's hiding place in The Wilderness during The Day of Yahuah

I still believe the doctrine that Israel will have a Hiding Place in the Wilderness during the three and a half years between The Rapture and the start of the Millennium.

The Woman of Revelation 12 is Israel, and verses 6 and 14 refer to her hiding in the Wilderness in a place prepared by God.

Matthew 14 also records Jesus warning to flee to the Wilderness when you see The Abomination of Desolation.

What I have come to disagree with is the popular view that this hiding place is in the land anciently ruled by Edom but today part of Jordan, Biblically identified with Bozrah, though for some reason popularly identified with the distinct Petra.

Daniel 11:41 is taken as assurance that Edom, Moab and at least part of Ammon (all in modern Jordan) will escape The Antichrist.  But I've already shown that Prophecy was about Caesar Augustus, and refers to those lands being ruled by the Nabatean kingdom of Aretas.  And even if it does have a second fulfillment, this passage still doesn't directly connect itself to this doctrine, and that lack of control is not guaranteed to be permanent, Rome did eventually conquer the Nabatean Kingdom under Trajan, the same Caesar who conquered Babylon for Rome interestingly.

The main basis for placing their hiding place in Bozrah is Micah 2:12.

I will surely assemble, O Jacob, all of thee; I will surely gather the remnant of Israel; I will put them together as the sheep of Bozrah, as the flock in the midst of their fold: they shall make great noise by reason of the multitude of men.

Thing is Bozrah is also a Hebrew term that means Sheepfold, and in context it looks like that is what's being said here, not a place name.  There are no near by references to Edom or other Edomite place names to verify this being the Edomite city.  And to further complicate things Jeremiah 48:24 refers to a Bozrah in Moab.

Amos 1:12 and Isaiah 34 refers to Bozrah specifically and Edom as a whole as being subject to God's Wrath during the Day of Warth.  Now I think that is arguably about Eschatological Edom being Rome/The West, but I think the geographical lands of Ancient Edom could play a role in that, Edom returning to their roots in a sense, not unlike Mystery Babylon returning to Shinar in Zechariah 5.

The final passage cited to prove this theory is Isaiah 63 where Jesus, described similarly to how he is in Revelation 19, is coming from Edom and Bozrah.  This passage also doesn't directly connect itself to the Wilderness hiding place doctrine but I think it's more likely to be relevant then Daniel.

It could be Jesus is traveling through Edom/Bozrah and it's neither the starting or ending point.  However it certainly is not the ending point, so this theory is dependent on saying he goes where Israel is hiding first and then marches to Armageddon.

I however think based on Genesis 28:17 that when Revelation 19:11 says Heaven Opened, that opening is in Beth-El.  Destroying The Armies of The Beast is the first thing Jesus will do, then he'll go to Israel to lead them back to Jerusalem.

So I think the reference to Edom and Bozrah in Isaiah 63 is the same as in Isaiah 34 and other Prophecies about Edom's final Judgment, like Obadiah, of Ezekiel 35-36.

So where do I think Israel will be protected?

I have argued before for seeing the Day of Yahuah as being a typological repeat of much of the history of The Exodus.  In that context I think perhaps this will be the same place they wandered in The Wilderness for 40 years in the days of Moses.  In fact I think the reference to her being fed there in 12:6 possibly alludes to a return of the Manna miracle.  Also Exodus 19:4 uses Eagles' Wings terminology, as does Isaiah 40:31.

We do also see a pattern throughout The Bible of individuals returning to this same location.  David spent some time in Paran which is also a place Israel spent some of the 40 year wandering.  Elijah spent some time at Mt Sinai.  We're never told where Jesus 40 days in the Wilderness was.  Paul in Galatians 1:17 says he was in Arabia for some of the time between his conversion and the beginning of his ministry.  Paul places Sinai in Arabia in Galatians 4:24-25.

That of course leads to debates about where those locations are.

I believe Mt Sinai is in Midian, possibly Jabal El Lawz, a view first popularized in The West by Ron Wyatt but later verified by the more reliable and trustworthy Bob Cornuke.

I've expressed in the past a willingness to believe certain Muslim claims that most modern Western Christians are adverse to.  Doesn't change my complete rejection of the Theology, Christolgoy and Soterology of Islam, or that Muhammad is not eligible to be a Biblical Prophet.  These issues come up in any post I give the Ishmael label to.

The Mt Sinai debate ties into that.  If Sinai is in what we today call the Sinai Peninsula then the Desert of Paran can't be in Arabia either, since Paran is also one of the locations mentioned during the 40 year wandering.

We're used to thinking of the total geography of the 40 year wandering as pretty small because The West since the time of Constantine has been forced to limit it to the Sinai Peninsula.  But once you place Mt Sinai in Arabia, then things can open up.

I want to point out that the Islamic view of Paran is not that it's just Mecca, they view the Wilderness of Paran as the entire Hijaz, that's pretty much all of Saudi Arabia that borders the Red Sea.  But there is also a more specific Mt Paran.

Eusebius and Jerome were Pre-Islamic non Arab Christians who placed Paran in Arabia Desertia, which is the Roman name for Saudi Arabia basically, south of Nabatea (Jordan mostly) and north of Arabia Felix (Yemen).

There are Samaritan sources like some texts of their Pentateuch and their apocryphal Book of Moses that seem to agree with identifying Paran with al-Hijaz and linking Ishmael to Mecca.  However a claim that Abraham built the Kaaba remains incompatible with Genesis.

Immanuel Velikvosky when arguing for his view of the Amalekites (which I agree with, with some qualifiers) in Ages in Chaos saw identifying Paran with al-Hijaz as supporting his theory based on his use of Arab Historians.

I'm even willing to consider valid the identification of the Baca of Psalm 84:6 with Bakkah an ancient name for Mecca.  Though that is pretty difficult to prove.

In context it does sound like a Desert or Wilderness location, I'm even wondering now if Psalm 84 could be directly applicable to Israel's End Times wildness protection.

Psalm 84 being a Davdic Psalm is taken as meaning it's probably a location linked to a place David was during his exile.  Well 1 Samuel 25:1 says David went to Paran after Samuel died.

The usage of Psalm 82 by Islamic apologists remains wrong in that Baca is not the destination of this Pilgrimage.  They basically try to argue Zion just means Sacred Land and thus can mean the Kaaba.  Zion only came to mean that after David placed his Tabernacle on Mt Zion, this being a Daivdic Psalm shows David's Zion is what he meant.  While he was in Paran he longed to return to Zion.

If you take the size of New Jerusalem in Revelation 21-22, and place it's center at Jerusalem or Beth-El, it's total land would include Mecca and Medina, and one or two of it's southern gates would be just south of them in Arabia.  So you could have people pilgrimage through those gates and past Mecca towards Zion.

So basically I think Arabia, not Jordan is where Israel will be protected during the last 1260 days.

Or maybe this and the Petra view don't conflict, since another suggested location for Mt Sinai is Jabel al-Madhbah near Petra.  Petra isn't named as such in the Bible being a Greek name and the city as we know it from the Greco-Roman period.  It was the Nabatean capital making it actually Ishmaelite territory just outside of Edom.   But again during the NT era the Nabateans ruled Edom, Moab and much of Amon.  But being connected to Ishmael's oldest son makes it logical to be near Paran.

It is named in The Bible as Cela/Sela/Selah, often translated Rock. Possibly first being given that name in 1 Samuel 23:25-28.  And having being given another name in 2 Kings 14:7.  It's refereed to in Obadiah 3 and Jeremiah 49:16.  Showing at times Edom did have it.  But it's linked to Kedar in Isaiah 42:11.  And it identified as being in The Wilderness in Isaiah 16:1.

It is used of the Rock Moses smote the second time, when smiting it wasn't what he was supposed to do, in Numbers 20, and mentioned in Psalm 78:16.  And it's used in Number 24:21 about the Kenites, the clan of the Father in-law of Moses.  And in Deuteronomy 32:13.  It's also possibly being mentioned in Judges 1:36.

Firstborn Inheretence and the Patriarchs

Deuteronomy 21:15-17

"If a man have two wives, one beloved, and another hated, and they have born him children, both the beloved and the hated; and if the firstborn son be hers that was hated: Then it shall be, when he maketh his sons to inherit that which he hath, that he may not make the son of the beloved firstborn before the son of the hated, which is indeed the firstborn: But he shall acknowledge the son of the hated for the firstborn, by giving him a double portion of all that he hath: for he is the beginning of his strength; the right of the firstborn is his."

It's strange to me how this command of the Torah seems to condemn so much of what happened in Genesis.  There are other areas where the behavior of the Patriarchs is in conflict with the Law given later, but this is the one area where God himself seems to be complicit, besides maybe incest where the change in attitude (we assume) was do to a change in biological circumstances.

We keep talking about a younger son getting treated as the firstborn being an ongoing theme of The Bible.  But that theme doesn't apply to Jesus, who was the first born of both Mary and by adoption of Joseph, because all Joseph's other children were by Mary.  And He is refereed to as The Only-Begotten Son of God.

The thing that occurred to me recently is, for the most part the inheritance this was done with isn't the natural Firstborn inheritance, the Double Portion, but rather special divine promises.

Let's start with Isaac and Ishmael.  The land Abraham was promised went all the way to the Euphrates in Genesis 15:18.  But the geography in Ezekiel 40-48 does not give the 12 tribes of Israel all of what Abraham was promised, rather their borders don't even go east of the Jordan (meaning it gives Israel no claim to any Land in modern Jordan or the Golan Heights).  David ruled all the way to the Euphrates, but that was via other nations being tributaries, they still had their national sovereign identities outside the Tribal Allotments of Joshua.

Meanwhile the lands affiliated with Ishmael's sons include all of modern Jordan (Edom, Moab and Ammon were also in Jordan, but Edom I believe will not exist in the Messianic era, and the Nabateans conquered Edom, Moab and much of Ammon by NT times, and Isaiah 21 affiliated Dumah with Seir), the Golan heights, modern Syria south of Damascus (like the Iturians who were of Jether, and the Haggarenes/Haggarites), some northernmost parts of Saudi Arabia, and Iraq west of the Euphrates.  Isaiah 60:7 confirms Kedar and Nebaioth, the two oldest sons of Ishmael, will exist in the Messianic era.  So it does seem that as far a geography goes Ishmael does still get twice what Isaac got.

What about applying the Firstborn inheritance to Nebaioth, Ishmael's Firstborn?  During NT times there were two Nabatean Kingdoms, the one based in Petra ruled by the House of Aretas, and the Kingdom of Osroene ruled by the Abgars.

So I'm willing to agree with certain Muslim apologists that Genesis 17 and 21 do not at all disinherit Ishmael.

Now with Jacob/Esau and Pharez/Zerah in Genesis 38 we're dealing with twins, where who is the real first born is legitimately ambiguous.  Still all Pharez got over Zerah is the Royal Line and other leaders.  And Esau sold his inheritance, while Jacob suffered repercussions for stealing the Blessing.

Genesis 10 says Japheth was the firstborn of Noah, and God said in Genesis 9 he would enlarge Japheth.

In Genesis 48 the younger son of Joseph, Ephraim, is given a special blessing and promise.  But in the land allotment Manasseh still got twice the land Ephraim did, even based on the larger interpretation of what Ephraim got (giving Ephraim both Shechem and Samaria), Manasseh had huge portions on each side of the Jordan river.  So in fact Manasseh's firstborn inheritance was in no way taken away by this.  In the Song of Deborah, Manasseh is treated as two tribes, Machir and Gilead.

So it's really only Jacob who would have been in direct violation of this command given in Deuteronomy, by giving the Double Portion to Joseph (which is why Joseph gets two tribes).  And while it can seem unfair to judge him by a law not written yet, the consequences of his choice are very apparent, God respected it, but it's still not painted as a good idea.

The same applies to looking at how this plays out with David.

David was the youngest son of Jesse and was chosen to be King over his seven older brothers.  I would argue that was irrelevant to who inherited Jesse's land, if anything David was effectively removed from that inheritance.  I like to speculate that the Shepherds in Luke 2 were descendants of David's older brothers, being called to witness the birth of their distant Cousin.  Some scholars already believe their fields were the same land Boaz redeemed for Naomi.

And then there's David's own sons.  Solomon was not even the oldest by Bathsheba who was far from David's first wife.  But still he inherited the Crown.  The King arguably didn't have a normal land inheritance.

David's actual firstborn was Amnon who predeceased him.  And either way you could argue lost any potential inheritance by the Sin he committed.

That leaves Daniel Chileab as the oldest surviving son.  He was the son of Abigail the Widow of Nabal, David gained Nabal's land when he married Abigail, so perhaps it's a safe guess that Daniel Chileab inherited Nabal's land?

Absolam and Adonijah effectively forfeited their inheritances by becoming usurpers, not unlike Reuben.

Maybe the remaining sons born in Hebron inherited Hebron or land near it in some fashion?

And perhaps the older sons of Bathsheba inherited land that once belonged to Urias?

Ephraim and The Fullness of The Gentiles

First off I want to make clear that unlike the likes of Chuck Missler and Chris White, I do believe the Lost Tribes have a role to play in The End Times.

What I want to object to here is the various variations of Two House theology that are predicated on tying Genesis 48 and Ezekiel 47 into Romans 9-11.

Now I am NOT a Darby style Dispensationist, I absolutely do believe that Gentile Believers are grafted into Israel.  But I also believe in the Uniqueness of The Church, we certainly have special promises that didn't exist for Pre Cross Believers.

Now there are some among these like Rob Skiba who will make clear they don't actually think you have to be a biological descendant of Abraham to be saved.  The problem is Romans 9-11 doesn't mention this third category he's imagined of Israelites who became Gentiles, it has just the two Olive Trees and the only grafting in mind is from the Gentile Tree to the Israel Tree, no implication of a past grafting going the other way.

What people overlook in Ezekiel 37 is Ephraim and Judah also have friends who are joined to them.  They correlate to the Gentiles Grafted in in Romans 9-11, not Ephraim. Translations have a tendency to obscure this.  But it's significant that Ephraim and Judah both have companions, not just Ephraim.

We are grafted into Israel, but not into one of the original 13 Tribes.   We are a 14th Tribe.  In Ezekiel 47 we are Yahuah-Shammah.

Rob likes to declare there is no such thing as a Gentile believer, and that Gentile means "out of Covenant".  The problem is he's accepting the very thinking Paul dedicated this Epistle to refuting.  Paul calls some of the believers reading this epistle Gentiles in 11:13.

This idea of Jews using a term like Gentile or Goyim to refer to all Non Jews in a way that excludes them is something that appears in The New Testament because it developed during the Intertestimental period, but it does NOT exist in The Hebrew Bible.  The problem is translations have gone and inserted it into the Hebrew Bible.

So the Hebrew word Goyim/Goyi which means Nation/Nations often gets translated in the KJV and other English Bibles as Gentiles or Heathen.  Then people will use their Strongs and see that same word is also nations and concludes Nations=Gentiles.  The problem is it's really the other way around.  The actual Hebrew words for foreigner or alien are usually translated stranger.  And a word study of Stranger shows that being one was never a barrier to salvation or citizenship, but being one spiritually was not good.

To prove this we can start with Genesis 12 when God first makes his promise to Abraham.  In verse 2 he says "I will make of thee a Great Goyi".  In Chapter 35 verse 11 God tells Jacob.  "be fruitful and multiply; a Goyi and a company of Goyim shall be of thee".

But the clincher is Exodus 19:6, at the giving of the Covenant.  "And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy goyi. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel."

So no, Goyim does not meant "out of Covenant".

When Jesus said he came only to the Lost Sheep of the House of Israel, He meant the Jews.  He spoke during His ministry to those Jews who were spiritually Lost.  But John's Gospel also says at the beginning His own received Him not so the opportunity to be grafted in came to the Gentiles.

Through out The New Testament both Jesus and Paul were opposing this xenophobic attitude towards "gentiles" that had developed.  Romans 1 verses 18-32 is a rhetorical rant.  If you actually find yourself cheering on that rant, you are the problem.  Because the rest of the Epistle is dedicated to refuting everything said in that rant.  There is definitely real sinful behavior in mind there, but it's the Reprobate doctrine Baptists build on this passage that Paul is declaring wrong.

In the verse that is describing a very specific kind of male Homosexual activity.  The word translated "Against Nature" is "Para Phusis"  a technical Greek term that has it's origins in Plato's proto Gnostic Cosmology laid out in Timaus.  It is also used by Philo, a contemporary of the NT era but also slightly older (he wrote some works at least as early as 10 AD) who was a Hellenistic Jewish Philosopher greatly influenced by Plato.  Whether or not he was the first Jew to use the term we can't be sure.

This exact same phrase is what Paul uses in Romans 11 to describe Gentiles being grafted in "unatrually" into the Tree of Israel.  That is God doing something, totally rejecting the notion that doing something "unatrual" is inherently a Sin.  In fact it is the Sin nature that is natural.

So clearly everything about Paul's intent here was people who in no way Naturally descended from Jacob being grafted into Israel.  Nor are they being let in because of some mystical loop hole.  So I don't care if the corrupt Septuagint uses almost the exact same phrase translated "Fullness of The Gentiles" in Genesis 48.

Paul does use a Genesis Patriarch as a type picture of the Gentiles he is talking about, that patriarch is Esau, he quotes the same Esau reference found in Malachi with the intent of refuting how Calvanists view that verse, but regardless Calvanists still don't get it.  I don't think it's a coincidence that many Ancient traditions hint at Edom becoming Rome.  Since Skiba believes in Jasher, he should be even more certain of that then me, because of it's Zepho story.

Some might also seek to take Jesus reference to a Fruitful Nation as a reference to Ephraim meaning Fruitful. Jesus was speaking Hebrew, but Ephraim strictly mean double fruit, what Jesus would have said was likely closer to Ephrath/Ephratah  location in Judah, which Psalm 132 identifies with Zion, and New Jerusalem is the Heavenly Zion.

It's funny because Two House theology usually takes offense at using Judah/Jew and Israel as synonyms, and insist IF Israel is ever used of one Kingdom it's the North.  Except in Romans 9-11 where there Israel means Judah and the Lost Tribes are the Gentiles.

Besides Dan I fully reject the theories of the Lost Tribes going West.  The Biblical clues all take them East,(Follow Up Post).  And many wonder where in Revelation is the return of the Lost Tribes because their bias is to look West.  I see it quite clearly in Chapter 16 after the pouring out of the Sixth Bowl, the Kings of The East (and some from all four corners because today everyone is scattered somewhat) are gathered together at the Hill of Megiddo, a Northern Kingdom territory.

I believe the temporary partial spiritual blindness Israel is under includes the Lost Tribes, it's not just Judah.

Let's compare the two Asian nations where it is currently the most Legal to be a Christian, and thus easiest to document and observe The Gospel's success there.  My studies of the history and DNA evidence lead me to conclude South Korea probably has little if any Lost Tribes ancestry, and mainly descends from Javan.  But Japan I think had a very strong case for being a Lost Tribe.

In South Korea 30% of the Population is Christian, most of them some form of "Protestant", their capital has 11 of the world's 12 largest Christian Congregations and they're second only to America in sending out missionaries.

Japan is only about 1% Christian and most of those are Catholic.  But none the less looking at the minority of the minority can be fascinating just as it is to look at the Messianic communities in Judah.  Japan has a Non-Church Movement that is like the House Church movement but goes back to the 1800s predating the current American House Church movement.  And a spin off of that is the Makuya movement, which is essentially a Japanese Hebrew Roots movement of sorts.  Japan also has 3 Mormon Temples while the more Christianity friendly South Korea has only 1.  Which I make note of simply because Mormonism also has an Israelite Identity emphasis in it's theology.

So Japan like Israel has a spiritual blindness but also a remnant.  The DNA evidence for the Japan theory overlaps with argument for Tibet and Burma, Y Chromosome Haplogroup D.

And then I also see Lost Tribes descendants in the Kurds and possibly many other populations of Iran.  The Kurds are most Sunni Muslin when Iran is mostly Shia Muslim.

Does The Bible foretell Human Colonization of outer space?

Let's look at the very first Prophecy of the regathering of Israel to the Holy Land (which I do not view as fulfilled by 1948).  Deuteronomy 30 verses 3-5 (actually continuing from chapter 29 which foretells the scattering in verses 24-27).

"That then Yahuah thy God will turn thy captivity, and have compassion upon thee, and will return and gather thee from all the nations, whither Yahuah thy God hath scattered thee.  If any of thine be driven out unto the uttermost parts of heaven, from thence will Yahuah thy God gather thee, and from thence will he fetch thee: And Yahuah thy God will bring thee into the land which thy fathers possessed, and thou shalt possess it; and he will do thee good, and multiply thee above thy fathers."

This is repeated in Nehemiah 1:8-9.

Remember, I beseech thee, the word that thou commandedst thy servant Moses, saying, "If ye transgress, I will scatter you abroad among the nations: But if ye turn unto me, and keep my commandments, and do them; though there were of you cast out unto the uttermost part of the heaven, yet will I gather them from thence, and will bring them unto the place that I have chosen to set my name there."

Similar terminology is used in Matthew 24:31 and Mar 13:27.  But I'd consider those less compelling because they're about The Rapture where Heaven is the destination of the Gathering.

In Obadiah when talking about Edom, God says in verse 4.

Though thou exalt thyself as the eagle, and though thou set thy nest among the stars, thence will I bring thee down, saith Yahuah.

It's interesting that when we landed on The Moon, Neal Armstrong said "The Eagle has Landed".

Then we can look at Isaiah 13 talking about the armies Yahuah will bring against Babylon.  In verses 4 and 5.

 The noise of a multitude in the mountains, like as of a great people; a tumultuous noise of the kingdoms of nations gathered together: Yahuah of hosts mustereth the host of the battle.  They come from a far country, from the end of heaven, even Yahuah, and the weapons of his indignation, to destroy the whole land.

This isn't likely to be the army from the Heaven where God dwells, that army marches in Revelation 19 after Babylon's destruction is over.  Rob Skiba seems to be obsessed with saying the term "Host of Heaven" can only refer to Angels.  That is false, Host is a term commonly affiliated with armies.

There are three Heavens Biblically, the Sky where the birds Fly, where the Sun, Moon and Stars are.  And the Third Heaven where God is.  I talked about this when discussing the Firmament.  Using the word Heaven(s) back to back tends to mean the Third Heaven where God is, like we see in Psalm 115:16, Deuteronomy 10:14 and Psalm 68:33.

I reject Dominionist theology and eschatology which says that The Church is supposed to take over the World to bring about the Second Coming.  Right now the Dominion meant for Adam is usurped by Satan (The Archon of The Kosmos) until the events recorded in The Book of Revelation take place and Jesus sets up His Millennial reign.

But it's interesting to look at how Psalm 8 elaborates on the issue of Adam's Dominion over God's Creation.  In verse 3 we are told the Moon and Stars are the works of Yahuah's fingers.  And verse 6 says He made Adam to have dominion over all the works of his hands.  Why exclude the Sun here?  Maybe because it's not something we can walk or build things on?

Now it is popular in the modern Flat Earth movement to say Stars are Angels, not astronomical bodies we could potentially build things on.  Stars and Angels are linked often and I believe that is more then just symbolically, I think each Star has an Angel that governs or stewards it.

Now Flat Eatherers are right that Biblcally "star" is not a synonym for "sun".  Rather they refer to anything up there in the heavens, including Angels and UFOs, when they are seen up there as lights in the sky.

The Biblical concept of Stars for one thing indisputably includes the Planets, which we can now see with Telescopes are large round spherical objects, some with other large round objects orbiting them.  Jude uses the specific Greek term "Planates Aster" (Wandering Star) which refereed to the five visible Planets in antiquity.  Hebrew had no equivalent term specific for those.  And most scholars agree that Chiun of Amos 5:26 refereed to as Remphan in Acts 7:43, was an ancient name for Saturn, which the same verse calls a Star.

And in Greek astronomy the Sun and Moon were included among the "Planates Asters".

Rob Skiba even goes so far as to use the fact that The Bible records people worshiping the Stars as evidence they are sentient beings.  The Bible constantly makes a point out of how the false gods people worship are inanimate lifeless objects.  Like in Daniel 5.

As far as Rob's point about Stars falling from Heaven in Bible Prophecy.  Taking it as literally as he wants to is severely hurt by that it happens more then once in Revelation.  They seemingly ALL fall in the Sixth Seal in chapter 2.  Then two more fall during the Trumpets, while also a third of them are darkened.  Then a third are cast down in Revelation 12.  And everything in Revelation happens in Chronological order, that is what this Blog is mainly about.

That meteors and asteroids landing on the Earth were described as "falling stars" (asteroid comes from the Greek word for star) is a known documented part of ancient terminology.  And if you're going to insist The Bible must be MORE literal then common usage was, then these modern Flat Earthers need to abandon their current position on if the Sun and Moon literally rise and set.

The idea that the star falling at the start of Revelation 9 is Satan, and that he is given the Key is easily refuted by the beginning of Revelation 20 where a different Angel has the key and locks Satan in The Pit.  The Angel given the Key I think is the Angel who sounded the Fifth Trumpet, later in chapter 9 we see the Angel who sounds the Sixth Trumpet plays a role on how those events play out.

The star described as "falling" to the Earth at the start of chapter 9 in the Greek can be read as just sort of descending but not totally landing.  I still like my hunch that that star is Iapetus which has a lot of fringe theory speculation.  But I no longer like the idea I flirted with before that the Abyss is actually inside Iapetus, the Abyss is inside The Earth, the Great Deep.

Wormwood in clearly an asteroid or comet of some sort that will poison the Earth's Water supply.  Comets especially are known to have chemicals in them, not to mention the radiation any such object might bring.  In Hebrew wormwood is an idiom of bitterness.

Genesis 22:17 and Hebrew 11:2 says the stars are as innumerable as the sands of the sea shore.  The enclosed Dome model allows no more stars then what we can see, the sand in the sandbox I played in in my backyard as a kid dwarfs that number of stars.  That model says the stars we can see are about all there are, we can number those fairly easily.

Now this hypothesis has the potential to hurt our bias for seeing these prophecies being fulfilled in our lifetime.  But I also have suspicions that many of these could apply to during or after the Millennium.  My one objection to Chis White's argument for Gog and Magog being Post-Millennial is his insistence that Technology will become primitive.  I fully reject the idea that God would be against technological advancement.

I've actually argued before that the Regathering of Israel may not fully happen till near the end of or after the Millennium, in one of my first Lost Tribes posts.  Only thing there I don't stand by anymore is the Mystery Babylon maybe being Samaria part.  Some of those themes I may return to in a more refined form in the coming months.  As well as the issue of Edom's eschatological destiny.

Update May 15th 2016.

What is below is not needed for this theory and gets really fringe.  I'm not definitively arguing for any of it but I do find these implications interesting.

Since I'm into unconventional theories about the Ancient World having more technology then we normally think (but rejecting needing "Ancient Aliens" to explain it), as well as the possible scientific theories of Stargates/Wormholes.  Maybe some of this colonization already happened?

Maybe some of the Lost Tribes went to a planet in another Solar System, a planet called Arzareth, taken from the Apocryphal 2 Esdras (sometimes IV Esdras) 13:45, which is said to be previously uninhabited by Mankind (Adamkind? or Enoshkind? we don't have it in Hebrew).  While my main serious Lost Tribes theories have been based on them in Asia east of the Euphrates, (and maybe some coming to Japan and Pre-Colombian America). as an aspiring writer I've long thought of writing a SciFi/Fantasy story with this premise.

Schiller-Szinessy speculates the name Arsareth comes from a Hebrew phrase in Deuteronomy 29:28 (the Prophecy that started this study), "ereẓ aḦeret" translated in the KJV "another land".  The "land" part is aHeret, a form of Erets, the Hebrew word for Earth, same one speculated to be etymologically related to the English "Earth", as well as many other Semitic and Germanic words for Earth, and from them Tolkien's Arda.   Indeed the last part of Arzareth, "areth" sounds similar to Aerith, a Final Fantasy character who's name was meant to sound similar to the English "Earth".

So it could be translated "another Earth" though it does not need to mean that.  Eretz is a word often used of specifically the Holy Land and other nations' homelands.  But I've talked elsewhere on the Flat Earth issue that the references to the Four Corners of the Earth use Erets (and the Greek Ge) in a sense that means Eurasia+Africa.  In that context the Americas can very much qualify as Another Erets, as could Australia and New Zealand, but applying that to Japan is a bit more of a stretch, Japan is the Eastern Corner I think (though Korean could also be argued to be the Eastern Corner).  It is generally theories based on them going to Japan or the Americas that try to make the Arzareth reference a linchpin of the theory, Esdras is not Inspired Scripture anyway.  I seem to be the first to get the idea that maybe it's not on Earth at all.

Apparently Joseph Smith said the Lost Tribes were taken from The Earth and to somewhere near the Pole Star.

It used to be considered plausible to speculate the Moon could be habitable or inhabited, just as much as Mars was.  Lucian, Kepler, De Bergerec, McDermot, Washington Irving, George Tucker, Edgar Allen Poe, Alexandre Dumas, Hans Christian Anderson, H.G. Wells, C.L. Moore and C.S. Lewis all put intelligent life there, Jules Verne of all people however had it uninhabited.  Now we know it's not inhabited and never was.  (With Mars past in-habitation still seems possible.  It is speculated Earth could become like Mars with the right disasters "Unless those days be shortened, no flesh shall be saved".)

If I were living when it was still plausible to speculate about life on the Moon.  I'd make note of how a Genesis 10 Patriarch, Yerech ben Yacktan (Jerah of the KJV), has the same name The Hebrew Bible and other Semitic language texts call The Moon.  One who's historical traces seem far fainter then some other sons of Joktan.  The Mormon argument for affiliating him with the Jaredites of the Book of Mormon I find interesting, but I've talked about what's wrong with the BoM before.

In fact this patriarch predates the Moon being called that.  In Genesis 1 the Sun and Moon don't have their names yet, they're just the greater and lesser lights.  Yareach as a name for the Moon first appears in Genesis 37, during the lifetime of Joseph and Jacob, then Job (I'm not sure it's as old as others think, if it's setting was during the Patriarchs' time it was late in it since the Keturites have Tribes established already), then in Exodus 2 ("three months" in the KJV), but it doesn't become common till Deuteronomy.

And the Moon has an alternate Hebrew name unlike the Sun, Chodesh/Hodesh.

When an Earthly location later becomes known by a Genesis 10 name we Young Earth Creationists see significance in that, so why am I seemingly the first to consider this with the Moon?

The name of Abraham's father Terah/Terach is also viewed as a variant.  It is linked to moon worship in non Biblical texts, and in Hebrew it's spelled the same as Yerach except starting with a different letter, and there are other examples of Hebrew words beginning with Yot having equivalent words that begin with Tav, like Yeshuah and Teshuah (Salvation).  Either way it seems the Moon was named for a descendant of Heber, making any hypothetical Selenites/Lunarians possibly Hebrews.  It's interesting to remember that Esau/Edom was a descendant of Terah.

Maybe the Yerachites traveled to another "star" but had to pit-stop on the Moon along the way and gave it their name.  Or maybe they were just the first to reach it.

And Maybe it was a Yerachite Princess who was raised by a Japanese Bamboo Cutter who named her Kaguya and was romanced by the Emperor of Japan.  And also a Yerachite Princess who raped the Greek Shepherd King Endymion.

Wow, did I just got really Nerdy.

Also however the Akkadian name for the moon was Sin (sometimes spelled Suen), suggesting a possible connection to the Sinite tribe of Canaan. 

Update January 6th 2017.:  I can't believe I forget to mention my theory that Enoch and Elijah were taken to another Planet.

Update January 23rd 2017:  Well, I just noticed something I should have in the Song of Deborah, Judges 5, verses 20-23.

"They fought from heaven; the stars in their courses fought against Sisera.  The river of Kishon swept them away, that ancient river, the river Kishon. O my soul, thou hast trodden down strength.  Then were the horsehoofs broken by the means of the prancings, the prancings of their mighty ones.  Curse ye Meroz, said the angel of Yahuah, curse ye bitterly the inhabitants thereof; because they came not to the help of Yahuah, to the help of Yahuah against the mighty."

The Talmud says that Meroz is a Star in Moed Katan 16a.

Now Rob Skiba might say this passage supports stars being Angels.  But just before this it was talking about countries coming to battle (and some not) in similar terms.  It's not talking about those geographical lands getting up and moving, but their people.  This passage can be an argument for some Stars being inhabited.

Update October 7th 2018: Given how I've changed my mind on supporting the Edom=Rome identification.  I'm now considering that maybe Edom's travel to outer-space was also in the past already.

Jeremiah doesn't describe a captivity and return for Edom in chapter 49 the way he does most other nations.  But he does echo Obadiah's talk about Edom being as an Eagle.  Edom proper disappears from the Historical biblical Record before the time of Hezekiah, with during Hezekiah's time being the last reference to Amalekites.  I still agree with Bill Cooper then the Greco-Roman era Idumeans are the Ishmaelite tribe of Dumah not Edomites.

So if they weren't carried away into Captivity. why did they disappear?  

The Edomites worshiped Yahweh

Esau was not a bad guy overall, the negative legacy of Edom comes from his descendants.  In-spite of his flaws he was a worshiper of Yahweh.

Deuteronomy 33:2 and Judges 5:4-8 seem to imply Seir was once a Holy Mountain of Yahweh as much as Sinai was.

The Bible mentions the names of the Idols/Abominations of the other people around the Israelites a lot.  The Caananites (including the Sidonians/Phoenicians) worshiped Baal and Astarte, the Philistines worshiped Dagon, Moab had Chemosh and Ammon had Moloch/Milcom. None of these were the only gods of those pantheons (the pantheon as a whole overlapped), but they were the most popular and/or the patron deities.

But no such Patron deity of Edom is mentioned.  Now I think the Edomites probably came to worship Yahweh in an idolatrous fashion.  Not unlike the Northern Kingdom, which besides the brief Baal system under Jezebel was always Yahweh worshiping, it had Kings with Yahweh theophoric names like Jehu and Jehoram.

In I Kings 11 the Edomite wives are implied to be as complicit in leading Solomon into Idolatry as the rest, but their own Idol isn't named.  I think the other wives promoted their alternate gods, and the Edomite ones played the role of coaxing him into thinking it need not conflict with being faithful to Yahweh.

Some may say the Hittite Idols weren't named either.  The Hitites of The Bible were NOT the Hittites of Anatolia, I know many in Apologetics have come to love that identification, but it doesn't fit.  Those Hittites were Indo-European, in my view probably descended from Chittim.  Their land wasn't subject to David and Solomon as the Biblical Hittites were.  The Biblical Hittites were another Caananite tribe and so probably worshiped the same Idols as the Zidonians.  In fact the Hittites are sometimes mentioned in ways that imply thy're geographically closer to Jerusalem then Zidon.  Actually reading Genesis 23 and 25 tell us the Hittites/Children of Heth lived in the area of Hebron.

Qos/Kaus is an Edomite god imagined by Scholars only from that name being part of the name of two Edomite Kings known from Assyrian inscriptions.  They may have indeed worshiped a god by that name also as they became polytheistic in their Yahweh worship.  But it's also possible that name was just a royal family name.

However since I agree with Bill Cooper in After The Flood Appendix 1 that the Idumeans were of Ishmael's son Dumah, not Edomites.  And we know they are linked to Qos via names like Costobarus.  And Quzzah is evidence of Qos being worshiped by other Arabs.  I think maybe these Edomites of Assyrian inscriptions were also the nation of Dumah, who Isaiah 21 does link to Seir about this same time.

So how does this fit in with Edom becoming Rome?

The Edomites who came to Italy (I suspect they came in different waves) eventually intermingled with Indo-Europeans, and more or less adopted their language and religion over time.

But Roman religion as we tend to know it comes from their much later merging it with Greek mythology.  The sacking of Rome by Gauls in the 390s BC destroyed a lot of their earliest records.  But Plutarch says the second King Numa Pompilius

"forbade the Romans to represent the deity in the form either of man or of beast. Nor was there among them formerly any image or statue of the Divine Being; during the first one hundred and seventy years they built temples, indeed, and other sacred domes, but placed in them no figure of any kind; persuaded that it is impious to represent things Divine by what is perishable, and that we can have no conception of God but by the understanding".

And that was kept up for 170 years.  Numa was contemporary with Hezekiah, maybe he was inspired to try and bring Rome back to the true worship of the Patriarchs.

The Roman/Latin form of the Indo-European Dyeus Pater (who to the Greeks was Dios/Zeus) was Jupiter, originally Iopater/Iupater/Iupiter.  The "Pater" part means father, it's one of the words Latin has in common with Greek.  Ju/Jo/Io is the shortening of Jove or Iove.  The actual word Dyeus in Latin became not the proper name of a deity but their word for god, Deus.  Jove is also one of the Roman deities who's name wasn't derived from Etruscan, the Etruscan Zeus was named Tinia.  Roman mythology also had an alternate storm god, Summanus, he did come from the Etruscan pantheon.

Yahweh is never rendered in Greek in New Testament manuscripts or the Septuagint or Josephus or Philo or any other Judaic Greek works for a number of reasons.  The Rabbinic Jewish superstition of not pronouncing the name of God due to a flawed understanding of the fourth commandment was already developing.  The New Testament goes along with it I believe only because Yeshua/Iesous/Jesus has superseded Yahweh as the personal name of God.

Rendering YHWH in Greek would be difficult due to only one of the letters even having a solid Greek equivalent.  But one Greek text does seem to show us how it might have been rendered.

According to Eusebius, Philo of Byblos, a Hellenized Phoenician, claimed his probably made up source Sanchniathon used as a source a book by a Hierombal (possibly a Greek form of Jerubaal, a Hebrew name that appears in The Bible only as an alternate name for Gideon) who he calls a Priest of Ieou.  Ieou makes sense to me as a Greek rendering of Yahweh due to it happening to be how Jesus is rendered in Greek only minus the Sigmas.  Yeshua spelled in Hebrew without vowels has the same first and third letters as Yahweh.

In Latin manuscripts Ieou becomes Jevo.  Jevo can become Jove simply by switching it's vowels around.  So maybe it's possible Jove came from a corruption of the name Yahweh?

Now Edom-Rome once again worships the Biblical God but in an Idolatrous Fashion, via Catholicism.  Vatican Hill is the new Mount Seir.

Update 1/23/2016: I've changed my mind on the proper pronunciation of YHWH, I now favor Yahuah.

Could The Antichrist be American?

Disclaimer: This is NOT in any way me trying to defend the Barack Obama as the Antichrist nonsense.  Quite the contrary what has largely inspired this post is my suspicion that the Antichrist will probably come from the political right (and America is still the most conservative western nation).  That he'll convince many Evangelicals he's one of us, or at least be the kind of politician too many of us tend to be too easily suckered in by.  Obama is horrible, but not in my view Antichrist material.

This post is kind of a follow up to The Lost Tribes and Bible Prophecy.  Which was itself a follow up to earlier posts of this blog.  Thing is, if The Antichrist is the head of a western nation that comes to Israel's aid (being her ally at first but turning on her later) like Chris White and I in different ways suspect.  Right now it seems the United States of America is the by far the most likely nation to do that.  That doesn't prove anything because circumstances could change, but it's worth looking at.

Objections to the idea of The Antichrist being a United States President, or American in anyway, that are actually Biblical, tend to come purely down to passages taken as proving he does come from somewhere else.

I agree with Chris White's arguments against the Assyrian Antichrist. but not with his arguments against a Roman Antichrist.  However America does have a Roman legacy as much as Europe.  I think it's possible that the Little Horn in Daniel 7 isn't just the individual of The Antichrist, but also an 11th Nation.  The U.S. as that 11th Nation could work quite well.

Chris White also insists Daniel 8 proves The Antichrist must come from the region of the nations conquered by Alexander The Great.  But as I've argued elsewhere I believe that connection is genealogical not geographical.  (Though it is interesting the exiled Royal Family of modern Greece is living in New York, the youngest members of it including the current second in line to the throne were born here and thus under the 14th Amendment have American citizenship.  But at this point I see no solid reason to accuse any of them, it seems unlikely any would seek to run for an American political office.)

So I see no solid reason to limit where he could come from.

In terms of the potential relationship to the Hersey that Western Nations are the inheritors of the Northern Kingdom.  Britam (drawing on earlier ideas) affiliates the U.S. with Manasseh and the U.K. with Ephraim.  It's interesting that the Continental United States is divided between east and west by a major river (Mississippi) just as the lands allotted to Manasseh were by the Jordan.

But a stronger thematic connection is that Gideon (the greatest hero of the Tribe of Manasseh) can be compared to George Washington.  Both men after being the military leaders of successful rebellions were offered Kingship but turned it down.  And also both later became symbolically affiliated with a Tree.

It's interesting then to return to the role both White and I feel the false Psalm 83 War belief could play.  Psalm 83 makes an allusion to the narrative of Gideon, which leads to a desire to affiliate that Psalm with a call for a "New Gideon", which plays into the Messiah Ben-Joseph concept quite well.

(Update: I've done another post on the Manasseh connection.)

In the Edom=Rome study I talk about how the Eagle was a major Symbol of Rome and became a major Western Symbol from that.  I also talked about how UnBiblical the idea of the Eagle being linked to Dan is, and pointed to passages linking it to Edom.  There is however one interesting Bible Prophecy that can justify linking the Eagle to the Northern Kingdom.  Micah chapter 1 is a Prophecy mainly against Samaria.  At the end in verse 16 it says.

"Make thee bald, and poll thee for thy delicate children; enlarge thy baldness as the eagle; for they are gone into captivity from thee."

The Eagle as I said has been a symbol of The West for centuries.  But the sub-species known as the Bald Eagle is indigenous to the New World, which is why it was chosen to be a specific symbol of the United States of America.   Yet we have here Samaria being represented as a bald eagle in a time long before Columbus.

So I'm not saying The Antichrist certainly will be American, but I think Believers need to be more open to the possibility that he could be.

Satan I believe has been laying the groundwork for every possible option.  And that American politically conservative Christians tend to marry their Faith and their Patriotism is something I consider a major problem.  I call it Patriotic Idolatry, and definitely a form of the Sin of Pergamos.

And while Evangelicals love to preach against Mormon Hersey, they are very surprisingly willing to jump into bed with Mormons politically, when it comes to "Family Values" and other things.  Mormons meanwhile have their Prophecy of a Rider on a White Horse, who'll become both President of the U.S. and Prophet of the Mormon Church at the same time, and "Save" the Constitution when it "hangs by a thread" by creating a Mormon Theocracy.  Regardless of those concerns Evangelicals got behind Mitt Romney in 2012 and I fear may again in 2016.  The Mormons also in-cooperate seeing America as Manasseh into their doctrine, and have even used the Messiah Ben-Joseph concept in their own weird way.

That rant doesn't mean I think it must be a Mormon who becomes an American Antichrist.  That's just one option.

Back during the period just before and after 2000 there was a popular trend of making many independently produced Christian movies depicting the End Times (almost all with Pre-Trib suppositions), and with them were also books.  These works also reflected this dangerous marrying of faith and patriotism, which I've already complained about.  By having the U.S. be one of the few countries who manages to rebel against The Antichrist.

Two of those films go so far as to feature a President of the United States as a Hero standing up against The Antichrist.

First is Megiddo: The Omega Code 2, (a Sequel to the first movie only in having the same actor as it's Antichrist).  That movie even makes it's hero the Antichrist's brother.  Somehow one brother becomes President of the E.U. and the other President of the U.S.

In Left Behind: World At War (based on left over plot-lines of the second book), the President is African American, which I give them credit for.  But also this time he does in fact die in his battle with The Antichrist.

Reason this is significant is that I think there will be a decoy Antichrist (maybe more then one) who will have an adversarial relationship with the real one.  He's The Terrible of The Nations in Ezekiel.  And I argued in my Four Horseman study that I think this individual could be who gives The Antichrist his mortal wound.

I know these authors might hate to think their own works may unwittingly help The Antichrist.  But I'm afraid that may very well happen.

The Lost Tribes and Bible Prophecy

I know all the arguments out there against thinking The Lost Tribes are a thing.  I've heard it from Chuck Missler and Chris White.

I know that the Levites moved South when Jeroboam fell into idolatry.  And Chuck insists we can infer everyone not Ok with the idolatry did the same.  Even though it's repeatedly demonstrated that The North had a believing remnant.  God never tells his people that as a rule they must leave a country if it's sinful, we should be trying to make our countries better.  The Levites had a special purpose linked to The Temple.

I know that they claim Assyrian Records show the deportation to be not just incomplete but even it seems only a very small portion from select regions.  I prefer to believe Biblical Records over Secular ones, which say people remained but not a whole lot.  Most of those that did intermarried with Gentiles to become the Samaritans, who Jesus considered not Children of Israel.

See the problem with the point about the Assyrian Records is the Deportation happened in phases.  Just as the Southern Kingdom's did.  And those records cited deal with only one of what were at least 3 deportations.  The records of the 722 BC (724 BC in Usser) deportation is what people focus on.  But 1 Chronicles 5 alludes to earlier deportation of specifically the Trans-Jordan tribes, and additional deportations likely happened during Sennacherib's campaign against Hezekiah, or when they deported King Manasseh, the latter probably explains when Simeon was deported.

I know Josiah and Hezikiah and Asa had their special Second Passover where they invited northern Kingdom Survivors to come South and join them.  There were far from complete, but Anna the Prophetess I think descends from those Asherites.

I know the return from captivity records people from every Tribe but Dan returning. That Return wasn't complete even for the Southern Tribes. After even the last major return in the days of Nehemiah a significant population remained behind.

I know that after the captivity The Bible often treats Judah and Israel as synonymous.  But that is poetic in nature.

Even if all those points were as completely valid as they make them seem.  The Fact remains that Bible Prophecy speaks of a reunification of Judah and Joseph/Ephraim as Eschatological/End Times.

Chuck Missler in his commentary on Ezekiel 37 actually goes on about all those points as if Ezekiel 37 proved his point, Judah and Joseph are one.  The entire point of that reference is it's foretelling their reunification as part of that Prophecy.  And I also disagree with Chuck's desire to remove the literal Bodily Resurrection from this passage.  Yes it is about Israel's restoration as a Nation.  But it's not 1948, it's them being restored in belief, during The Millennium, after the First Resurrection is finished.  The references to the Resurrected David being there should leave that beyond dispute.

Now the thing neglected by people who tend to want to see this reunification as all flowers and roses is some of the Prophecies on this theme seem to predict more conflict between Judah and Ephraim, like they often had before.  Isaiah 9-11 may or may not have an End Times second application, but Isaiah 28 is indisputably End Times.  Zachariah 9-11 may also be of interest.  But on Isaiah 9-11, those that see the End Times there usually think The Assyrian is The Antichrist.  But in Ezekiel, The Assyrian is the Terrible of The Nations, who kills The Antichrist.  Isaiah 11 seems to me to allude to both The Antichrist and The False Prophet when speaking of Ephraim.  Jeremiah 4 and Micah 1 are also worth considering.

Jeremiah and Ezekiel when foretelling the Southern Kingdom's coming fall to Babylon compared it to the earlier fall of the Northern Kingdom.  God is saying you fell into the same error so I'll do unto you as I did unto them.  Well it's interesting that the captivity of Judah happened twice, it had a second fulfillment under The Romans.

Lots of Christians see an eschatological significance to much of Hosea.  But they insist the End Times application must manifest in Israel as a whole, even though the book is about Ephraim.

Chris White makes a solid argument that The Antichrist might claim to be the non Biblical Messiah Ben-Joseph.  I've talked on that before and how he leaves out the whole Northern Kingdom aspect of that. I also discus some of my thoughts on British Israelism there.

I also have a post where I respond to his view on Daniel 7.

Hosea 13:7-8 "Therefore I will be unto them as a lion: as a leopard by the way will I observe them:I will meet them as a bear that is bereaved of her whelps, and will rend the caul of their heart, and there will I devour them like a lion: the wild beast shall tear them. "

I don't think it's a coincidence that this uses the same three animals used of the first three Beasts in Daniel 7.  Yes God uses them of himself coming upon Israel, but he often Judges Israel by foreign nations fighting wars with them. But if that's the case where is the fourth beast?  I'm speculating it could be viewed as Ephraim, in the sense that Ephraim represents the Northern Kingdom in general.

Deuteronomy 33:17 "His glory is like the firstling of his bullock, and his horns are like the horns of unicorns: with them he shall push the people together to the ends of the earth: and they are the ten thousands of Ephraim, and they are the thousands of Manasseh."

Jeremiah 31:18 " I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself thus; Thou hast chastised me, and I was chastised, as a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke: turn thou me, and I shall be turned; for thou art the LORD my God."

And remember the Idols Jeroboam set up were Bulls, modeled after The Golden Calf.  Bulls are horned animals, they don't have 10 but that's irreverent, they're a horned animal.  The number being 10 could mean 10 nations that are claiming to be the Ten Lost Tribes.

I think the 4th World Empire is a hydride Empire, Edom/Rome (the Iron in both) and Ephraim/Dan.  I think in the Statue of Daniel 2 Ephraim would be the Miry Clay.  Many have interpreted the Miry Clay to represent the "Barbarian" tribes mingling with Rome as the Western Empire fell apart.  Those are the same tribes often identified as being entirely or at least partly descended from The Lost Tribes in British Israelism/Franco Israelism/Britam.  Usually those two Biblical connections for them aren't made by the same commentator however, (Example: Britam sees the Miry Clay as Ishmaelites).

Chris White continues to be skeptical of seeing the European Union as the Fourth Beast because it has more then 10 nations. I've posted one response to his objections before.  But I now have a better one.  The Ten Horns are not the entire confederation, only part of it as they'ree only part of The Beast.

I think the Ten Horns are the nine European nations Britam claims are Israelite nations plus Germany (who Britam wants to see Edom but they're really more like the other supposedly Israelite nations then the Edomite ones).  The iron teeth are Edom/Rome and hence Italy, Spain, Portugal and Western Mediterranean Islands like Malta and Corsica.  And the nails/claws of brass/bronze going back to Daniel 2 would be Modern Greece, and perhaps to a lesser extent Turkey/Cyprus.  I know people like to list all kinds of reasons Turkey will never become part of the EU, but militarily speaking it effectively already is via it's involvement in both the WEU and NATO.

That even those don't cover the entire EU (mostly it's eastern Europe that is left out) isn't a big deal because they're still not the entire body of The Beast clearly, but they're the key clues emphasized.

In the closing verses of Obadiah, the prophecy of the finale Destruction of Edom seems to allude to some Judgment coming on Ephraim/Samaria at the same time.

I made a post arguing against the Jerusalem as Mystery Babylon view.  What I have considered since then is that maybe Mystery Babylon could be Samaria, looking at passages like Micah 1.  Or maybe a different Northern Kingdom Capital within the land allotted to Ephraim and/or Manasseh.

In Hosea God says he shall avenge the Blood of Jezreel against the House of Jehu.  Jehu I've argued could be a type of The Antichrist.

Chris White has argued that Armageddon in Revelation might refers to Hadadrimmon rather then Megiddo.  Zechariah 12:11 refers to both, and both like Jezreel are in or by the Valley of Jezreel.

In Revelation 16 Armageddon is the gathering place, not where the battle itself is.  I think maybe The Beast gathers his armies after the 6th Bowl and then marches south.  Attacks whatever city Mystery Babylon is in the Mountains of Samaria (could that be why it's on 7 hills?) because we're told The beast will turn on The Harlot.  Then he marches on Jerusalem, but Jerusalem he won't destroy because Jesus comes back to defend Jerusalem.

Follow Up Post

Is Edom now Rome/The West

Rabbinic Judaism for the last two thousand years has called Rome, and from that Europe/The West in general, Edom. Even the United States is included, because we've inherited a great deal of Roman influence in our form of government.

Rarely do Christians inherit this concept, and some that do tie it into British Israelism ideas (the "white" people who aren't Israelite are Edomite). The opposition to it I think is because these Jews also view Christianity as a religion as synonymous with Rome/Edom. But coming from an Independent Baptist or Pentecostal or Hebrew Roots viewpoint, one could easily view paganized Christianity (or Christianized Paganism), who have been very Anti-Semitic as religious Edom. Chiefly the Catholic Church, but also the obscure Old Roman Catholic Church, the Anglican and other Protestant Churches that didn't actually reform much besides breaking with the Papacy. And to an extent also the Orthodox churches and the Mormons, and JWs.

Many Rabbis might argue that it's symbolic or spiritual, and does not require an actual genealogical/biological descent from Esau. But I think that possibility is worth looking at. Britam takes the descent literally, and identifies Edom today mostly with Germany, Italy and less definitively Japan. If you see a certain Axis there, that's not a coincidence.  I think their logic behind seeing Germany as Edom is flawed, Germany is clearly much more culturally linguistically and biologically akin to the tribes they see as Israelite.  I also think that if Italy is Edom then probably so is Spain/Portugal to some extent, and western Mediterranean islands like Malta and Corsica.

One could argue this is a purely extra-Biblical association, but it does have a Biblical basis I'll get to soon. But first, I know many would argue the Genesis 10 origin of Rome should be viewed as Kittim based on Daniel 11:30, where the "Ships of Chittim" refered to Rome's thwarting of Antiochus Epiphanes's designs on Egypt in 168 B.C.

This event took place on the Island of Cyprus (and is sometimes cited as the origin of the expression "draw a line in the sand" because that's what Laenas did). And Bill Cooler in After The Flood Appendix 3 documents that Kittim's original settlement before spreading further west was on Cyrpus and the most ancient names for Cyprus derive from Kittim.

11. Kittim: This is a collective name of a people who are spoken of in the Old Phoenician inscriptions as the kt or kty, and who settled on the island of Cyprus. They were to give their name to the ancient Cypriot city of Kition (modern-day Larnaka). The Romans preserved the name when they named the city Citium, and Josephus gave the name as Cethimus. (Refs: 1DB 3:40-1. JA 1.vi.1. P 1:26)

Elsewhere in Bible Prophecy (like in Isaiah 23 where Alexander's Conquest of Tyre is in mind) Kittim/Chittim is treated as synonymous with the peoples of his father Javan and thus Greece.

Before I get into this however I want to say one more thing. Certain Prophetic references certainly mean the Land of Edom geographically. Particularly Isaiah 63 and Daniel 11:36-45.  But I wouldn't always assume references to specific locations within Edom mean it's to be understood geographically.  Mount Seir for example was Edom's sacred Holy Mountain, their equivalent to Sinai or Zion or Moriah, or for a Pagan analogy Olympus.   If Edom is now Rome then maybe Seir is now Vatican hill?

Now, to get into why I consider this view valid.

Any Biblical Study of Rome ought to begin with Daniel 2 and 7, if you disagree the Fourth Empire is Rome I have a study on that, and I also address those that insist 7 doesn't correlate to 2. But for now, let's start with Daniel 7:11-12 when the Messianic Age begins.

"I beheld then because of the voice of the great words which the horn spake: I beheld even till the beast was slain, and his body destroyed, and given to the burning flame.  As concerning the rest of the beasts, they had their dominion taken away: yet their lives were prolonged for a season and time."

The first three beasts will be part of the Millennium, one could argue all three are alluded to in other Millennial Age prophecies outside Daniel concerning Assyria, Persia and Javan, though for Persia that's true only with a Post-Millennial interpretation of Ezekiel 38.

The Fourth Beast is not however, it's completely destroyed. Outside Daniel cities are sometimes foretold to never be inhabited again like Babylon.  But a whole nation having it's destiny to be completely cut off is unique to Edom (Obadiah 9&10 and 18) and it's Bastard offshoot Amalek (Numbers 24:20).   Even Sodom is foretold to be restored in Ezekiel 16.  Jeremiah 46-49 also foretells judgment on several nations, but with Edom lacking a promise of restoration.

That Amalek comes from Edom is documented in Genesis 36:12.  Genesis 14's reference to "the land of the Amalekites" is Moses describing that location as his readers would have known it.

I don't believe this means that no descendants of Esau or Amalek will ever be saved and walk the Earth during the Millennium and the New Heaven and New Earth. It simply means that as a national identity Edom will cease to exist.

Isaiah 34 and Ezekiel 35-36 also speak of the future Judgment of Edom as being the last Nation destroyed before the Millennium begins.  Isaiah 63's reference to Edom is possibly further testimony of that.

It's also interesting that in Genesis 36 the earliest Kings of Edom were not a father-son inherited position.  Which is like how the earliest Kings of Rome were from Romulus till the Etruscan dynasty.

One of Rome's major national symbols was an Eagle, and it's from this Roman usage that America and Nazi Germany chose the Eagle as a national symbol as well. People when talking about the Tribe of Dan theories keep citing references from the Targums to support viewing the Eagle as a symbol of Dan.  But The Bible never links Dan with Eagles, however Obadiah 4 and Jeremiah 49:16&22 use an Eagle as a symbol of Edom.  Jeremiah also mention an Eagle here when talking of Moab but form a different angle, the soaring Eagle soars above Moab while it is Edom.  Moab and Amon were also dispersed and I think I agree with the theory that they're now Spain and Portugal.

In the sense that the U.S. is the inheritor of Rome's legacy, it's interesting to look at Obadiah verse 4 "Though thou mount on high as the eagle, and though thy nest be set among the stars, I will bring thee down from thence, saith Jehovah." And remember that the U.S. was the first nation to set foot on another celestial body. And that when we landed on the moon Neal Armstrong said "Houston, the Eagle has landed."

Before I talk briefly on the Hebrew Bible's history of Edom, I want to say I feel some offshoots of Edom traveled to other lands outside Biblical Edom proper long before even the time of Moses. Lots of Esau's sons and grandsons listed in Genesis 36 are never mentioned again, only a few are linked to specific cities, lands, or tribes of Edom that come up later.

The medieval manuscript claiming to be the Book of Jasher I by no means consider a credible source in-spite of it's popularity in some circles.  However I feel it's worth mentioning that it identifies  Zepho/Zephi son of Eliphaz as the grandson of Edom who contributed to Rome's pre-history. But the narrative it uses to explain this is ridiculous to any historically literate scholar.  Ken Johnson takes it seriously though and imagines a made up connection between Zepho and Latin words for Wolf.

Many of my fellow Creationists have considered linking Esau with the Neanderthals. Because of his hairiness being emphasized, and the meaning of the word Edom possibly implying red hair. Meanwhile the Edomites intermarried with the Horites, and Horite is often interpreted to mean "cave dweller". Likewise the same Obadiah and Jeremiah verses that link Edom with an Eagle also talk of them "that dwellest in the clefts of the rock". I believe the Neanderthals inspired the Woodwoses of Celtic/Germanic mythologies, who are often linked to the Roman god Silvanus.

In that context it's interesting to note that a map of sites were Neanderthal remains have been found reveals that almost all of them are within the borders of what would become the Roman Empire at it's greatest extent, and do include cites on the Italian peninsula. And geneticists now believe Neanderthals did intermarry with "normal humans" and have descendants alive today.

The last references in the Historical books of The Bible to the main Edomite nation interacting with Israel all occur in both II Kings and II Chronicles before the reign of Hezekiah. The last reference to the Amalekites chronologically is documented in I Chronicles 4:41-43 where it records them being wiped out by the Simeonites when they conquered the areas around Mt Seir in the time of Hezekiah.

The last reference to Edom in Assyrian inscriptions is during the reign of Esarhaddon (681 – 669 BC). I think it's possible many of them were deported like the Northern Israelites and others Assyria conquered. It'd be interesting if some of the same peoples British Israelim and Franco Israelism and Britam traces back to "The Lost Tribes" are actually of partially Edomite stock.

Psalm 137 and Obadaih are cited as referring to Edom being involved in Jerusalem's destruction in 588 B.C. But the Historical books during this period never mention Edom, they seem to have mostly disappeared generations earlier. Obadaih is a Prophetic book and Psalm 137 is a poem, many Psalms even if not blatantly defined as Prophetic have Prophetic qualities. This could refer to Rome and/or the Idumeans involvement in the 70 A.D. destruction of Jerusalem and The Temple, and the poetic link to Babylon in the Psalm to Rome being one of the many cities where Mystery Babylon has resided until she returns to Shinar (Zachariah 5). People of Idumean descent fought on both sides in the 66-73 A.D. Jewish-Roman war. I'll discus the Idumeans later.

The pre-Aeneas inhabitants of Italy are discussed by Eusebius quoting others.
http://www.attalus.org/translate/eusebius3.html#263
The Aborigines sound a little like they could be Neanderthals to me. Pelasgians were a specific tribe of the pre-Hellenic inhabitants of Greece, often used as a general term for all of them. Julius Pokorny derives Pelasgoi from *pelag-skoi ("flatland-inhabitants"). Which Biblically sounds like Peleg, son of Eber and ancestor of both Jacob and Esau. The Thalassocracies listed by Diodorus and preserved by Eusebius list The Pelasgians as the dominant Sea Power from about 1057-972 B.C. Which happens to be about when Ussher dated the reigns of David and Solomon, and Biblically I consider Ussher correct on the Kingdom period. So maybe these Pelasgians could be Edomites who traveled to Italy.

The Sabine Tribe of Italy are important to Rome's origin, Numa the second King was a Sabine, a number of later individuals claimed descent form Numa.  According to Plutarch the Sabines claimed descent from an ancient Spartan colony.  I discus evidence of a possible Edomite connection for Sparta on my Revised Chronology Blog discussing the Hycsos.

My favorite Christian scholars talking about the Herodian dynasty love to emphasize their "Edomite" status, (which they assume is indisputable) but the New Testament itself never does so.  It doesn't even confirm his presumed Idumean status, it only makes one reference geographically to Idumaea in Mark 3:8. Strangely the NT doesn't discus Edom as a nation at all it would seem, which is odd. Malachi ends the Hebrew Bible setting up the New Testament in a few ways, one by giving a key Prophecy of John The Baptist in 3:1. But perhaps all the talk about Esau also sets up Rome's key role in the New Testament narrative. This same Malachi reference is interestingly alluded to by Paul in his Epistles to The Romans 9-11. Indeed one of the only two NT references to Esau is in the Epistles to The Romans.  And those references are speaking of Esau in a typological sense, which Calvanists don't understand.

Jospehus is our main source on Herod, and he is ultimately a critic of the dynasty, he says Herod was Idumean. Herod's official court historian claimed he descended from Exilarchs, that is easy to write off as propaganda. What we do know for certain is his Paternal Grandfather and Father both first rose to power as governors of Idumea, and that the Hasmoneans had forcibly converted the Idumeans to Judaism under Hyrcanus.

Idumea refers to a geographical region in Greeco-Roman Judah that overlapped mostly with the original allotment of Simeon. It doesn't geographically equate to Edom, places like Seir, Bozrah and Teman where part of the Nebatean kingdom ruled by Aretas, Petra was his capital.

Any time you see Idumea in the KJV of the Old Testament, that was the same Hebrew word always used for Edom, no variant of pronunciation there. The KJV translators were just being arbitrarily selective because of an assumption.

The modern Palestinians being sometimes refereed to as Edomites is also probably because of partial descent from the Idumeans. The Idumeans are not the only aspect of their ancestry of course. They descend from many local populations who converted to Islam (including Samaritans) and Arabs who migrated there after the Islamic conquests. Today Palestinians make up about 75% of Jordan's population, in addition to their settlements in Israel.

Dumah was a son of Ishmael mentioned in Genesis 25.  Bill Cooper in After The Flood Appendix 1 says of them.

59. Dumah: The Assyrians and Babylonians knew Dumah's descendants as the Adammatu. Nabonidus later tells us how he conquered the Adummu. Ptolemy referred to them as the Domatha; and Porphyry recorded their name as the Dumathii. We know them today as the Idumaeans. The name of Dumah is still preserved in the modern Arab city of Dumat-al-Jandal, the erstwhile capital of his tribe (see Map 2.) (Refs: 1DB 1:873-4. NBD 328)

Cooper also records that this tribe had ties to Kedar when he discuses that nation.

So, is the popular Idumeans=Edomites assumption in fact wrong? I firmly thought so, until I read Isaiah 21:11 "The burden of Dumah. He calleth to me out of Seir, Watchman, what of the night? Watchman, what of the night?". This prophecy goes on to mention other tribes and places, including Tema of Ishmael, Arabia, as well as descendants of Dedan (most likely the Keturite Dedan).

So it might be there was some intermingling between Edom and Dumah.  Or maybe that prophecy from Isaiah just alludes to the fact that those lands would one day be inhabited by Ishmaelites.  Which was the case by NT times.

The Herodian Dynasty also intermingled with Roman Aristocracy, chiefly via Antonius Felix's marriage to Drusilla daughter of Herod Agrippa, and a son and grandson of Alexander who ruled Armenia (as Tigranes V and VI) who obtained Roman citizenship. There are also speculations about the Aristobulus of Romans 16 going to Britan, and Antipas & Antipater being exiled to southern France. And how those might tie into British Israelism and Merovingian-Rex Deus theories.

Some have guessed these intermarriages are the origin of the Rome-Edom connection, but as I've argued there's much more to it then that.

 I think It's interesting actually that the Herodians were an Idumean dynasty given rule of the Holy Land by an Edomite Empire, during The New Testament era.

I discus Edom and Rome's relationship to Yahweh here.

I speculate more on how Edom became Rome here.

One of the Edomite Kings of Genesis 36 was named Samlah.  I've recently wondered is Samlah could be related to the Samnites.  The Samnites were a tribe in ancient Italy, one of many that fought Rome at first but in time become Romans citizens after being annexed by Rome.

They were fighting wars with Rome during the time of Alexander The Great.  The most notable Samnite of that period was Gaius Pontius.  Because of the name many historians think it's probably that Pontius Pilate was a descendant of that Pontius.  So that is interesting, Roman history can perhaps link a Genesis 36 King of Rome to the Roman Prefect who authorized Jesus Crucifixion.

In between those two Pontius, was Lucius Pontius Aquila.  He was one of the killer of Julius Caesar on the Ides of March of 44 BC.  It's also interesting that Aquila is the Latin word for Eagle.  He also owned land near modern Naples, which was arguable within traditional Samnite territory.