BRITAIN BC
My apologies to Dr. Francis Pryor for borrowing the title of his interesting Channel 4 television series. I applaud his stance on the ancient Britons, for he debunks the prevalent idea that, prior to the coming of the Romans, these islands were inhabited by a lot of woad-painted savages. However, as with all archaeologists and historians, he still leaves the viewer rather confused about the early inhabitants of these islands, and does not appear to agree that there were successive waves of invaders who added to the culture of these early peoples. He also falls into the trap of believing that the Druids were responsible for human sacrifices, but this was a slander of the Romans, who hated the Druids for their influence on the independent spirit of the people. True, certain bodies have been discovered by archaeologists that seem to show signs of deliberate killing for ritual purposes, but why pin the blame on the Druids? This could have been a practice of renegade religionists, or of different sects. Dr. Pryor reported that one body had mistletoe in the stomach, and as the Druids revered mistletoe, this was proof of their being involved in ritual killing.This appears to me to be stretching a theory a little too far. Mistletoe is a poison and a hallucinogen, so could have been used to drug the victim. It seems to me to be far too slender a thread to use as proof of the guilt of the Druids. Any perpetrator of the ritual killing could have used this. I do not consider it to be a valid argument.
There is a golden key to history, which is contained in God’s Word. With this key, so much which appears to puzzle the experts and blur their conclusions could be explained. However, the Lord has told us that we are to be blinded until it is his Will to reveal the truth to us, and Satan is ever active in throwing a spanner in the works. We should not be surprised that the wise men come so near to the truth, and then suddenly seem to veer off course.
This should not be taken as a criticism of Dr.Pryor, for his work is very valuable, and his programme is most interesting. He has contributed much to other programmes, such as Time Team, and Meet the Ancestors. Scientists such as Dr.Pryor, and Dr.Julian Richards are adding a great deal to the understanding of our ancient history, restoring the balance in a picture of our history which seems to many historians to begin only with the invasion of the Romans. This great culture imposed civilisation on a few backward tribes in these islands, if the popular view of history is taken. This is the picture that I was taught at school, and (in so far as history is taught at all in schools nowadays) is one that still prevails in most peoples’ minds – if they think about history at all. In spite of the good work by these experts, the picture is still like a puzzle with vital pieces missing. The Bible can supply the missing pieces.
The Real “Ancient Brits”
The mist, which veils the distant past of our ancestors, is further confused by the seeming failure of the experts to differentiate between the different peoples who have inhabited this land. They lump them all together as “Celts”, which is a vague term, and not strictly accurate in all cases. I do not believe that it is right to consider the earliest inhabitants as “Celts”, for they were probably indigenous, or originated from the people who escaped the great floods(1) caused by the melting of the glaciers in the last Ice Age. They had a distinctive culture, which was by no means primitive, distinguished by specialised tools and buildings. A very interesting fact mentioned by Dr. Pryor is that the mitochondrial DNA of the most ancient people can be found in our population today. This is witnessed by the finding of “Cheddar Man”, a skeleton in the Cheddar Gorge caves, dating back about 7,000 years. His DNA can be found today in some of the inhabitants of Cheddar village. Mitochondrial DNA is always traced through the female line. I feel convinced that a great breakthrough will be achieved in this field and that perhaps the Lord is keeping us blind until this science is more developed. It is seemingly a cause for puzzlement amongst experts when they find that their DNA test findings indicate that the people of these islands are genetically very close, in spite of the differing waves of “invaders” which have been recorded in our history. In fact, this is not a new concept, but now our more advanced science is able to verify the ideas of scientists and historians who wrote many years ago.
Many experts could be quoted, if there were space enough in this article, but just two will have to suffice here. Professor Huxley in “Racial Origins”, says:
“The invasion of the Saxons, the Goths, the Danes and the Normans changed the language of Britain, but added no new physical element. Therefore we should not talk any more of Celts and Saxons, for they are all one. I never lose an opportunity of rooting up the false idea that the Celts and Saxons are different races”.
Professor Freeman in his “Origin of the English Nation” says:
“Tribe after tribe, Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Frisians, poured across the sea to make new homes in the Isle of Britain. Thus grew up the English nation-a nation formed by union of various tribes of the same stock. The Dane hardly needed assimilation. He was another kindred tribe, coming later than the others. Even the Norman was a kinsman.”
The study of blood groups and skull shapes further confirms that all the different elements amongst our people are of one basic stock. Professor W. Ripley in “The Races of Europe” states:
“The most remarkable trait of the population of the British Isles is its headform, and especially the uniformity in this respect which is everywhere manifested… These facts indicate a remarkable invariability of cranial type compared with the results obtained elsewhere in Europe… in the British Isles the headform is practically uniform from end to end.”
This of course, will not be the case in future years, owing to the high immigration rate and the intermarrying of the basic British stock with peoples of different origins.
Dr. Pryor seemed to imply in his programme that there had not been the different waves of immigrants, such as we have usually understood to be the case in our history, but that the developments were “home-grown”. For instance, he cited a particular pattern of agriculture that is not found on the continent, proving to his mind that there had been no influence from foreign sources. This may well be true of the earliest inhabitants of these islands, but later immigrants brought with them a culture which may be traced back through Europe as far as the shores of the Black Sea.
Historians are able to trace the origins of the successive waves of settlers in these islands back to Europe, and even to the Caucasus and the area that lies south of the Caucasus. There they stop, unable to make the “quantum leap” which would link those peoples found in the area in ancient times with the displaced tribes of the Northern House of Israel. This is in spite of the fact that the new wave of tribes and peoples which the experts acknowledge as having mysteriously risen in the area, appear at the same time and in the same place that the Bible leaves the Northern House in its captivity.
The Bible contains a mystery of which deep students of the Bible are aware, but the majority of Christians and historians are either unaware, or dispute the facts. The mystery is that of the disappearing Tribes. It need not be a mystery, for there are ample clues in Biblical and secular history. It just needs the key to understanding, collating and linking all the known facts. The majority of theologians and commentators consider that the tribes disappeared or were absorbed into the surrounding nations. No doubt a great many did integrate with other nations, but the numbers were too great for them to all have disappeared in this way. Besides, the Lord told us, in Malachi 3:6:
For I am the Lord, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.
Many people do not feel that this matters at all, and are quite happy to believe that the Jews are the sole inheritors of God’s Promises, or that the Promises have been transferred to the Christian Church. However, if either of these beliefs is to be accepted we must also accept that God has gone back on His own solemn word, and changed His mind.
Preconceived ideas need to be revised and examined carefully. The truth should be sincerely sought, with the guidance of the Holy Spirit and the information given in our Bibles. Either we believe what God has said, or we substitute the traditions of men. Which do you feel to be the more reliable?
It can be a rewarding adventure to search out the facts from the Bible’s account and from history. God made certain promises to Israel and if He had changed His mind or not fulfilled the promises, we should be justified in becoming atheists. This would be a terrible conclusion to have to come to!
The Splitting of the Kingdom
If we go back into the history of Israel we realise that the people who came out of slavery in Egypt did not long remain a political entity. At the beginning of King David’s reign, he only ruled over the southern tribes, but eventually, under him and his son Solomon, they were united. On the death of King Solomon the Kingdom was split in two, owing to the intransigence of his son, Rehoboam, who refused to lighten the tax load in spite of a petition by his subjects. This led to the ten tribes of the Northern House of Israel splitting from the Kingdom and setting up their own kingdom, under Jeroboam, who was not of the line of David. The two Kingdoms, Israel, consisting of ten and a half tribes and Judah, consisting of two and a half tribes (i.e, .Judah, Benjamin, and part of Levi) existed side by side (often at loggerheads with one another) until the Northern House was taken captive into Assyria.
At that time the Assyrians deported peoples to far away lands, and re-populated their homelands with other captives from distant places. The Southern House of Judah remained in the southern parts of Palestine until their eventual captivity and deportation to Babylon. The Babylonians did not repopulate the lands that they emptied, but they left a few poor people behind to till the fields and provide tribute, as we read in II Kings 25:8-12:
And in the fifth month, on the seventh day of the month, which is the nineteenth year of king Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, came Nebuzaradan, captain of the guard, a servant of the king of Babylon, unto Jerusalem: And he burnt the house of the Lord, and the king’s house, and all the houses of Jerusalem, and every great man’s house burnt he with fire. And all the army of the Chaldees, that were with the captain of the guard, brake down the walls of Jerusalem round about. Now the rest of the people that were left in the city, and the fugitives that fell away to the king of Babylon, with the remnant of the multitude, did Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carry away. But the captain of the guard left of the poor of the land to be vinedressers and husbandmen.
The captives in Babylon settled down and built homes and communities. Nebuchadnezzar needed prosperous subjects, so he allowed them a measure of freedom which their less fortunate brethren of the Northern House did not enjoy under their Assyrian captors. The people of the Southern House suffered from homesickness, but led reasonably comfortable lives in exile for seventy years, until Cyrus the Mede gave them permission to return to Palestine to rebuild Jerusalem. Many opted to stay in the land of their captivity. Hundreds of thousands were originally taken captive, but fewer than 50,000 accepted the offer to return to their homeland. These people became known as the “Jews”, a corruption of the Greek “Ioudaious”, meaning from the country of Judah. This is why the name should never be applied to members of other tribes, especially the Northern House. Even today, Ministers of religion and historians, who should know better, refer to Abraham as a “Jew”, which he could not possibly have been, since he lived so many hundreds of years before the captivities.
The Northern captives had a different fate. Their captors, the Assyrians, were a very cruel people, and so Israel did not settle happily under the Assyrian dominion. The last mention of them in the Bible is in II Kings 17:6:
In the ninth year of Hoshea the king of Assyria took Samaria, and carried Israel away into Assyria, and placed them in Halah and in Habor by the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.
Careful comparison of different historical sources will enable us to trace these displaced people and discover the different names by which they were known in ancient times.
The Captivity of the Northern House
We noted from II Kings 17:6 that the Northern House of Israel was carried away
.. .into Assyria, and placed them in Halah and in Habor by the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.
Where were these places?
The Jewish historian, Josephus, writing just after the time of Jesus, places Israel in Medo-Persia. He stated:
“This conquest (the conquest of Samaria, 721 B. C.) proved wholly destructive to the kingdom of Israel, Hoshea (the king at the time) being made prisoner, and his subjects being transported to Media, in Persia, and being replaced by people whom Shalmaneser caused to remove from the borders of Chuthah, a river in Persia, for the purpose of settling the land of Samaria.” (Antiquities IX: 13,14)
Most of the Israelitish settlements were in Mesopotamia (“between the two rivers”, Le., the Tigris and Euphrates) in the upper portion of the territory, not at the end near the estuaries. The captives were, therefore, at the time that the Bible leaves them, in Northern Assyria and Persia. This may be checked by reference to the Taylor prism in the British Museum and the stele known as the “black obelisk” on which Shalmaneser records his humiliation of the king of the Northern house, Jehu. It was found in 1846 in Kurkh by Sir Austin Henry Layard, and depicts Jehu bowing low before Shalmaneser. He is referred to in the text as the “son of Omri”. Omri was one of the first non-Davidic kings of israel. Jehu was also called “Iaua, son of Khumri”. In the Book of Tobit, in the Apocrypha, Tobit tells of life as a captive in Assyria. He and his wife were of the tribe of Naphtali (a northern tribe), and he became a purveyor to the king Enemassar (Sargon). Tobit 1:14 says that he went into Media,
“.. .and left in trust with Gabael, the brother of Gabrias at Rages, a city of Media, ten talents of silver.”
This places the tribes in the territory of Media.
The Escape
The Israelites had been transported north eastwards about 700 miles to the headwaters of the Tigris and Euphrates. They were no longer referred to as Israel, so
we must search for them under other names, and there are many clues to aid us.
In the testimony of Esdras (Ezra) in the Apocrypha is another clue. This book, although not in our present Canon, is valuable historically, and is a continuation of
the Book of Ezra that is in our Bibles.
In II Esdras 13, verses 40 to 46, we read:
Those are the ten tribes, which were carried away prisoners out of their own land in the time of Osea the king, whom Salmaneser the king of Assyria led away captive, and he carried them over the waters, and so came they into another land. But they took this counsel among themselves, that they would leave the multitude of the heathen, and go forth into a further country where never mankind dwelt, that they might there keep their statutes, which they never kept in their own land. And they entered into Euphrates by the narrow passages of the river. For the most High then shewed signs for them, and held still the flood, till they were passed over. For through that country there was a great way to go, namely, of a year and a half: and the same region is called Arsareth Then dwelt they there until the latter time; and now when they shall begin to come, The Highest shall stay the springs of the stream again, that they may go through: therefore sawest thou the multitude with peace But those that be left behind of thy people are they that are found within my borders. Now when he destroyeth the multitude of the nations that gathered together, he shall defend his people that remain. And then shall he shew them great wonders.
About fifty years after their deportation, the captives took advantage of an attack on the Assyrian Empire to escape through the gorge of the Euphrates. The Assyrians obviously needed all their forces to defend themselves and turned a blind eye to their disappearance. It has been said by some that their captors actively encouraged them to escape. Many of the fugitives threw their lot in with the attackers of the Assyrians, probably seeing a chance to avenge their wrongs.
Herodotus, (the Greek-historian of c. 484-425 BC ) then takes up the story and tells us that some members of the Ten Tribes left exile and moved westwards and northwards into what we know as Armenia, then on to a place called Ar-Sareth. There is a river called Sareth to the northwest of the Black Sea. The people were known by then as Gimira or Cimmerians, called Kimmeroi by the Greeks. This name is cognate with the Assyrian Khumri, which is the Assyrian name for the captives, meaning “people of Omri”.
We have now established the region to which Israel was deported, and where a number of alien tribes are mentioned who appear to have sprung from nowhere quite spontaneously. We have demonstrated that many of their names can be traced to an Israelitish origin.
And the Gentiles shall see thy righteousness, and all kings thy glory: and thou shalt be called by a new name, which the mouth of the Lord shall name. (Isaiah 62:2)
Prophets had been warning the Northern House of Israel what would happen to them if they persisted in their worship of idols, but they continued to transgress. Their punishment had been foretold as early on in their history as the time of the Exodus and the early settlement of Palestine.
But if ye will not hearken unto me, and will not do all these commandments; And if ye shall despise my statutes, or if your soul abhor my judgments, so that ye will not do all my commandments, but that ye break my covenant: I also will do this unto you; I will even appoint over you terror, consumption, and the burning ague, that shall consume the eyes, and cause sorrow of heart: and ye shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it. And I will set my face against you, and ye shall be slain before your enemies: they that hate you shall reign over you; and ye shall flee when none pursueth you. And if ye will not yet for all this hearken unto me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins. (Leviticus 26: 14-18)
The Gimiri,who had been defeated by Esarhaddon, escaped further westwards into Asia Minor, as far as Sinope, on the southern shores of the Black Sea, as the Assyrians were pursuing them. The Greeks called these people Kimmeroi, which is close to the original Assyrian Khumri and Gimiri. They must be the same people, especially as these events took place within such a short time after Northern Israel’s captivity and transportation, a mere thirty years! Many settled in the Crimea (Cimmeria), where gravestones inscribed in Hebrew have been found, and in the Arsareth region, which was mentioned in Esdras. This area was near the northwestern shore of the Black Sea, not far from the lower reaches of the River Danube, where the river Sereth drains into the Danube. They were driven out of Asia Minor by King Alyattes of Lydia in about 600 BC. Some probably went to Miletus, which was an ancient Israelitish colony, to which many Trojan survivors had gone after the siege of Troy.
Josephus, who was a historian to the Jews around the time of Jesus Christ, wrote that only a remnant of Judah, called the Jews, returned to Palestine, and that the bulk of the people of Israel and Judah were still beyond the Euphrates at that time. “Beyond Euphrates” encompasses Europe and Asia.
They followed the Danube, which had been a highway to ancient peoples for many centuries, into Central Europe where they became known as the Cimbri. Thence they settled in France, the Netherlands and the British Isles, unknowing that they had found the place prepared for them by God, as prophesied in II Samuel 7:10:
Moreover I will appoint a place for my people Israel, and will plant them, that they may dwell in a place of their own, and move no more; neither shall the children of wickedness afflict them any more, as beforetime
It is significant that after the reign of Sargon II, the Khumri are no longer mentioned in the Assyrian records. The Cimmerians were in the Black Sea area before the Scythians. They were the vanguard of the thrust to the west. Part of the Cimmerians became known as Gauls when they reached southern Germany and France. The Greeks named them Celts but the Romans called them Gauls, according to the historian Diodorus. (d. circa 20 BC.)
Groups of Celtic tribes settled in Bohemia and Bavaria. They were the originators of the “Hallstadt Culture”, as the first tombs of this type were found there in Upper Austria. The older tombs date from before the Cimmerian arrivals, but some of the people were of Hebrew origin, their migrations dating back to the time when Israel was in Egypt. Many had grown tired of the increasing pressures from the Egyptians and had gone off to found colonies in Greece, Asia Minor, Spain and Portugal (Iberia) and had already settled in parts of Europe.The escaped captives followed in their footsteps, led by God’s purpose. They may have known that distant kinsmen were before them.
In the early part of the fourth century BC the Celts invaded northern Italy, and were mentioned by Greeks and Romans. The Romans suffered several defeats by the Cimbri. By the end of the third century BC the Celts were scattered all over Europe, from Northern Italy to North-western France. They crossed the Alps, to go to the aid of the Etruscans, who were being attacked by the Romans. This may be a pointer to their kinship with the Etruscans.
In 390 BC the Celts attacked Rome and burned it. Gauls founded Milan, Brixen and Verona. They continued to be a menace to the Romans for another two hundred years.
The Celts then went further afield, to the British Isles, where they would have found people of their stock already established. It is highly significant that the Welsh call themselves Cymry to this day.
Later Celts were of the La Time culture. They built wattle and daub houses, thatched much as we still have in rural areas today, but their houses were round. They also built the great hill top forts, like Maiden Castle in Dorset. They produced beautiful and distinctive artwork, proving that they were not the “woad painted savages” of traditional history. It has also been said that they could not write but they had a form of writing in ancient Ogham script, which appears engraved on rocks as inscriptions. Their language survives in the remoter parts of the Celtic world, and many words are very similar to the Hebrew forms. In Welsh, too, there is also a similarity in the syntax, or construction of sentences, as well as in vocabulary, for some words are almost the same as the Hebrew.
Dr. Francis Pryor pointed out that the Romans never subdued the Celts in Wales and Ireland, and only reached as far as Hadrian’s Wall in the north. He is also of the opinion that the Romans did not conquer Britain, but that their occupation was with the co-operation of the Britons, who traded with them and benefited from an infusion of their culture.
The Scythians
On the Behistun Rock, discovered by Sir Henry Rawlinson in 1846, the Gimiri were shown to be same people as the Sacae. The inscriptions on the Rock were cut in 516 BC, and it records them in three different languages, Babylonian, Susian and Persian. In the Persian and Susian versions the Gimiri are called Sacae, and amongst the twenty-three provinces listed on the Rock is one called Sak. The root Sak is the same as the root of the name of the Scythians, leading us to conclude that they are the same people, living in the same area as the Scythians. Herodotus tells us that the Persians knew the Sacae as Scythians. Now, the root of Sak is the same name by which Israel was known in the book of Amos:
Now therefore hear thou the word of the Lord: Thou sayest, Prophesy not against Israel, and drop not thy word against the house of Isaac. (Amos 7:16)
The House of Isaac is Beth-Saac in Hebrew. The consonants SK are the real root of all the variations, for there were no vowels in ancient written Hebrew.
According to Herodotus, the ancient historian, who wrote about 450 years before Christ, the Persians called all the Scythians Sacae. Herodotus tells us the Scythians began their westward movement in the time of a King of Lydia who reigned from 686 to 637 BC.
The Greeks changed the name of Iskuzu to Skuthae. As in Hebrew, the accent was on the next syllable to the “I”, as in “Itzaak”, so it is easy to see how the “I” came to be omitted, eventually giving us the name “Scythians”.
Herodotus also says that the Scythians appeared quite suddenly in that same area from which the Ten Tribes had disappeared, only half a century after their deportation.
The Babylonians first mention the Scythians. They sent troops into Media to collect tribute, and reported that the soldiers had to fight resistance by the Medes and the Gimiri and Iskuzi. They also mention a King Partatua of the Iskuzi, who was contemplating marriage with a daughter of Esarhaddon, the Assyrian ruler.
The Iskuzi were living in the territory of the Medes, and they were renowned for their skill with horses. After having been the allies of the Medes, they became their enemies, and attempted to overthrow their rulers and overrun their territory. In the Scythians’ Hebrew ancestry, their forebears had also been noted for their skills with horses and chariots.
The Scythians were good fighters, and they hired themselves out as mercenaries to the surrounding nations. Then they came under pressure by the Medes, and the western tribes went northwards into the south of present day Russia, through the Dariel Pass and into the Caucasus.
The Scythians were, therefore, a branch of the captive Israelites who went off in different direction from the Cimmerians.
They went through the Dariel Pass, and then both eastwards and westwards from the shores of the Caspian Sea. Remains have been found in Northwest China of a people who have remarkably Celtic attributes, both in their physical make up and their grave goods and the remnants of their clothing, which included materials of a similar design to Scottish plaids.
The historian, Strabo, said that the Sacae were living in Bactriana and Armenia, and that they called themselves Sacasene. This name is remarkably similar in sound and in meaning to Saxon. The Sacasene began to expand and push out of this territory around 625 to 620 BC. Russian archaeologists established this date when they found Scythian arrowheads of this date, horse gear, and bronze bowls, all dated to this time. This is not all that far removed from the last deportation of the Northern House of Israel, which was in 720 BC.
In the fourth century BCa race called the Sarmatians began to push the Scythians and eventually they pushed on to the area that is Hungary nowadays. Confusion has arisen, even in the minds of some historians, because these later arrivals called themselves Scythians too, even though they were of a different race. This has happened in more recent times. When the Saxons inhabited parts of modern Germany, they called their territory Saxony. This name is retained by the different race of people who now live there.
The Romans later knew the Scythians as “Germans”. This was because of the confusion between the real Scythians,and the Sarmatian newcomers. The Latin for “real” or “genuine” is “germanus”. This name was applied to distinguish the original inhabitants of the region which later became Germany. This takes us to 100 BC
The Goths were of the same stock, originally known as “Getae”. They have been classed with the Vandals, who came after them, but they were a different people and do not deserve to be tarred with the same brush. The Massagetae were also from the same stock.
In the Declaration of Arbroath (1316), the Scots claimed that they came originally from Scythia,by way of the Mediterranean, via Spain. This, however, is more likely to have meant the Cimmerians, as the Scots are largely a Celtic people. The fact that the territories occupied by the ancestors of the Scots were later invaded and settled by the Scythians,may have confused the issue, for the area came to be known as Scythia after these later arrivals. Some authorities derive the name “Scot” from “Scythian”. The original pronunciation would have had a hard “k” sound, “Skuth”, and it is significant that this is a Hebrew word, “Succoth”, meaning “booths” or “tabernacles”, in other words, temporary dwellings, such as would have been erected by a people on the move. Remember that there is a “Feast of Tabemacles”, which commemorates the wanderings in the Wilderness of the Israelites who had escaped from Egypt.
In Herodotus’ time, the Scythian territory extended 500 miles each way from the Danube to the Don.
The word “Scythian” is mentioned once in Scripture:
Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all. (Colossians 3: 11)
This points to the fact that the Scythians were not considered to be in the same category as Barbarians in Paul’s day. Barbarians meant the savage tribes round about, such as Huns and Vandals.
Having noted the similarity of the name of the Saxons to “Isaac’s Sons”, we find that God told Abraham that the people would be known by Isaac’s name in the latter days.
And God said unto Abraham, Let it not be grievous in thy sight because of the lad, and because of thy bondwoman; in all that Sarah hath said unto thee, hearken unto her voice; for In Isaac shall thy seed be called. (Genesis 21:12)
The Roman writers, Ptolemy and Tacitus mention the settlements of people called Angles and Saxons, further west of the Baltic, having settled in what is now Jutland, part of Denmark. The Romans included this area in “Germany”. The Angles and Saxons eventually came to Britain, where they largely displaced the indigenous British or Celts, who were pushed to refuges in the west of Britain.These people had Scythian origins, as we know from the fact that Hengist and Horsa, the Saxon invaders, sent to “Scythia” for reinforcements.
The names “Angle” and “Saxon” are very significant. In ancient Hebrew “engl” was an ox or bull. The tribe of Ephraim had a bull for its emblem. This symbol survives to this day, for we speak of “John Bull” as a typical Englishman, and the corrupted version survives in the Royal Arms as the Unicorn.
God brought him forth out of Egypt; he hath as it were the strength of an unicorn: he shall eat up the nations his enemies, and shall break their bones, and pierce them through with his arrows. He couched, he lay down as a lion, and as a great lion: who shall stir him up? (Numbers 24:8-9)
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. (Deuteronomy 33:17)
The two supporters of the Royal Arms are mentioned in the first few chapters of the Bible, and they have continued up to our time! It proves that God is a Covenant-keeping God, in spite of the waywardness and wickedness of His Servant People.
By laborious means, He eventually brought all His People together in the place that He had prepared for them. Their punishment lasted for 2,520 years, as had been foretold many years before:
And if ye will not yet for all this hearken unto me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins. (Leviticus 26:18)
And I will scatter thee among the heathen, and disperse thee in the countries, and will consume thy filthiness out of thee. (Ezekiel 22:15)
In prophecy a “time” means 360 (lunar) years, as Ezekiel 4:6 says:
I have appointed thee each day for a year.
If we multiply 360 by 7 it equals 2,520.
God’s people sinned and disobeyed Him, so He caused them to forget who they were and what was their function in the world. They persist in their blindness. This is in accordance with God’s Will, for He has said in His Holy Word:
For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved: (Romans 11:25-26)
Bible believing Christians,who believe the Lord and trust in Him to work out His Purposes in His people, understand this key to history. They give sincere thanks to God that He will eventually honour His Covenant in full,and gather the scattered people into the fullness of His Kingdom.
(1) A most interesting book on this subject is Before the Flood, by Ian Wilson
