GEORGE WASHINGTON AND ISRAEL
A STUDENT of Genealogy Dr Burhl B. Gilpin Junior,discovered interesting facts when his studies led him to obtain the genealogy of the Washington family. In that record he found genealogical confirmation of the migration pattern of the Caucasians. The information is taken from a book in the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., written by Albert Welles, titled Pedigree and history of the Washington Family.
This book contains the following information concerning the background of the beloved ‘Father of our Country’ – George Washington:
“Odin (first King of Scandinavia, 70 B.C.) came from Asaland or Asaheim, east of Tanais. He endeared himself to the Asiatic subjects, successful in every combat. Son of Fridulf, supreme ruler of the Scythians, in Asaland or Asaheim, Turkestand, between the Euxine and Caspian Seas in Asia He reigned at Asgard, whence he removed 70 B.C., and became the first king of Scandinavia. Died 50 B.C., and was succeeded by Sons who ruled in different parts of Scandinavia
“Frode Fredigod, fourth generation, was King of Denmark at the time of Christ, died A.D. 35.
“Thorlin the Dane was the 32nd generation from Odin. He founded the Washington family. Born about A,D. 1000. His ancestors came from Schleswig, in Denmark and settled in Ebor or Yorkshire, prior to the Norman Conquest.
“Colonel John Washington was the 51st generation from Odin. He migrated to America and settled in Virginia. He was the great grandfather of George Washington.”
Note that the first paragraph of this record contains a sentence of tremendous historical significance. It states that Odin was the “Son of Fridulf, supreme ruler of the Scythians, in Asaland or Asaheim … between the Euxine and Caspian Seas in Asia”. This sentence places the family of Washington right in the midst of the migrating Israelites as they moved from Assyria – by way of the Caspian Sea, the Caucasus Mountains, and the Black Sea – into Europe, where their exploits changed the face of a continent.
This transmigration of the major portion of Israel’s clans from the land of their captivity was the greatest mass movement of a multi-tribed kingdom of kindred people in the history of the world. These captive Israelites were once proud citizens of the Northern Ten-tribed Kingdom of Israel. They were a people of prophetic destiny and could not be subdued by their captors.
Dr J. Llewellyn Thomas points out that the Kingdom of Judah was not involved in Israel’s transition. “This migration,” he says, “took place about a century after their main deportation. Let it be noted that it commenced before the destruction and carrying away of the Kingdom of Judah by Nebuchadnezzar. Israel had started on their migration out of the land of their captivity into the southeast of Europe before Judah ceased to exist as a kingdom. Note that when the Jews returned, the main body of the Israelites were in Arsareth, over a thousand miles from Babylon … This migration into Europe took place at the time when the great Assyrian Empire was failing before the rising of the new world Empire of Babylon. Israel seized the favourable opportunity of escaping into Europe.”
One other fact must be mentioned here to keep the record straight; indeed, it is a point of peculiar import even in these latter days, though generally ignored or forgotten. It is true, as Dr Thomas says, that the Southern Kingdom of Judah as a whole was not involved in Israel’s deportation, nor in the mass migrations westward which took place in subsequent years; however, there is one brief record concerning Judah which is of supreme importance. It is found in 2 Kings 18: 9-13
“It came to pass in the fourth year of king Hezekiah, which was the seventh year of Hoshea king of Israel, that Shalmaneser king of Assyria came up against Samaria, and besieged it. And at the end of three years they took it: even in the sixth year of Hezekiah, that is the ninth year of Hoshea king of Israel, Samaria was taken. And the king of Assyria did carry away Israel unto Assyria … Now in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah did Sennacherib king of Assyria come up against all the fenced cities of Judah and took them.”
Briefly, the salient facts are these: In the sixth year of Hezekiah’s reign [he would have been about 31 years old I, Shalmaneser captured Samaria and deported Israel to Assyria. Then, eight years later, in the fourteenth year of Hezekiah, “did Sennacherib king of Assyria come up against all the fenced cities of Judah, and took them.”
The essential point to note here is that these captives from the fenced cities of Judah were not taken to Babylon, but to Assyria, where they were henceforth identified with their kinsmen of the ten-tribed kingdom. Sennacherib was unable to capture Jerusalem at the time because the Lord had other plans for that city and the remaining remnant of Judah. It was over a hundred years after these events before the capture of Jerusalem and the deportation of its citizens to Babylon.
The key to understanding, for us, lies in the fact that the kingdom of Judah included not only the tribe of Judah, but Benjamites, Levites and members of the royal House of David. Thus when the Assyrian king captured the fenced cites of Judah, he transported to Assyria, not Judahites alone, but also portions of Benjamin, Levi and the House of David. There is reliable evidence also that they were not few in number. Sennacherib’s inscription, according to A.H. Sayce, states that the number of cites taken was 43, and that he took captive “200,150 men of Judah.”
This move brought representatives of all the tribes of Jacob-Israel into the multitudes of Israel assembled in Assyria.
With such basic facts in mind, we are now ready to mention some of the names by which these people were known during the period of their scattering and colonization. It was prophesied that they would gradually lose their identity and call themselves by other names. (See Hosea 2:17 and Isaiah 28:11.)
Let us note first what names these people bore before their captivity. Among others, we find three in particular The House of Israel, The House of Isaac, and The House of Omri. Dr William Pascoe Goard states the distinction well by saying that “Israel was a Divinely given spiritual name; Isaac was the Divinely given family name; Omri was a dynastic or national name.”(Post-Captivity names of Israel.)
Omri was Israel’s most renowned king. It was he who substituted the “statutes of Omri” for the commandments, statutes, and judgments of the Lord. “His influence in lawmaking”, says Dr Goard, “is with us still. Therefore the people, who kept his law were called by his name tin the eyes of the Assyrians]: Beth Ornri (House of Omri). Whatever other names Israel bore in the days of her residence in Palestine, such as Ephraim etc., she bore out into captivity these two names: Isaac, or Saka; and Omri.”
During the captivity Israel acquired other names and all of them are fund in many forms with various spellings of the same names. Among the variations of Beth Omri we find Bit Khumri, Khumri, Humri, Kimmeri an Gimmiri (etc.). The name Isaac has also a score or more of variations, such as Sakai, Sacae, Sakasuna, etc. But the Sakai, too, are called Kimmerians, Gimmirians and Scythians, a fact that is established by the inscriptions which are best known and which have furnished the key to Assyriology. “The Sakai who in Latin are called Sacae, were an important branch of the Scythian nation” (Sharon Turner, History of the Anglo-Saxons, Vol. 1, p. 100).
Historians agree that the Scythians were one of the greatest military powers of the day. But many of them fail to see how this distinction could be claimed for the Northern Kingdom of Israel. Yet in the time of Jeroboam Israel could put 800,000 “mighty” fighting men in the field, gathered from within its own boundaries (2 Chronicles 13:3). A nation able to do that would be rated a sizable military power today.
The foregoing review is necessarily brief and incomplete. It is intended to serve as a connecting link between the ancient past of a great Covenant Race and their emergence as the dominant peoples and nations of the Western World. For further light on this fascinating subject, we turn now to European and Other Race Origins, by Herbert. Bruce Hannay Esq., of the Inner Temple, Barrister-at-Law, Advocate of the High Court of Judicature, Calcutta, and author of A grammar of the Tibetan Language.
As we quote from Mr Hannay, note the variations in names as they appear in the different languages. The following paragraphs are found in Part III, Chapter VI:
“Let us now resume the fortunes of the Skolotoi of European Skuthia from the time (say 92-20 B.C.) when they received into the bosom of their community the Saghian followers of Asha who had come from Airyan and Turan as already explained; when they adopted from them the name of Asen; when Skuthia acquired the new name of Asaland, or Asaheim, being then well up to the north, near the confluence of the rivers Pripet and Desna with the Dnieper, and when their capital, now represented by Kieff, was called Asgard “
“According to calculations into which need not enter here, this period is ascertained to have been the approximate time when Odin, or Wodin, flourished. Chief of the Asen, as we may now call them and a hero in his own country, he was afterwards deified by the pagan descendants of his subjects and ultimately his memory was merged in that of the god whose name he bears. The Tyrkland where, according to the north Saga ‘Odin had great Possessions,’ was, like the Swithoid-an of the Yotar of Yotland in Scandinavia, merely a reminiscence of Airyan and Turan – i.e. Turkistan – the distant home of the Saghs during so many centuries.”
“Since the days of the Hebro-Phoenician activity”, says Mr Hanney, “the thoughts of the Beth-Sak and their descendants had ever been concentrated upon the Isles of the West, and imparts no little meaning into the seemingly idle statement in the Saga that for Odin the Northwest was a region where he knew by his skill in magic that a place of refuge was reserved for him and his people.”
Mr Hannay quotes the following from Crichton and Wheaton:
“In the old Swedish legends it is related that Odin founded the Empire of Svea, and built a great temple at a spot called Sigtuna near Lake Maelar, in the present province a Upland, which was known by the Northmen under the name of the ‘Lesser Swithoid,’ to distinguish it from the ‘Greater Swithoid’ of Skuthia, from which they believed he had led his followers. When Odin arrived with his twelve pontiffs or chief priests called Diar or Drottnar, he is said to have found that a great part of the land was occupied by a people who, like himself, had come from Swithoid, but in such long ages past that according to their awn account no one could fix the time. These people who call themselves ‘Gota’ or ‘Gauta,’ Goths … were so strong that Odin was forced to make a compact with their king Gylfe before he could settle the land” (Otte’s Scandinavia, p. 59).
“One of the greatest of these Scythian expeditions was that under the leadership of the historic Odin (who was subsequently deified) – see The Historian’s History of the World, Vol. xvi, pp. 18-19. Odin amassed a huge army at Asgard, in the heart of the Thyssa-getae, and marched first up the valley of the Dnieper, then westward to the shores of the Baltic and finally crossed to Scandinavia where he founded a new empire,” (Anglo-Saxon Israel).
From the writing of Strabo, Pliny, Tacitus, Ptolemy and others, “It appears that the advance guard of Israel was, by 58 B.C., occupying the countries in northwest Europe, bordering the North Sea. There they remained, developing their powers and their character, till the movements to Britain began” (Fasken).
We return now to Odin in relation to the Washington family. Odin is registered in the Washington genealogy as the “first King of Scandinavia, 70 B.C.” No doubt his forbears were distinguished leaders of clans during their westward trek. It seems likely that there was an Odin dynasty both before and after the time of “Odin, first King of Scandinavia” The genealogy states that Odin “was succeeded by sons who ruled in different parts of Scandinavia”. I
n his book, The Royal House of Britain, an Enduring Dynasty, W.M.H. Milner quotes from a leaflet by Mr Grimaldi in which it was stated that “The descent of our Royal Family from the royal line of Judah is, however, only a rediscovery. The Saxon kings traced themselves back to Odin, who was traced back to his descent from David, as may be seen in very ancient MS. in the Herald’s College, London.” Desiring to verify this, Mr. Miner wrote to Heralds College and received positive assurance (dated 5-2-1901) that “There is a very valuable MS. here, deducing our Saxon kings from Adam through David” (p.28). This MS. says Mr Milner, “we have inspected.” It is caged on the back of the binding, Pedigree of the Saxon Kings. Both Odin and David are listed there, he says. Then on page 41, Mr Milner traces the later Odin dynasty as follows:
“King Edward VII introduced to the throne a new section of the one continuous Royal House of Britain. His mother was Queen in her own right, of the Guelphic line. His father was a prince of the Saxon dukedom of Coburg-Gotha, one of several branches of the House of Wettin. To that house our king belongs. Like the older Saxon and Norman lines, this newer Saxon comes from Odin whose connection with the dynasty of David we have already discussed. Through one of the sons of Odin and Frea were ancestors of Cadwallader, Roderick, and Howel the Good, whence came the Tudor kings of England, and, through Nesta and Fleance, the Stuarts as well. A second son of Odin made him progenitor of William the Conqueror. Through a third he was forefather of Egbert, the first King of England, and of Alfred the Great. Through the union of several lines, he was the ancestor of the Plantagenet kings and the Hanoverian princes. By a fourth, named Wecta, crowned by him, King of Saxony (died A.D. 800), Odin was the ancestor of Hengist, last of the kings and first of the Dukes of Saxony. Queen Victoria was also of this line, by her mother.”
Programs and Papers, prepared and distributed in 1982, by the United States George Washington Bicentennial Commission, contain the following information on Washington’s family name and ancestry:
“For eight hundred years, through successive generations, the name of Washington or de Wessyngton has been known for the valour, chivalry, high code of honour, and military distinction of those who bore it. Knights and noblemen of the Old World and citizens of the New, each in their own turn, through service and achievement have given to it a notable place in history.”
“In the process of evolution this name like many others known to fame, has had many variations from the modem spelling. It is apparently of Saxon origin and is known to have existed in the twelfth century. Early records refer to the village of Warton in Lancashire and of Wessyngton in the Palatine Durham. It was from this latter village that the name of de Wessyngton was derived by the progenitor of the Washington family … In different sections the name was spoiled in divers ways. Other forms appearing in important records are Weschington, Wassington, and Washington. In the standardized form of the present day this name is widely mentioned in early county records of England and is engraved on timeworn monuments in churches and cathedrals.
“George Washington was great to a great extent because of what his ancestors were before him. His great-grandfather, John Washington, came to these shores about the middle of ‘the seventeenth century and settled in Westmoreland County Virginia on the very plantation where in later years, George Washington was born.
“… No sooner did the head and shoulders of George Washington rise above the great and near great about him than his contemporaries across the sea commenced to ask, ‘Who is this superman who has defied our sovereign and wrested our American possessions from our grasp? From which branch of our Washingtons is he descended?’ So the queries were set afoot, and since that time many genealogists have devoted much study and research to the subject.
“Many years were consumed in searching for the documentary evidence which would establish the English pedigree of John Washington and of his great-grandson who had risen from the ranks to the head of a new nation. Elusive clues were followed without definite results until through the persistent efforts of Henry F. Waters, the connecting links between the American and the English ancestry were eventually discovered. Having established the connecting link, it was then possible to trace the English ancestry of George Washington back, through the rector of Purleigh, to the Sulgrave branch of the family, and on back for seven generations to John Washington, of Tewhitfield, County Lancashire, whose great-grandson, Lawrence Washington of Grays Inn was Mayor of Northampton and grantee, of the Sulgrave estate which remained in the direct family for two generations….
“Robert Washington inherited Sulgrave Manor… Lawrence Washington was next in line. His mother, Margaret Butler Washington, was a daughter of Margaret Sutton, through whom a strain of royal blood descended into the veins of George Washington. Though fitted in every way to serve as a wise and considerate Sovereign had he permitted the people to proclaim him King of the United States of America, he most emphatically declined that honour, preferring to be called the President.”
And now a few words about Washington’s mother, whose maiden name was Mary Ball. She, too, came from a distinguished family. The escutcheon of her family bears upon it a black lion on a silver shield with a crest having a lion rampant, holding a golden ball in his paws. The motto, Coelumque Tueri, means “And Look to Heaven”. The more immediate ancestry of Mary Ball is traced back to Colonel William Ball, who emigrated to Virginia about 1650 and settled in Lancaster County on a plantation called Millenbeck, on the Rappahannock River.”
The Bicentennial Papers pay this tribute to Mary Ball:
“Through his maternal ancestor there came to George Washington the strength of a philosopher and the truthfulness of a Christian: he was taught to love God supremely, his kind tenderly, and to be good and generous to all living creatures. And above all he was always considerate of his mother’s wishes and ever addressed her as ‘Honoured Madam’ thus paying a courtly tribute to her and through her to her distinguished forbears.”An article by George C. Crux, in Destiny Magazine, January 1937, contains the statement: “Over the entrance of the House of Tudor Sulgrave Manor in Northamptonshire England, hangs the Tudor Coat of Arms, a replica of which was among the Washington heirlooms. In this Coat-of-Arms is to be found both the Stars and Stripes.”
As we have seen, many of the early colonists wanted to crown George Washington King of the Confederation. He declined the Honour. Nevertheless, their readiness to make him a king indicates their recognition of his royal lineage. Some of the Founding Fathers, and many other citizens of that time, had distinctive family heraldry; however, they said little about their background because of their desire to avoid the rise of class consciousness in the New Republic. Yet these facts are extremely important today because they prove beyond the shadow of doubt that the English speaking and kindred people have a common heritage.
The interesting though generally unknown facts which follow are found in The Huguenot Society of Pennsylvania Publication (Vol. XII, p.7). The early colony of Virginia numbered among its prominent leaders at least twenty whose ancestors stemmed from the same royal lines as those of Queen Elizabeth II. In fact, her progenitors gave America some of our most eminent patriots, including the beloved Father of our Country General George Washington. Others among the Queen’s American cousins are a vice-president; three cabinet officers: eight senators; Chief Justice John Marshall; six governors of states including Patrick Henry and General Thomas Nelson, wartime governor of Virginia and a Signer of the Declaration of Independence, Meriwether Lewis, the explorer; General ‘Light Horse Harry’ Lee of the revolution, and his still more famous son, General Robert E. Lee; and a veritable host of men and women prominent in, national life.
“Symbolic dreams and prophetic visions, from time immemorial have been given credence, notably in the period covered by the Holy Scriptures. According to tradition the mother of George. Washington saw in a dream, when he was a child, the measure of his future greatness. Another tradition states that an aged Indian chieftain pronounced a divine inspiration when he said of George Washington: ‘There is a something bids me speak in the voice of prophecy. Listen! The Great Spirit protects that man., and guides his destinies. He will become the chief of nations and a people yet unborn will hail him as the founder of a mighty empire!’ (From Bi-centennial Papers).”
Isaac-David-Odin-Washington. Such men under God, have produced the miracle of our American Saxon Heritage!
(Originally published under the title America’s Saxon Heritage, and republished in The Kingdom Digest.)
