ISRAEL – A MARITIME PEOPLE!
THE first mention of any maritime involvement is to be found in the last words of Jacob, “leaning upon the top of his staff”, when he blessed the tribes of his twelve sons. That was about 1689 BC (Usher’s chronology). He said:
“Zebulun shall dwell at the haven of the sea; and he shall be for a haven of ships” (Genesis 49:13).
Jacob also added these significant words: “and his border shall be unto Sidon “.
When Zebulun, spoke his last words to his family before he died (that was about 1633 BC when he was 114 years old), he said:
“I was the first to make a boat to sail upon the sea, for the Lord gave me understanding and wisdom therein And I sailed therein along the shores, catching fish for the house of my father until we came to Egypt. And through compassion I shared my fish with every stranger.” (The Testament of Zebulun 2:6,8,9.).
(“The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs” is a document of Old Testament times, which claims to be the last words spoken by the sons of Jacob to their children. Their moral teachings are of the highest order, and these Testaments contain incredibly accurate Messianic prophecies. Commentators say that the apostle Paul appears to have quoted so freely from them that he must have carried a copy around with him. The Hebrew original, however, had been lost, and the document only existed in its translations. More recently, though, the Dead Sea Scrolls have brought to light its existence in Hebrew).
Jacob himself, at Bethel, saw the LORD in a dream, and the LORD promised him: “the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed”. Then the LORD added:
“And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south: and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed” (Genesis 28:13-14).
Those words “spread abroad” surely imply crossing the seas and perhaps the oceans.
Isaiah used exactly the same Hebrew words, now translated “break forth”, when he spoke of Israel:
“thou shalt break forth on the right hand and on the left, and thy seed shall inherit the nations” (Isaiah 54:3).
We encounter a very early hint of the maritime future of Israel as a whole when the Holy Spirit spoke the following words of blessing by the mouth of Balaam. He said: “and his (Israel’s) seed shalt be in many waters “ (Numbers 24:7). That was about 1452 BC (Usher).
When Moses blessed the tribes of Israel, he said:
“Rejoice, Zebulun, in thy going out; and Issachar, in thy tents.” And he added: “they shall suck of the abundance of the seas, and of the treasures hid in the sand” (Deut. 33:18-19).
Does the phrase “treasures hid in the sand” not perhaps refer to minerals and gem stones?
In the victory song of Deborah and Barak, after they defeated Sisera, a complaint was made against Dan and Asher because they did not assist their brethren:
“why did Dan remain in ships? Asher continued on the sea shore, and abode in his breaches” (Judges 5:17).
That was about 1296 BC. Dan had inherited the land around Joppa, and was already a great seafaring tribe visiting all the Mediterranean coasts. Later, about 1406 BC, Dan acquired further territory, inland from Tyre, and most probably used that city as a port.
That word “breaches” means havens of the sea, as it is translated in some other Bibles. That is where Asher remained instead of helping the other tribes. Asher’s territory lay all along the sea coast, from Mt. Carmel northward to include Tyre and Sidon, so much so that my concordance describes Sidon as “a city in Asher”. When Moses blessed Asher, he said:
“let Asher be blessed with children; let him be acceptable unto his brethren, and let him dip his foot in oil. Thy shoes shall be iron and bronze; and as thy days, so shall thy strength be” (Deuteronomy 33:24-25).
When Jacob blessed Asher he said:
“Out of Asher his bread shall be fat, and he shall yield royal dainties” (Genesis 49:20).
From the above it is clear that Asher’s descendants would be numerous, and that his tribe would be somewhat estranged from the rest of Israel, but that they would have access to unusual items and luxuries. Does that not perhaps point to sea trade?
Dan, the patriarch of his seafaring tribe, said to his children, at his death bed that they would be “alienated from the land of their inheritance and from the race of Israel, and from the family of their seed” (The Testament of Dan 5:27). He does, however, affirm that they would obtain mercy when they return to the Lord. This alienation from the rest of Israel is very suggestive of their moving away, in their ships, to far away places.
Naphtali was another tribe living in proximity to these seafarers, and probably also using the sea port of Tyre. Jacob blessed him saying:
“Naphtali is a hind let loose”,
and Moses blessing him said:
“O Naphtali, satisfied with favour, and full with the blessings of the LORD, possess thou the west and the south” (Deut. 33:23).
Now those words “west” and “south” have no bearing upon Naphtali’s inheritance in Palestine. That makes one wonder whether they perhaps refer to the regions to which Naphtali would be ‘let loose”? The word translated “west” is “yam”. It is the standard word for “sea”, which is by far its most frequent translation.
Tyre and Sidon feature prominently in the Bible, and so it behoves us to seek some clarity concerning the people who occupied that area. Sidon was the firstborn son of Canaan (Genesis 10:15). So, ethnically, the Sidonians were Canaanites, descendants of Ham. When Israel conquered the Promised Land, however, the Sidonians were defeated. And the LORD said to Joshua:
“all the Sidonians, them will I drive out from before the children of Israel; only divide thou it by lot unto the Israelites for an inheritance, as I have commanded thee” (Joshua 13:5-6).
So their entire territory was now to belong to Israel.
In the days of the Judges, however, remnants of the ethnic Sidonians, and other Canaanite tribes, whom Israel failed to completely drive out, were there to sorely test God’s people (Judges 3:3-4). King David, however, in his day, restored full sovereignty to Israel throughout the Promised Land.
When David was made King over all Israel, and settled in Jerusalem, Hiram, the king of Tyre “sent messengers to David, and Cedar trees, and carpenters, and masons; and they built David an house” (2 Samuel 5:11). That was about 1048 BC (Usher).
Then King Solomon undertook to build “an house unto the name of the LORD (YHWH)”, and he called upon the help of Hiram, the king of Tyre. Hiram responded enthusiastically, for he “was ever a lover of David”, and he said:
“Blessed be the LORD (YHWH) this day, who hath given unto David a wise son over this great people ” (I.Kings 5:1-7).
Solomon had said to Hiram:
“there is not among us any that has skill to hew timber like unto the Sidonians”.
Sidon is adjacent to Mt.Lebanon where the Cedar trees grew, and we note that the timber was transported by sea. The term Sidonians need not have had any ethnic connotation. It could have simply meant the people of that region, like those around Galilee are called Galileans.
There was another Hiram in Tyre. He was of the tribe of Naphtali, and he was an altogether outstanding artisan. Solomon sent for him. And he was responsible for all the brilliant craftsmanship in that world famous temple. See I.Kings 7:13-51.
Now we come to the subject of ships and the open sea. In I.Kings 9:26-28 we read:
“And King Solomon made a navy of ships in Ezion-geber, which is beside Eloth,on the shore of the Red Sea, in the land of Edom. And Hiram sent in the navy his servants, shipmen who had knowledge of the sea, with the servants of Solomon. And they came to Ophir, and fetched from there gold, four hundred and twenty talents, and brought it to King Solomon.”
In I.Kings 10:11 we read:
“And the navy also of Hiram, that brought gold from Ophir, brought in from Ophir a great plenty of almug trees, and precious stones.”
Then in verse 22 we read:
“For the king had at sea a navy of Tarshish with the navy of Hiram; once in three years came the navy of Tarshish, bringing gold, and silver; ivory, and apes, and peacocks.”
Who were these seamen that were in partnership with Solomon, providing him with all their maritime skills? Their king was Hiram, and he was called the king of Tyre . It appears that Sidon also was under him. But who were the people, ethnically? A look at the prophetic warnings against Tyre and Sidon, to be found in Isaiah 23, Jeremiah 25 and 47, and Ezekiel 26 to 28, will show that these people were very much preoccupied with sea trade, and had become greatly enriched thereby.
Secular history calls them Phoenicians. Two of the encyclopaedias I consulted call them Semitic, while another calls them Canaanite. But ethnic Canaanites were Hamitic.That source may, however, have used the term geographically, since the whole Promised Land was called Canaan. The term Phoenicians is, however, not found in the Old Testament. According to one encyclopaedia it was the Greeks who first used that term. “Phoinis”, it said, means red, and these seamen were sunburned, and red. Their ruddy appearance may give us an ethnic hint. The Bible tells us that King David was “ruddy”.
In the New Testament the terms, Phenice and Phenicia occur only four times. In Acts 11:19,15:3, 21:2 it is used for the coastal region of northern Palestine, while in Acts 27:12 it is used for a harbour on Crete. This purely geographical use of the term sheds no light on the ethnic identity of the people secular history calls the Phoenicians.
The Bible, however, clearly shows that in King Solomon’s day that region was occupied by the northernmost tribes of Israel . And we see that their King called Solomon “my brother” (1 Kings 9:13), and that he was “ever a lover of David” (1 Kings 5:1), and that he said “Blessed be YAHWEH this day, who hath given unto David a wise son over this great people” (1 Kings 5:7). Those are hardly the words of an alien. They sound more like the words of a fellow Israelite.
From secular history we know that the Phoenicians spoke, and wrote Hebrew, or a slight variant of it. We also know from their inscriptions that they recognized YAHWEH, the God of Israel. That must be strong evidence of their Israel identity.
I have read the suggestion by a few different authors that the Phoenicians were none other than seafaring Israelites. That is what prompted me to do the research
ecorded above. If the Phoenicians were another, different, great maritime people, then they would have lacked a land base in Palestine. That land base was
occupied by the seafaring tribes of Israel, namely Asher, Zebulun, Dan and Naphtali.
The maritime activities of these people are highlighted by their partnership with King Solomon.We read about the ships of Tarshish in the Gulf of Aqaba (Ezion-geber) (2 Chronicles 9:21, 1 Kings 10:22), and we read about them in Tyre (Ezekiel 27:12,25). And Tarshish was commonly understood to mean Spain. It had a port city called Tartessus, which is thought to have been one of the bases of Solomon’s fleet. If you have any doubt about King Solomon’s connections with Spain, then consider this bit of evidence. In 1840, at Saguntum, Spain, a Hebrew epitaph of great antiquity was discovered. It reads: “This is the grave of Adonirum, the servant of King Solomon, who came to collect the tribute”. Turn to the Bible, and read: “And Adonirum was over the levy” (1 Kings 5:14), and again: “and Adonirum the son of Abda was over the levy” (1 Kings 4:6). The heading above that paragraph reads: “Solomon’s eleven princes”.
The presence of ships of Tarshish in the Mediterranean, and in the Red sea, is strongly suggestive of circumnavigation of Africa. That is if there was no ancient Suez canal , as there is today. Tarshish was clearly a geographical location as we see from the words “to Tarshish”, but the term “ships of Tarshish” may suggest a certain type of ship. There are authors who hold the opinion that the term was used for ocean going vessels, and there is evidence that these ships carried up to five hundred and fifty people. They had large sails, and many oars. In Hebrew “Tarshish” means “subjection of enemies”.
Ancient navigators, including the Vikings, we read in the encyclopaedia, used cordearite, quartz like crystals, which show changing shades of colour for every different din, thus serving as compasses.
We read that those ships brought in gold and silver, and other goods. These valuable minerals came in such quantities that Scripture says that Solomon “made silver to be in Jerusalem as stones” (1 Kings 10:27). According to author Jonathan Gray it has been calculated that Solomon’s temple alone contained 86 tons of gold, and 126 tons of silver. And then there were huge amounts of gold and silver in the king’s house. In addition to that there were many other items of gold and silver in the city.Then we read that Tyre “heaped up silver like the dust, and fine gold like the mire of the streets” (Zechariah 9:3).
GOLD:
Where did these huge quantities of gold and silver come from? Looking first at the gold we see that Ophir is the place. It is mentioned eleven times in Scripture, and always in connection with gold. The name “Ophir” means “abundance” (i.e. of gold). Ezion geber, the harbour in the Gulf of Aqaba ( Red Sea) is mentioned three times in connection with fetching gold from Ophir.
Where is Ophir? One Bible commentary suggests that it was a general term forAfrica. But where in Africa were such large quantities of gold found? The region now called Zimbabwe bears significant scars of tens of thousands of ancient workings, and also has a network of ruins of stone structures. Early last century a 9 year study of the gold content of dumps of old workings led to the estimate that “around 16,000,000 ounces of gold had been removed prior to the occupation of Rhodesia” (“Great Days”, by Frank Johnson, page 142). If my arithmetic is correct that means about 448 tons. Another source gives the figure as a minimum of 650 tons.
There are several theories as to who built the ruins, and mined the gold. The building and the mining had obviously gone hand in hand. From the maze of data certain irrefutable facts stand out. When the Portuguese arrived at Sofala, on the Mozambique coast, in 1505 AD, the Arabs, who had already been in occupation of the whole area for eight centuries, told them about the ancient ruins and gold mines, and said that that is where King Solomon, and the Queen of Sheba had obtained their gold (See “Zimbabwe Cavalcade”, by B.G.Paver, page 73). The author says “this is clear from all the available Portuguese records”. That means that in 700 AD, when the Emozaid Arabs first arrived, those mines and ruins were already ancient.
Another irrefutable fact stands out. On the Zambezi river, near Tete (i.e. in Mozambique ), a statuette was found of an Egyptian Pharaoh. It was identified by its hieroglyphic inscriptions as that of Thutmose III. This identification was done by the great British expert on Egyptian archaeology, Sir Flinders Petrie (the same book, page 55). The author, simply listing the different theories, notes that that puts the gold mining long before Solomon’s time, since Queen Hatsepshut and her son Thutmose III lived at least five centuries earlier. And their temples abound with records of gold from afar. Velikovsky, however, followed by other authors, has uncovered the five century stretch of Egypt’s conventional chronology. So Velikovsky, very thoroughly, and irrefutably identified Hatshepsut as the Queen of Sheba, a contemporary of Solomon (See “Ages in Chaos” by Immanuel Velikovsky). This has profound implications, as we shall see.
Thutmose was a young prince when Sheba visited Solomon. Later, when Thutmose became Pharaoh, Jeroboam, having become suspected of rebellion, by Solomon, fled to Egypt,and dwelt with the King until Solomon’s death (1 Kings11:40). The Greek Septuagint Bible adds the detail that the Pharaoh gave Princess Ano in marriage to Jeroboam. So now the scene was set.
When Solomon died Jeroboam went back and led the rebellion.The nation of Israel was split. The ten tribes to the north under Jeroboam (called the house of Israel ), and two tribes to the south under Solomon’s son Rehoboam (called the house of Judah). Thutmose III, under the Bible name Shishak (Some Pharaohs had up to thirty names) invaded Judah, and carried away all the temple treasures (2 Chronicles 12:9). In bas-relief on the walls of the great Amon temple at Karnak, are the detailed pictures of all the items, giving their numbers, and even showing their lotus motif patterns. That list corresponds exactly with the list given in the Bible. And Pharaoh’s alliance with Jeroboam now meant that the “Phoenicians” were his allies, and their maritime magic was at his disposal. No wonder his statuette was found there, adjacent to the gold fields.
Tete is a Zambezi river settlement, not far from Sena, to which point the river was navigable to ocean going vessels. Tete also is almost at the point where the Mazoe river enters the Zambezi. Upstream, in the middle of the great, gold rich, Mazoe valley, is Mt.Darwin, in Zimbabwe. Its African (Shona) name is Fura, its Arab name is Moor, and we may ask: Is it not perhaps the Biblical Ophir (pronounced “O-fur”)? Remember the Arabs occupied that whole region for five centuries before the arrival of the Mashona. In Shona every word ends with a vowel, and almost every proper name begins with a consonant. They had no writing yet, so those who recorded the name wrote it like they pronounced it. They had no vowel “o” as in our “so”, but pronounced it as in our “or”. A favourite vowel is “u”, which they pronounce like our “oo” as in “moon”. So their rendering of the Arab “Moor” could certainly have been “Fura”. As an example, they pronounce England as “Ngirandi” (they have no “I”). Consider now that this Moor stands right in the heart of the richest part of the ancient gold fields which gave the Old World such enormous quantities of this precious metal. And remember that Alexander the Great (and others searched for Ophir, but nobody ever found it. So, clearly, its location was not obvious to the world.
SILVER:
Now we must consider the silver. For that we have to brace ourselves first, because the incredible maritime expertise of the old “Phoenicians” has only recently started dawning upon the world. Gold, from Ophir, was relatively easy since the trade winds put the east coast of Africa almost at their doorstep. But silver was another matter. The only place they could obtain silver in such vast quantities was in the Americas. So to America they went.
Those Bible words we read “once in three years came the navy of Tarshish, bringing gold, and silver, ivory, and apes and peacocks”, tell us that the shipping schedule was regular, the ships travelled together, and the distance was such that they must have crossed oceans.
The oceans they crossed were the Indian, and the Pacific, to bring them to the west coast of America, to the regions of Mexico and Peru . That is where silver was to be found in abundance. And those areas are steeped in very ancient history. On the way there they passed many coastlands, and called at many places. The peacocks (if that is the correct translation of the original Hebrew word), would have been found in Java and Sumatra, the gold, and ivory, and apes, in Africa, and maybe some of them elsewhere
EVIDENCE abounds. See the list below of just a few of the many marks along the way: These have been gleaned from the book: “Ark of the COVENANT” by Jonathan Gray.
Australia:
1: On the north-west coast of Australia, in King Sound, a salvage diver found the wreck of an ancient Phoenician ship. Identity was confirmed by a bronze plate found.
2: Phoenician-style engravings were found on a marble slab in North Queensland.
3: In New South Wales, along the Hawkesbury River, many strange carvings on the rocks, included Phoenician symbols.
4: Ancient Aboriginal legends tell how people in large ships sailed into Gympie (now 34 miles inland), dug holes in the hills, and erected the “sacred mountain” nearby. Evidence of ancient mining and smelting, and traces of a stone quay were recently found there.
5: Near Towoomba, a group of 17 granite stones bearing ancient Phoenician inscriptions. One translated “guard the shrine of Yahweh’s message”, and another “God of gods”.
6: A large ironstone slab ploughed up in Rockhampton area, now in Rex Gilroy museum, near Tamworth, has Phoenician inscription: “Ships sail from this land under the protection of Yahweh to Dan”.
The Pacific:
1: Many Island names have got Mediterranean echoes e.g. Samoa, Upola, Apia, Tahiti, Papeete and Morea.
2: Enormous stone remains on many of the Pacific Islands can be linked with local traditions. One example is Strong’s Island. There was an ancient city, occupied by a powerful people who had large vessels that made long voyages of many months.
3: It would appear that the Phoenicians made stations, for stopping places for their ships. These became like mini colonies, where they had influence upon the local inhabitants. These influences, still identifiable, have been listed by the author mentioned above.
4: The Phoenicians must have left some crossbred progeny. The Encyclopaedia Britannica states, concerning the Polynesians, that, while their facial features sometimes suggest Mongoloid affinities, their light skin, wavy hair and full beards, as well as their blood types, suggest European ties.
The Americas:
1: The Mexican Mayas were the most advanced American Indians. They had a written language, in hieroglyphic script, a solar calendar, adjusted from time to time to average 365.25 days, and they had a phenomenal knowledge of astronomy. They forecast eclipses and calculated the movements of the planets (according to Colliers Encyclopaedia). Their historian, Votan, had written a book on their history, around 1000 BC. That book existed until 1691 when it was probably destroyed as pagan literature. The Spanish Extracts from it have however survived. Votan claimed that he led many of his people from Chivim (former name of Tripoli, about 65 miles north of Sidon ). On arrival in Yucatan ( Mexico) they built the city of Nachan (probably Palenque). The country was already inhabited. He also reported the arrival of seven large ships on the Pacific coast. And he claimed to have made at least four return trips to his homeland in one of which he visited the great city wherein a magnificent temple was being erected. This information is from ”Ark of the COVENANT” by Jonathan Gray, who also mentions the unmistakable influence of Israel’s religion upon the beliefs, practices, and terminology of the Mayas, and other American Indians, even to the point of using numerous Hebrew words, and names.
My own comment is that these must have been so called Phoenicians, who came as passengers on this regular shipping service. And, over the centuries, by intermarriage, they changed their appearance, and lost much of their allegiance to the Living God, Yahweh.
2: When the Spaniards conquered Peru they found that many of the ruling class of the Indians were of a lighter complexion, and had reddish tints in their hair. The mummified corpses of chiefs from the oldest layers of graves bear hair that is auburn or blond, wavy and fine. Inca legends spoke of the arrival of white bearded men who took over the rule, built enormous stone cities, and then, after a war, left, sailing westwards.
3: From the Atlantic the “Phoenicians” appear to have also visited the east coast of America.. . One Brazilian tribe preserved a written record of ships from “Samson’s Empire”, docking in the mouth of the Amazon, to trade their valuable goods for gold and silver.The harbour was called “Ofir”, and a long stretch of the Amazon is still called “Rio Solimoes” (See Atlas). This information is from Jonathan Gray’s book “Ark of the COVENANT”. The name Ofir may have been given by the Phoenicians as an echo of the real Ophir. I could find no record of significant amounts of gold or silver in this region, but being tradable currency these may have come from elsewhere. The name “Samson” may have been a corruption of “Solomon”, or it may have referred to the real Samson, the great hero of the tribe of Dan, who, no doubt were leaders in maritime exploits.
Further south near Rio de Janiro is a large rock face bearing a Phoenician inscription, identifying the writer as “Badezir of the Phoenician Tyre. The first son of Jethbaal.” Besides this, in different parts of Brazil, very many rock inscriptions bearing letters of the Phoenician alphabet have been found a century ago. In a now rare Portuguese book by Bernardo da Silva Ramos, 1500 reproductions of those inscriptions can be found.
In the Caribbean, on the island Hispaniola, Columbus discovered immense ancient mines, with traces in Haiti of furnaces where it was thought gold was refined. Much further north, in Bristol, Rhode Island, a rock inscription was found, which Fell deciphered in 1975 to read:
“Voyagers from Tarshish this stone proclaims”.
All this information is from that book by Jonathan Gray.
TIN:
Bronze is an alloy of tin and copper. It was used much in King Solomon’s temple, and elsewhere. Nearly all the tin of the Old World came from Cornwall in the south west of England. Several prominent writers of Old Testament times confirm this. And their name for Britain was “Cassiterides”, meaning Tin Islands. In a book called “Britannia”, by William Camden, written about four centuries ago, is this statement:
“The merchants of Asher worked the tin mines of Cornwall, not as slaves, but as masters and exporters”.
It is worth noting that this activity was considered to be “Phoenician” since identifiable “Phoenician” artefacts have been found there. Obviously those “Phoenicians” were of the tribe of Asher. It is of great interest that, centuries later, Joseph of Arimathea also was in the tin trade with his shipping line.
LEAD:
It is worth mentioning that lead found in the drain pipes in the area of the temple was isotope tested, and found to have come from the Mendip Hills in Somerset, Britain
SUMMARY:
These are just a few facts which point to the incredible maritime expertise of the so called Phoenicians. They established colonies all along the Mediterranean coast, of which Carthage was one of the more prominent. They also colonised the Atlantic coasts of Europe and Africa. So they moved many people from one place to another. An ancient historical work records the voyage of a convoy of as many as 60 ships, each carrying 550 people.
Tyre has been described as the London of the ancient world. L.A.Waddell (citing Sir Flinders Petrie) asserts that the Phoenicians “had a civilization equal or superior to that of Egypt, in taste and skill.., luxury far beyond that of the Egyptians and technical work that could teach them rather than be taught”.
“From the thirteenth century BC she was the dominant naval and commercial power. Her mercantile operations were enormous. This great naval power had the trade of the planet in her hands. She was a great distributing nation, her people were the carriers of the world” (“Ark of the COVENANT” by Jonathan Gray).
Dr. Barry Fell, a Harvard Professor, recognized as one of the world’s foremost epigraphers, states that:
“Because of the depth of ignorance into which Europe fell during the Dark Ages, at times we are apt to forget how advanced were the ideas of the ancients, and how much they knew about the earth and about astronomy and navigation”.
He believes that
“America shares a history with the Old World, and ancient Americans must have been well acquainted with much of that history as it took place”.
Turning back to the Bible connection, we see Dan mentioned on that ironstone slab in New South Wales, and we see Asher mentioned as monopolizing the tin mining in Cornwall . These were the two tribes admonished by Deborah, centuries earlier, for failing to help their brethren because they were preoccupied with their maritime activities.
The very first city the Danites captured after they settled in Palestine, they renamed “Dan”. They also left their mark, by that name, throughout the Mediterranean. Many rivers have the letters dn in their names. The Don and the Danube are the most obvious. The “Tuatha de Danaan” (literally the tribe of Dan) were a major part of the history of Greece. Much of Greek mythology is a corruption of Bible truth Their strong man hero, Heracles, has some parallel to the strongman hero, Samson, of the tribe of Dan. A century or so before the Christian era Arius, the king of Sparta, on two occasions, exchanged gifts and good wishes with Onus, the high priest of Judah, because they had discovered that they were of the same stock (fellow Israelites) (See Josephus, and the book of Maccabees). Dan also left their mark beyond the Mediterranean. Denmark ( Land of Dan) is but one of many.
The author, Jonathan Gray, who sees the Phoenicians as a separate race, in partnership with Israel, says that they, like Israel, were monotheistic, and worshipped YAHWEH, but also, like Israel, later fell into idolatry. If we take this with the fact that they were Semitic, wrote and spoke a Hebrew tongue; which was later called Phoenician, we have strong support for the notion that they were none other than the sea faring tribes of Israel. The fact that their supposed land base was occupied by those sea-faring tribes, who used the same sea ports, clinches the matter.
The cities of Tyre and Sidon would have led the way to idolatry with their close association with the outside world. This led to the strong condemnation and grave pronouncements of the prophets. In Ezekiel chapters 26 to 28 we read in full detail the indictment against them. There we also see their incredible wealth, the vast range of their trade, and all the different nationalities with whom they did business. But, we may ask, what happened to them at the time of Israel ‘s captivities? In Isaiah chapter 23 the prophet pictured the fate of Tyre and Sidon under the Assyrian captivity (around 721 BC). Focus was on the “ships of Tarshish” that “pass over the sea” and whose “revenue” was “by great waters”, but now they no longer had a “house” or an “entering”. Their base was taken by the Assyrians.While “sea” is sea, do those words “great waters” not perhaps suggest oceans?
One would expect that, in the face of the oncoming invasion, many of the people would have escaped by sea while the rest were carried away captive. Isaiah hints at this by the words: “pass over to Tarshish” (Spain), and “pass over to Kittim” ( Cyprus). Isaiah, however, predicted a return after 70 years. When the Assyrian Empire started weakening the ships must have started returning for a short lived recovery.
Ezekiel, a century later, at the time of the Babylonian captivity must have been referring to the final collapse of those two cities. He obviously included the original case God had against them, in his indictment.
CONCLUSION:
Concerning the great achievements of those times, there are a few questions we need to ask ourselves. Do we, as main stream Christians, not perhaps tend to underrate, down play, or de-emphasize important words of the Bible? When the Bible says:
“King Solomon exceeded all the Kings of the earth in riches, and for wisdom. And all the earth consulted Solomon, to hear his wisdom, which God put in his heart” (1 Kings 10:23- 24),
do we not sometimes take “all the earth” to mean just the neighbouring countries? If Solomon was the greatest, could he have been in partnership with another people, greater than himself? Or were those other people not perhaps just another branch of his, very own, great nation? When God promised that Israel would, “spread abroad” over all the earth, would be as numerous “as the stars of heaven” and “as the sand which is upon the sea shore”, and that they would be “a multitude of nations”, did He not mean what He said? When the Holy Spirit spoke, concerning the advent of the Messiah:
“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for he hath visited and redeemed his people” (Luke 1:68),
do we still see them as a small, unredeemed, single nation, disregarding the repeated mention of “great multitudes”, who followed Christ? I pray that this little study will help to open our eyes to the greatness of God’s programme, and that we will realize that the bulk of God’s Israel is to be found today, in the many “Christian” nations of the world. And that there is currently a “veil that is spread over all nations” and a “covering cast over all people” (Isaiah 25:7), which God said He would destroy. Such realization will also help us to understand the prophets.
Amen.
