When Abram was sent to the land “of Canaan” to support Melchizedek Shem at his beleaguered fortress of [Jeru]Salem it was like being sent into Mogadishu. The land surrounding Shem’s beleaguered was held by hosts of monster terrorist nations. See relevant posts for details.
“And the LORD said unto Abram…Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward: For all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever…from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates…
The Kenites, and the Kenizzites, and the Kadmonites, And the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Rephaims, And the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.
And I will establish [NOT MAKE] my [existing] covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God / Life-Giver unto thee, and to thy seed after thee…Thou shalt keep my covenant therefore, thou, and thy seed after thee in their generations.” (Genesis 13:14-15,15:18-21, 17:7-9)
This is not a new covenant of land ownership, but the continuation of the existing covenant of having dominion over the whole earth, over sin and death explicitly stated in the list of Satanically controlled nations, to everlasting life through redemption by the Seed of the Woman! This is explicitly stated by YHVH’s Savior to the Jews at Jerusalem.
“Ye are the children of the…covenant which God made with our fathers, saying unto Abraham, And in thy seed shall all the kindreds of the earth be blessed…God, having raised up his Son Jesus, sent him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from his iniquities.” (Acts 3:24-26)
Understand that when Abram is told he will be made the father of a great nation, he is being assigned the dangerous task of carrying forward another generation of the promised Seed of the Woman to deliver from the Seed of the Serpent, who at this time is Nimrod.
“For every battle of the warrior is with confused noise, and garments rolled in blood; but this shall be with burning and fuel of fire. For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end…to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.” (Isaiah 9:5-7)
The Melchizedekian battle plan is not just, or even primarily, to save mortal life but to rescue the perishing from eternal damnation.
So why are the boundaries of land defined, if not part of a covenant? This was the time in history of the breakup of one single people into nations with Babylon as the alternate gateway to heaven from Jeru-Salem under the dominion of the Hebrew nation.
What a handicap! One nation under God against all the other nations in the world! One small piece of land from which to take dominion over the whole earth!
Abram’s rescue of the cities of the plain from the four kings provides one example of Abram living up to his responsibility to bless all nations, even enemies, by preserving, protecting and defending, and leads us into the concept of the need for a geographical base of operations to do so.
The western boundary of the the Promised Land grant, as “the river of Egypt” is unquestionably the Nile, right?
The Bible is not a Chinese menu to pick whatever you want off it. It is more like a Chinese puzzle. Put the pieces together following a timeline. In Genesis 15 Abram was at most 85 years old when God established the western and boundaries of the Promised Land as “the river of Egypt”. What was that river at that time?
When we back up to Genesis 13:10 we find that “all the plain of Jordan was…even as the garden of the LORD / Garden of Eden...before the LORD destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.” The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah didn’t happen until Genesis chapter 18-19, about 15 years later when Abraham was 99 years old. That event catastrophically changing the geography of the Promised Land.
So prior to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, the geography was as described in Genesis 2:8-14.
“And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden [which was therefore a much bigger area than just the garden and which we can conclude is now under the Mediterranean Sea]. And a river went out of Eden to water the garden and from thence [once out of the garden in eastern Eden] it was parted, and became into four head[water]s:
- The name of the first is Pison: that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; And the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone.
- And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia.
- And the name of the third river is Hiddekel: that is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria.
- And the fourth river is Euphrates.” (Genesis 2:8-14)
The Pison River has no collateral information in the concordance, so no help there. Apparently it disappeared from biblical history early on. We can turn to the second clue provided – the ancient national founder Havilah, grandson of Ham, son of Cush, nephew to Mizraim, the ancient namesake founder of Egypt.
“the sons of Ishmael…by their towns, and by their castles; twelve princes according to their nations…dwelt from Havilah unto Shur, that is before Egypt, as thou goest toward Assyria [ i.e. facing east]:” (Genesis 25:16-18)
This can only be the Arabian peninsula. And this is confirmed by Arabs who identify themselves as descendants of Ishmael.
Hah! you scoff! There aren’t any rivers in the Arabian desert!
Not today, but…
Dr. Farouq El-Baz, NASA scientist and Professor at Boston University piqued the interest of Biblical scholars around the world with his announcement of the so-called Kuwait River. The idea that a river once flowed across the deserts of Arabia, and somehow connected with the Tigris and/or Euphrates River, seemed far-fetched. Yet evidence for such a river came from the satellite radar images taken during the 1994 mission of the Space Shuttle Endeavor. Al-Baz studied the images, and noticed that traces of a defunct river that crossed northern Arabia from west to east were visible beneath the sands, thanks to the ground-penetrating capabilities of the radar technologies. He called it the Kuwait River (believed to have ran through Wadi Al-Batin valley in Northeastern Saudi Arabia, in ancient times) for that is where it apparently connected with the Euphrates or emptied into the Persian Gulf…
Water last flowed in what El-Baz calls the ‘Kuwait River’ between 5,000 and 11,000 years ago; some stretches of the river may have been up to 5 kilometres wide. Then as the region became one of the driest in the world, blowing sands covered the channel.
“And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia / Cush, father of Havilah, brother to Mizraim early Egypt.”
There is indeed an important watercourse by the name of Gihon emerging from the ground at Jerusalem itself, but it is not big enough to flow through the land of Israel, let alone “compass” an entire country. Where is this ‘land of Cush through which the Gihon river is said to flow?
The shocking answer here is made plain in the King James Version of the Bible, according to which the Gihon winds through the ‘land of Ethiopia’ – that is, the land of the Nile tributaries! This is a rather blatant clue…But the ‘land of Cush’ more accurately refers to the ancient kingdom of Cush (or Kush) that existed in Nubia as early as 2000 BC [early post-flood resettlement of the area.]
“But the Nile runs in the opposite direction!” you protest.
So did the Amazon at one time.
Tectonic movement helped redirect the water movement in South America in different ways and eventually reversed the flow of many of the rivers in an easterly direction towards the Atlantic as opposed to the Pacific or Caribbean. Erosion also was a major contributing factor to the course of the Amazon River flowing backwards.
A giant rift is slowly tearing Africa, the second-largest continent, apart. The East African Rift is a network of valleys that stretches about 2,175 miles (3,500 kilometers) long, from the Red Sea to Mozambique,
The region’s tectonic plates, the outer parts of the planet’s surface, are pulling apart, creating vast basins.
From here on it’s straightforward.
“And the name of the third river is Hiddekel / Tigris: that is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria.”
“And the fourth river is Euphrates.”
There was indeed a widespread belief in ancient times that the Nile and the Euphrates ‘were but different portions of the same stream’[Star Names, Richard Allen, p 216]
As detailed in post Divide And Scatter, Sodom and Gomorrah were only two of many territories destroyed in the earth-shattering division of Pangea centered at the middle of the earth. The four rivers flowing from Jerusalem providing abundant resources for a civilization topping anything the Sumerians, Egyptians, Indians or Chinese developed on their single river systems were choked off when
- the floor of the Jordan River valley dropped to the deepest level on earth leading to
- a reversal of the northern flow of the Jordan River – like the Nile – to a south-directed flow resulting in
- the creation of the Dead Sea
- and immersing the Gihon River into the Red Sea.
When God dictated the Promised Land Grant to Abram, then, the river boundary of Egypt was the Gihon, not the Nile, now the Red Sea.
Furthermore, this land was granted, not to Israel, but to Abraham’s children of faith. As detailed in the post “Melchizedeks Share God’s Blessings”, Abraham’s son Ishmael was granted the Arabian peninsula before Jacob became Israel with the remainder of the Hebrew land grant.
Where does that leave Greater Israel? As detailed some years later when the Israelite nation’s boundaries were defined:
- “From the wilderness” – the southern boundary follows the curved northern border of “the wilderness” of “Arabia”, which was given to Ishmael, Abraham’s other son, as described above.
- “and this Lebanon” meaning mountains, currently incorporated into the eponymous political entity of our day…all the land of the Hittites as the northern border, modern Turkey,
- “even unto the great river, the river Euphrates” essentially the border of modern Iraq is the eastern boundary
- “and unto the great sea toward the going down of the sun” the Mediterranean coast is the natural western boundary, “shall be your coast / bounds” (Joshua 1:4)
And just under thirty years, after becoming king over all the tribes of Israel, David succeeded in transforming a small kingdom in the central highlands of Judaea into a major empire stretching from the border of Egypt to the lowlands of Mesopotamia. In other words, he brought into being the totality of the Melchizedekian father / leader of many nations promised to Abraham, centered between the anchors Egypt to the south and Assyria to the East.
- He started with capturing Jerusalem from the Canaanite Jebusites and establishing the capital of Isra-el / Prince of God where God chose to put his name forever, henceforth called the City of David. Do you see the unification between YHVH and King David? This is essential for unification of territories creating the empire promised to Abraham’s Chosen Seed.
- Secured the northern border of Greater Israel at the Lebanon Mountains when he made an alliance – covenanting under YHVH only – with the coastal Phoenician king Hiram of Tyre.
- Completely subjugated the Philistines with their coastal plain cities of Gaza, Gath, Ashkelon, Ashdod and Ekron
- Subjugated the Syrians and placed garrisons to maintain the peace
- Secured the eastern border of his territory at the Euphrates.
- Accepted homage and tribute from Hamath in Hittite territory, had Hittites in both military and commercial branches of government. Later trade with the Hittites in horses / i.e. weapons is a clear indication of a positive relationship more in keeping with an alliance like that with Tyre and Egypt rather than military subjugation with enforced tribute.
- Subjugated the border raiders including Moab, Ammonites, Amalekites, Edomites (from II Samuel 8)
Neither Assyria nor Egypt was an enemy nor a tribute territory to Israel. Why would they be? King David’s enforcement of security, like Roman roads, brought trade and prosperity to the entire region.
Solomon followed through and expanded on this system without expanding his territory.
“And Solomon gathered chariots and horsemen: and he had a thousand and four hundred chariots, and twelve thousand horsemen, which he placed in the chariot cities, and with the king at Jerusalem [stockpiling the most destructive weapons of of the day]
And the king made silver and gold at Jerusalem as plenteous as stones, and cedar trees made he as the sycomore trees that are in the vale for abundance [through trade]
And Solomon had horses brought out of Egypt, and linen yarn: the king’s merchants received the linen yarn at a price. And they fetched up, and brought forth out of Egypt a chariot for six hundred shekels of silver, and an horse for an hundred and fifty: and so brought they out horses for all the kings of the Hittites, and for the kings of Syria, by their means.” (II Chronicles 1)
Note – we cannot link biblical accounts of godly warfare to the current Israeli nation’s treatment of Palestinians and other nations either to support its ungodly actions or to reject the Bible as nothing but propaganda for a racist imperial people.
The Hebrews and the Canaanites of the 2nd millenium B.C. are not the Israelis and the Palestinians of the 2nd millenium A.D. and adherence to God’s covenant, not religion or geneology, is what qualifies anyone to be the seed of Abraham by God’s criteria, for HIS purposes.
“Ye are my witnesses, saith the LORD, and my servant whom I have chosen:
that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I am he: - before me there was no God formed [Creator and life-giver in all its dimensions], neither shall there be after me [Antichrist false life-giver].
- I, even I, am the LORD / YHVH;. and beside me there is no savior.
- I have declared, and have saved, and I have shewed, WHEN THERE WAS NO STRANGE GOD AMONG YOU [who could claim credit] THEREFORE YE ARE MY WITNESSES, saith the LORD, THAT I [ALONE] AM GOD.
- Yea, before the day was I am he / Creator; and there is none that can deliver out of my hand: I will work, and who shall let / prevent it?
- Thus saith the LORD, your redeemer, the Holy One of Israel. I am the Lord, your Holy One, the creator of Israel, your King.
This people have I formed for myself;
THEY SHALL SHEW FORTH MY PRAISE!
Praise for what? Salvation from sin and death! Certainly not bragging that “Na na nana na! God gave US this land!”
Yet now hear, O Jacob my servant; and Israel, whom I have chosen: Thus saith the LORD that made thee, and formed thee from the womb, which will help thee; Fear not, O Jacob, my servant; and thou, Jesurun, whom I have chosen.
For I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground: I will pour my spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thine offspring: And they shall spring up as among the grass, as willows by the water courses.
- One shall say, I am the LORD‘s; [Hebrews from many nationalities]
- and another shall call himself by the name of Jacob; [Old Covenant Israelites]
- and another shall subscribe with his hand unto the LORD, and surname himself by the name of Israel. [Gentiles accepted into the Commonwealth of Israel] (Isaiah 43-44)
Kingdom Come 