“Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get…unto a land that I will shew thee [the land of Canaan]: And I will make of thee a great nation, and…in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.” (Genesis 12:1-5)
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 the continuation of the existing covenant of having dominion over the whole earth through redemption from sin and death by the Seed of the Woman, explicitly stated about YHVH’s Savior to the Jews at Jerusalem by the apostle Peter.
“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)
But taking dominion involves so much more than personally talking the talk and walking the walk thinking we’re “shining a light”. It requires confronting iniquity face to face in whatever domain of life we make choices to stand up for what is right instead of allowing evil to flourish. That often means our homes become battlefields, we lose jobs because we won’t go along with illegal, immoral, or harmful practices.
When Abram was sent to the land “of Canaan” to replace Melchizedek Shem at his beleaguered fortress of [Jeru]Salem it was like being sent into Mogadishu.
“the word of the LORD came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield [during battle], and thy exceeding great reward [upon guaranteed victory]…this land to inherit it…
In the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates [once you take dominion over]: 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.” (Genesis 15:1,18-21)
Abram and his seed are being assigned the dangerous task of protecting generations of the promised Seed of the Woman from the Seed of the Serpent, who at this time is Nimrod, engaged in procreating nations of hybrid giants.
“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…The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.” (Isaiah 9:5-7}
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, clearly delineated above as “from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates.”
There is a problem with this map of “The Promised Land”.
It is using today’s geography rather than the geography at the time the land grant was made, before a geological cataclysm changed the topography.
Back up to Genesis 13:10 which reports that “And Lot lifted up his eyes, and beheld all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered every where, before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, even as the garden of the LORD.”
So we need to understand the geology of the garden of the LORD 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 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 location where the River of the Garden of Eden exits the garden and splits into four separate rivers is geologically and eschatologically Jerusalem. These four rivers flowing through the last “east of Eden” provided abundant resources for a civilization topping anything the Sumerians, Egyptians, Indians or Chinese developed on their single river systems.
- 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 disappeared from biblical history. We can, however, follow the clue provided of Havilah, who left his name on adjacent territory to his uncle Mizraim / Egypt.
“the sons of Ishmael…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, descendants of Ishmael.
While there aren’t any rivers in the Arabian desert at this time, Dr. Farouq El-Baz, NASA scientist and Professor at Boston University announced evidence for such a river from the satellite radar images taken during the 1994 mission of the Space Shuttle Endeavor crossing northern Arabia from west to east where it apparently connected with the Euphrates or emptied into the Persian Gulf. Some stretches of the river may have been up to 5 kilometres / 3 miles wide, comparable to the Mississippi River through much of its long length. 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 currently big enough to flow through the land of Israel, let alone “compass” the ‘land of Ethiopia’ / AKA Nubia. This is the land of the Nile tributaries that compass and feed into the Nile itself, but which flows north, the opposite direction from the Gihon at Jerusalem.
As did the Amazon at one time. Tectonic movement related to the breakup of Pangea helped redirect the water movement in South America reversed the flow of many of the rivers in an easterly direction towards the Atlantic, reversed from their original flow to the Pacific or Caribbean.
The reversed flow of the Nile River is attributed to the East African Rift which is slowly tearing Africa apart from the Red Sea to Mozambique, in a network of valleys that stretchs about 2,175 miles.
“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.”
We can’t find them in the same geological framework now because they were choked off when the tectonic forces from Noah’s flood’s “great deep broken up“, and aftershocks so great they caused the breakup of Pangea, resulted in orogenies – mountains building – geographically diverting the rivers.
- the loss of Pison’s headwaters and complete drying up through the Arabian Peninsula,
- the shortening of the Gihon by collapsing into the newly created Red Sea basin, and the reversal of the remaining Gihon River flow from ending in branches in Ethiopia to originating in the south and flowing northward to the Mediterranean as the Nile River,
- diverting the original “fountain of the great deep” of the Euphrates and
- Tigris Rivers from Jerusalem to their locations north, still close together, in Asia Minor / modern Turkey.
Where does that leave Greater Israel?
First of all, that’s not a biblical definition.
Most of all, 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. We can expect to find other Abrahamic nations of faith included in the rest of Canaan’s land grant to Abraham and his seed.
Note that the Israelite nation’s boundaries were defined as “Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon” (Joshua 1:3-5) That’s future tense, leaving out the Sinai Peninsula through which they had wandered for forty years in time out before being allowed to enter the Promised Land.
Sinai belongs to Egypt, which is also one of the LORD’s blessed nations.
“In that day shall there be an altar to the LORD in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a pillar at the border thereof to the LORD…for they shall cry unto the LORD because of the oppressors, and he shall send them a saviour, and a great one, and he shall deliver them…and the Egyptians shall know the LORD in that day…they shall return even to the LORD.” (Isaiah 19:19-22)
“all that were numbered of you…which have murmured against me…shall not come into the land…your carcases, they shall fall in this wilderness.” (Numbers 14:29-32)
“And these are the countries which the children of Israel inherited in the land of Canaan.” (Joshua 14:1)
- Southern boundary: “From the wilderness” the Sinai desert as well as “Arabia”, which was given to Ishmael, Abraham’s other son, as described above.
- Northern boundary: “and [understood as repeating “from” this [closest, as opposed to “that] Lebanon [mountain, currently the eponymous political entity of our day…all the land of the Hittites/ modern Turkey [as the northern border, NOT a possession.]
- Western 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”
- Eastern boundary “even unto the great river, i.e. Euphrates at some point, not the entire river. (Joshua 1:3-4)
Also we must note the prophecy, as with Egypt, that “In that day shall there be a highway out of Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrian shall come into Egypt, and the Egyptian into Assyria, and the Egyptians shall serve with the Assyrians. In that day shall Israel be the third with Egypt and with Assyria, even a blessing in the midst of the land: Whom the Lord of hosts shall bless, saying, Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel mine inheritance.” (Isaiah 19:23-25)
This came to pass just under thirty years, after becoming king over all Israel David succeeded in transforming a small kingdom in the central highlands of Judaea into a major kingdom 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 brought trade and prosperity to the entire region.
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.
This people have I formed for myself;
THEY SHALL SHEW FORTH MY PRAISE!
Praise for what? Salvation from sin and death! Certainly not committing genocide of helpless women and children in order to profit from valuable coastal real estate.
Kingdom Come 