123) Melchizedeks Share God’s Blessings: Isaac

At the time of the Land Grant to unnamed seed in chapter 13, Abram had no seed.

His first seed is Ishmael, whose mother was Egyptian, i.e. from the line of Cush.

^“And God said unto Abraham, As for Sarai thy wife…I will bless her, and give thee a son also of her…And Abraham said unto God, O that Ishmael might live before thee!” (Genesis 17)

Understand what Abraham is requesting when he uses the formulaic phrase “live before thee / be accepted permanently in thy presence as a ruler of your kingdom.”

Many of the old Babylonian letters…include a greetings formula in which one or two deities are invoked and the hope is expressed that they will give long life to the recipient.

Abraham is clearly following the same formula, also used towards kings in expressing good wishes for the extension of their life / genetics / ongoing rule over the kingdom through their heirs. The contrary condition helps define this blessing.

“whosoever, whether man or women, shall come unto the king into the inner court, who is not called, there is one law of his to put him to death, except such to whom the king shall hold out the golden sceptre, that he may live:” (Esther 4:11)

“When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory…Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:” (Matthew 25:31,34)

Abram is asking that his descent / dynasty also be counted from Ishmael who would therefore also be an heir of the land grant made 15 years earlier.

And God grants Abram’s request.

“And God said…as for Ishmael, I have heard thee: Behold, I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly; twelve princes shall he beget, and I will make him a great nation….(Genesis 17:18-20)

Follow the pattern.

Like Jacob’s splitting of the totality of his Melchizedekian blessing between Judah with rulership and Joseph by doubling Joseph’s share and bestowing fruitfulness in every way.
- God splits off part of the land deal to Ishmael.
Like Issac did with Esau after Jacob made off with the majority of the prosperity blessing,
- God blesses Ishmael with abundance.

“And they dwelt from Havilah unto Shur, that is before Egypt, as thou goest toward Assyria” (Genesis 25:12)

This is on the Arabian peninsula bordering from Shur in the north at the Sinai Peninsula, following the ancient river Pihon east to Havilah on the Persian Gulf, a smaller fertile crescent. See the post The Promised Land for more geographical details.

This is consistent with the Arabian territory taken over from the Ottoman Empire by the British after WWI, and allocated to Arabian tribes which supported Britain during the war into the modern states of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and the Emirates Kuwait, Oman and Yemen, with an Arabian foreigner overlord in Iraq for a time.

The phrase “as thou goest toward Assyria” is not defining geographical boundaries like the four rivers that defined the Garden of Eden. This is not a straight line arbitrarily drawn across a map without regard to geographical features. This is the travel route following necessary resources for water, food, and safety in numbers and civilization. In other words, this is the Fertile Crescent over which successive empires spread, while bypassing the desert stronghold of Havilah / Arabia.

What does that leave for Greater Israel?

The southern boundary “From the wilderness” must be interpreted from scripture are being from the Sinai peninsula.
The northern boundary “this Lebanon” mountain range is combined with the southern boundary, which must be interpreted as being traced eastward simultaneously, following the fertile crescent north of Arabia and including “all the land of the Hittites”, i.e. Syria and part of Turkey and
The eastern boundary “even unto the great river, the river Euphrates,
The western boundary “unto the great sea toward the going down of the sun, shall be your coast”, but apparently excluding the strip of land between the Mediterranean and Lebanon mountains specified in the northern border with the coastal cities of Beirut, Tyre and Sidon. (Joshua 1:4)

This configuration is consistent with historical empires.

I won’t take time in this post to dissect every concept packed into Isaiah’s prophecies, but for the purposes of this post just catch this one – the future return to Jerusalem as the original worship center for all people with faith in YHVH’s savior from all time, not just the nation of Israel.

IN THAT DAY shall there be an altar to the LORD in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a pillar [memorial] at the border thereof to the LORD. And it shall be for a sign and for a witness unto the LORD of hosts in the land of Egypt: for they shall cry unto the LORD because of the oppressors, and he shall send them a saviour [as he is famous for doing for the Hebrews]…And the LORD shall be known to Egypt, and the Egyptians shall know the LORD in that day, and shall do sacrifice and oblation; yea, they shall vow a vow unto the LORD, and perform it…

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 [in context – the LORD] 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 [in effect, all the nations of the world]

Egypt my people
- representative leader of all the descendants of Ham
Assyria the work of my hands
- representative leader of the descendants of Japheth as Assyria was “worked over” from the original establishment under Asshur. “God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem” (Genesis 9:27)
- “the neo-Assyrian Empire of c 700 BC is the first of a line of [Aryan, Indo-European, Caucasian] Empires: Assyria to Babylon-Media to Persia to Macedonian to Greek Diodechi to Roman to Byzantine and Parthian and Sassanid.”
- Assyrian rulers converted from paganism to Judaism in the 1st century, and the Assyrians converted from paganism to Christianity between the early first and third centuries…with Osroene becoming the first independent Christian state in history.
- the Christians of the Middle East preserve a direct link with the ancient pre-Arab Middle East in their liturgy. In the Fertile Crescent this would be a variant of Syriac, but in Egypt it would be Coptic, the language which descends from ancient Egyptian.
- People living in Iran and eastern Turkey who identify as descendants of ancient Assyrians sent their DNA for analysis. Preliminary findings suggest their ancestors may have once mixed with local Jewish populations.
Israel mine inheritance.”
- representative leader of all the descendants of Shem (Isaiah 19:18-25)

“IN THAT DAY shall this song be sung in the land of Judah; We have a strong city; salvation will God appoint for walls and bulwarks. Open ye the gates, that the righteous nation which keepeth the truth [Shem’s multi-ethnic Hebrew nation] may enter in…

IN THAT DAY…the great trumpet shall be blown, and they shall come which were ready to perish in the land of Assyria, and the outcasts in the land of Egypt, and shall worship the LORD in the holy mount at Jerusalem.” (Isaiah 26-27)

Simplifying politics by setting modern day Israel on a pedestal – regardless of its utter lack of adherence to God’s Covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob – and blackballing the Palestinians, Arabs, Egyptians, Assyrians, etc., does not fit with the biblical record, nor a Christianity supposedly based on “For God so loved the world…”