Part of the difficulties in understanding prophecy is the deliberate rewriting and repressing of history, and of historical events and situations that actually matter.  When you consider the premise that:  “That which is has been already and that which will be has already been, for God seeks what has passed by.” [Eccl. 3:15 NASU] … it behooves us to understand that which has already been.  We run into difficulties when it has been obscured, either deliberately or purposefully.

Have you heard of the ancient land of Parthia?  What about Tartary?  What about Khazaria?  If you have, I can almost guarantee you didn’t learn of any of them in educational text books from a government funded education.  And you probably didn’t hear about them from any state run media or oligarch owned and controlled media.

Misnomers and schmoozed over details

I know the genealogy and lineage portions of Scripture can be tedious.  They’re not really “reading” material, but they are study material.  I’m grateful these portions were preserved over the years.  They provide invaluable clues that all the powers of darkness can only veil, but not remove.  Here are some of my favorite lessons that help me in my eschatology pursuits…

Steven M. Collins does a four book series tracing the tribes of Israel from ancient to modern times.  It’s worth the investment in time and money.  You can buy the books here, or you can ask your local library to get them so you can borrow them.

In Chapter Four of his second book, Israel’s Lost Empires, you can learn how the Israelites scattered after the diaspora and how they can be traced to their future (our past and present) geographies. 

Remember how I told you the Hebrews didn’t have vowels so they would use vowels for pronunciation and variance?  Ancient customs used the patriarch names to keep track of lineage.  So like we use last names now, they used the patriarch names.  This is why they were referred to as the children of Abraham, the children of Israel (Jacob), etc.  Of course this practice changed over time, but if you realize the custom from the days it existed, you’ll gain valuable insight.

A quick example is this.  In Genesis 21:12, God tells Abraham that his descendants will be named through his son Isaac.  So in ancient tradition, Isaac’s name in Hebrew would be the equivalent of S-C.  The vowels were added to direct pronunciation, but the root is S-C.  After the diaspora, the children of Israel were “scattered”, which means they migrated out of the region.  (To stay in the land would bring bondage or death, so most left.)  Collins then traces migratory bodies of people with variances of the S-C.  Sacae, Scythians, Saka, Esakska (“Beth Sak” or House of Isaac), etc.  Latin substituted “x” for “c”, and called these same people Saxoi or Saxones.  And these people groups can be traced into Asia, northern Africa and parts of western Europe.

This will come into play later, so I reference it now as a place holder.

Keep the names straight! Hebrews, Israelites, Judah, Jews…

Ezra 4:1 tells us only three tribes returned to Palestine during Ezra and Nehemiah’s time:  Judah, Levi and Benjamin.  This means the other nine tribes had already migrated out of the region. 

We learned in 1 Kings 12 (and 2 Chron. 10) that the nation of Israel (comprised of twelve tribes) was divided into two nations:  Judah and Israel.  Israel was all twelve tribes from 1025-925 B.C. and then two separate nations from 925 B.C. on.   I’m going to make a big deal out of this (temporarily) because I think lack of good teaching has led to a host of errors.

The Biblical nation of Israel was comprised of twelve tribes:  the twelve tribes of Jacob, (Abraham’s grandson, who God renamed Israel).  When these tribes entered the Promised Land (Canaan), they became known as the Israelites, and were considered a nation and not just a people group, because they conquered the land with boundaries and established a government.  Recall though, that they were still being referenced as Hebrews (as well as Israelites), even in the time of David.

When King David’s grandson Rehoboam was king, the nation was split and all of the tribes except for Judah, refused to submit to his headship.  The other tribes remained Israel, and King Rehoboam became King of Judah, along with some Benjamites and some Levites (people of the tribes of Benjamin and Levi), while Jeroboam became the king of Israel.

The tribe of Levi is the priestly tribe, from which the priests of Israel are ordained, which also include a covenant.  (Numbers 25:10-13)

The tribe of Judah is the kingly tribe from which God ordained through a covenant with David there would always be a seed from Judah as a king.  (2 Samuel 7:17)

People from Judah became known as Jews, and the other tribes were Israelites, even though they are all Israelites and that is used interchangeably.  The first time you’ll see the word “Jews” is in 2 Kings 25:25, long after the nation had split, and some versions even read Judeans (from Judah).  Every other time you find the word Jews in the Old Testament, it is a reference to the people of the tribe and/or nation of Judah. 

Somewhere along the way, Jew became synonymous with the religion of the Israelites through the Mosaic Law.  But until the nation split, the Israelites were never called Jews.  Some people and in some places they have used the name Jew and Israelite interchangeably, but this is incorrect insomuch as Jew pertains to someone from the tribe of Judah.  (It’s like saying all Kansans are Americans but not all Americans are Kansans.)

It gets more complicated when you realize the faith of the Mosaic Law was named the Jewish faith, and thus some sort of mixture is involved.  This is pretty important, however, because it has led to a lot of confusion, misnomers, and just bad breakdowns of people and places and events. 

But to keep it straight, we need to remember the covenants.  The covenant with Abraham is promised to his seed.  His seed is the Israelites, which are not just the Jews (of the tribe of Judah) but all twelve tribes.  For some reason, modern Christianity has lumped the Israelites and Jews together as one, which in some ways works and in other ways is a grave disservice. 

The truth is the people of Israel were scattered and left the Promised Land (Middle East) long before the people of Judah.  Though the countries’ falls were only 136 years apart, the Israelites began scattering two or so years before their capitol Samaria fell in 722 B.C.  And though Jerusalem (Judah’s capitol) fell in 586 B.C., the people stayed in captivity in the land.  There became a clear distinction between the Israelites and Jews after that time.  The Israelites migrated and changed their names.  The Jews did not.

However, people who kept or adopted the Mosaic Law and adhered to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob became commonly known as Jews.  This is where it helps to understand:  you can be a Jew because you were born in the bloodline of Judah, or you can be a Jew because you adopted and/or practice the Jewish faith, which is structured by the Mosaic Law.  A Jew can be:

1. a national or citizen title:  Jew from Judah (like American from America, or Kansan from Kansas);
2. a Jew can be of the bloodline of Judah (like Smith or Judah),
3. and a Jew can be of a religion from the Mosaic Law now known as the Jewish faith (like Christian or Buddhist, etc.).

So when you get all of this “anti-Semitism” rhetoric, I get exhausted.  Semite comes from the line of Shem, from Noah.  That’s going to be roughly one-third of the world’s population and only a small, small fraction of that third is actually Jewish by one of the three definitions of a Jew.  Anti-Semitism is a misnomer, and misleading.  Why not just say anti-Jewish? 

I’m asking this question because it seems to me there is a deliberate (or ignorant?) muddying of the waters. 

These are some of the problems we get into when we are seeking understanding.  Misrepresenting names causes misunderstandings.

To help us keep things straight:

• Chart of the kings according to their nation, Israel or Judah
• Chart of the prophets and the kings/nations they served under
• Chronology of the falls of Israel and Judah

I’m going to make a big deal about this because one of the keys (for me) in studying prophecy is understanding who the message is to.  Poor teaching in the western church has made ignorant (and sometimes dangerous) students.  While the Bible is relevant to all people in some aspect, all of its messages are not for all people at all times.  (Please don’t write me and scold me for this.)  We can learn from its content and its messages, but that doesn’t mean they all apply to each of us all the time.

When you read the words of the prophet, it would help to ask who the prophecy is to, for, and/or about.  Just like the covenants were made to specific people, some prophecies were made for specific people, places, and/or times.  If we don’t understand 1) who the people speaking are or 2) who the people they are speaking about are, we will most likely misunderstand or misapply the prophecy.

I don’t have time or space to expound on the migrating tribes right now of the 7-5 B.C. centuries, but it’s important to note that while modern history may be ignorant of them, God always knew where they were.  If their identity has been obscured over the centuries does not make them lost to God.  For example, we know that the tribes of Reuben, Gad, Naphtali and the half-tribe of Manasseh were carried into captivity by the Assyrians at least twenty years before Israel fell to Assyria.  That makes literally tens or hundreds of thousands of people displaced off the Promised Land in less than ideal circumstances before their nation even fell.  Where did they go?  Who did they become?  This matters because they are people of the covenant.

By the time Jeremiah (a prophet to Judah) began prophesying, the Israelites would have been off the covenant land for 102 years.  Many of them would have been dead, and definitely progeny existed.  Yet God declares this through Jeremiah:

Jeremiah 3:12  [NKJV]

Go and proclaim these words toward the north, and say:  “Return, backsliding Israel,” says the Lord; “I will not cause My anger to fall on you.  For I am merciful,” says the Lord; “I will not remain angry forever.”

Over 80-100 years have passed that the tribes of Israel have been missing, yet God knows they are north of Jerusalem and He sends them a message via Jeremiah. 

Forty-eight years and four kings later, Daniel (a prophet to Judah) would pray [Dan 9:7 NKJV] emphasis mine:

O Lord, righteousness belongs to You, but to us shame of face, as it is this day — to the men of Judah, to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and all Israel, those near and those far off in all the countries to which You have driven them, because of the unfaithfulness which they have committed against You.

And he distinctly separates those of Judah from those of Israel, making mention that they are far and near in other countries.  I just point out these things for context, because not all the prophecies are for the same people at the same times. 

Though there were four prophets of Israel, only two of them had prophetic messages for Israel:  Amos and Hosea, about sixty years before the fall of Samaria.  This matters because the people of Israel that Amos and Hosea are prophesying to and about, will no longer live in the Promised Land (Middle East region). 

This may seem tedious, but it’s important to frame prophecy and understand the message.  I’m going to revert back to the different prophecies of the different prophets at varying times.  I’m just laying the groundwork now. 

In a similar vein…

When we know the audience the prophecy is about, and we know the context the prophecy was written in, we can better ascertain the calendar we need to use to deduce its codes.  For example, all of the Old Testament prophets were Israelites and/or Jews.  They spoke the Hebrew language and kept the Hebrew customs, from the feasts to the calendar.

That means the Old Testament prophets’ prophecies need to be deduced by their lunar timetables and with their language (not ours).

Yet John was a New Testament believer who gave prophecies under a solar calendar and timetable.  That means his prophecies should be deduced with a solar calendar and its math.

When we start to break down some of these prophecies, written by different prophets several years and centuries apart, the equation we use needs to be consistent.  So I’ll use a standard conversion for counting the prophetic days to put it into our modern solar time keeping, converting it from a lunar time keeping.  But for John’s prophecies in Revelation, no conversion is necessary because the timetable at John’s time was now the solar time table.

Finally, a note to my critics:

I welcome questions and dialogue and even a challenge!  I’m not nearly as interested in being right as I am the information being right.  So if I need to correct something, retract something, or explain it better, I am so happy to do this.  But if you just disagree because what I’m saying isn’t how you’ve been taught or what you think or believe, it’s a waste of both of our time to dialogue. 

I’m not here to recruit anyone to a church, a doctrine, or a belief system.  I’m not selling anything or trying to convert anyone.  I’m simply breaking down what I’ve learned about prophecy for anyone who’s looking for other ways and information.  I don’t expect anyone to just believe what I say.  My prayer is that people will do their own studies, search, seek and verify.  The Holy Spirit is the teacher.  I’m just a conduit of some information.  Take what the Spirit highlights to you and leave the rest.  Take it all, take some, or take none.  I’m just offering my gleanings for anyone who’s seeking some direction.

Also, because of this venue, I’m unable to expound on a great number of details.  Therefore I’m broaching subjects with a direction to go, but not filling in all the blanks.  My approach is more of an outline or bullet point form.  Understanding the details will come with personal study and searching.  I can also direct anyone to better resources.

Thanks and God bless!

This is a caveat article on prophecy, from a different angle.  There are things I’ve learned along the way that if I could help someone else learn in shortcut fashion, I’m happy to reveal my own journey’s lessons.

Guard against jealousy and the desire to know information for information purposes only

I met my brother for the first time in 2004.  We were adopted out separately at birth, and only “found” each other in our adult lives.  It was new for both of us.  I was mostly without family at that time (except my husband and kids), and I approached this with a great amount of caution.  Family has been rather treacherous for me.

We were raised quite differently.  He was an only child; I was the youngest of three.  He was raised in the city, I on the farm.  He was raised in poverty; I had all my needs met.  His upbringing was mostly unrestrained; mine was controlled to the nth.  His youth was wild and carefree, mine was guarded and controlled.  Yet from the first conversation, we related.  The first time we spent together, we were finishing each other’s sentences. 

It was an anomaly to me – especially considering how different we were/are.  Very, very few people have ever understood me in the entirety of my life, so few I can count them on one hand.  [To quote a friend of mine and brother in the faith, he said I was the most misunderstood person he has ever met.  This has been proven over and over and over in my life.]

But this new brother of mine either understood me or wanted to.  It seemed almost effortless at times.  Our relationship took off rather fast, as we tried to catch up as much as we could on all the years that we had lost.  There was so much to talk about, and our conversations would last for hours.  He had a couple people in his life that were jealous of that.  They didn’t understand and wanted to control it.  They thought we were too close.

Five months into our new relationship, my birthday was approaching.  My brother asked what I wanted.  I said, just time with you.  Time with him to learn about him, share, and grow was what was most precious to me.  I didn’t need a “thing”.  His presence was a gift.  He obliged, took me to a long dinner, and then we went to a worship set at a house of prayer.  The people in his life scorned it.

A month or two later, (one that was jealous of our relationship, let’s call her “Kay”), made an issue about all she wanted for her birthday was time with him.  This was a first in over a decade of familial relationship, but my brother obliged.  He knew it was jealousy and a competitive motive, but he was trying to alleviate the conflict and honor her as well.  The dinner was usual.  He remarked to me that there seemed a newfound interest in him, but the future proved it would lead nowhere.

I tell you this story for two purposes.

If one who has endeavored to seek out a relationship with their Creator and their Savior, has learned things about their Creator and Savior that others want to know, watch how the Spirit reveals the heart.

Jealousy can do one of two things.  It can spur one to reach and achieve that which they have been stirred up to want.  Or it can be destructive. 

If someone wants to know the information of the prophetic (“just tell me when” or “just tell me who” or “just tell me what” and then fill in the blank), but isn’t truly interested in knowing in an intimate way the one the prophecy is about, they will have a similar reaction as Kay.  Kay mimicked my actions but got a different outcome.  Those who seek the information without the relationship will also get a different outcome.  They will demand an audience or the information, but it will not satisfy.  The information they are seeking will be as a shoulder shrug.  They will not understand the implications, and they will not value the person – (in prophecy it is Christ). 

My reward with my brother is my brother.  Knowing him is my reward.  Understanding his heart, learning his nuances and the way he thinks, what matters to him, is my reward.  Now, sixteen years later, there’s not much my brother does or doesn’t do that surprises me.  I’ve learned his heart, his mind, his ways.  I suppose you could say I could predict him (and he would definitely tell you that).  Prediction is like prophesying, but it’s done with knowledge, whereas prophesying comes from the Spirit of God (but can also have knowledge).

Likewise, my reward with Christ is knowing Him.  The danger in revealing the things God hid in codes, symbolism, and mystery is the careless and cavalier manner in which someone uninterested in developing their own intimacy with Christ will treat the knowledge of the prophetic.  The fire that warms and thaws can also burn and destroy. 

The globalist agenda uses Biblical prophecy to attempt to control the future, but they’re sorely amiss on the character and nature of God, and thus have erred in their strategy.  But God will use their errors to accomplish His purposes, and when we start to understand the difference between knowing the what and knowing the who, we will understand prophecy.

I can’t emphasize enough the purpose of prophecy is to reveal the character and heart of God.  But He has wisely shrouded it in mystery so that only a seeking heart will pay the price to know Him.  He is the pearl of great price that we sell everything to buy.  Knowing what’s going to happen is never as important as why, which is never as important as WHO. 

On the other hand, if jealousy spurs us to genuinely seek out what we want, then we’ll find our jealousy gets replaced by personal desire.  This is a beautiful thing.  We are no longer jealous of what we see someone else has (an intimate relationship, knowledge, understanding, etc.), but we have instead endeavored we must learn how to obtain that ourselves. 

“Roots, where are your roots?”

The other purpose of my story has to do with identifying roots.  Over a decade ago, a Messianic Rabbi stumbled upon one of our in-home Wednesday night Bible studies one night.  He lived in a town over two hours away and was in our town on business.  He inquired of someone in our group if there was a mid-week service somewhere he could attend, and they invited him to our study.

As we opened the Scripture and began reading, it wasn’t long before I noticed his demeanor change.  He exclaimed, “Roots!  Where are your roots?”  We asked him to elaborate.  He immediately took us back to the root words in Hebrew.  He expounded on them in such a way the Scripture broke open and light poured forth.  We sat the next hour just listening and learning from him.  I emailed him for years after with various questions about scripture and words, and he came to our home church a couple times to lead a Passover Seder.  He expertly taught how all the aspects of the rehearsal of the Passover led to Christ, and how Christ fulfilled every one of them.

In this season of learning, the Spirit of God taught me I was to learn how to return to the roots of the faith.  In fact, He used my newfound relationship with my brother to expound it.  He showed me how my identity was largely known to myself in my life by my adopted family.  I have things in my personality and identity that are a direct result from my upbringing.  There are phrases and gestures I picked up from my family that I carried on into my own identity. 

We have been adopted into the family of God.  We are now sons and daughters of the Most High through the amazing sacrifice and obedience of Yeshua, Christ the Messiah.    And yet….

When I met my brother, my own blood, with zero experiences together or in common, there was an immediate connection.  We were able to finish each other’s sentences from the first time we met in person.  This, the Spirit showed me, was my roots.   And both families matter. 

This is me, a Gentile, being grafted into the olive branch.  Read Romans 11, and make sure you read it with the Spirit’s guidance.  You’ll see that word jealousy again.  In this instance, it’s for the good purposes:  to bring God’s people back to Him.  In fact, if the western church has deceived you to think there’s not a place for Israel anymore, read Romans 9-11.

But this is what God showed me of why I need that branch I’ve been grafted into.  The church’s roots are the Hebrew faith, the Hebrew language, the Hebrew customs.  Disregarding, ignoring or otherwise being ignorant of these roots is only to our detriment.  We’ve been grafted into it, not the other way around. 

And just like finding my blood brother helped me understand myself better, finding our faith’s roots will help us understand the God of our faith better.  God painted the picture of redemption and gave that picture to the Hebrews (Israelites).  He redeemed us out of the darkness and brought us into the light, irrespective of our actual blood lineage, and it is God’s gracious kindness that we are heirs in Christ.  But let’s not make the mistake of thinking we don’t need the Hebrews and their faith.

And about that word “Hebrew”….

Where does it even come from???  Who are the Hebrews?  The first time we see that word in Scripture is in Genesis 40:15:

For indeed I was stolen away out of the land of the Hebrews and here also have I done nothing that they should put me into the dungeon.

This is interesting, because it’s the story of Joseph being sold by his brothers into slavery in Egypt and was put in prison on false charges.  But it’s not the inception of “Hebrews”.  Some versions try to help us connect the dots by inserting it in Genesis 10:21.  Here it is in the Amplified:

Also to Shem, the father of all the children of Eber [including the Hebrews], the older brother of Japheth, children were born.

[For study, here’s Genesis 10:21 in about every Bible translation.]

But what we’ll learn in study is that the word “Hebrew” comes from the line of Eber, who was the great-grandson of Shem (son of Noah).  Just so we have it straight:  Noah had Shem who had Araphaxad who had Shelah who had Eber. 

The ancient Israelites had a custom in their language, (which is incidentally called “Hebrew”):  they didn’t have vowels.  So vowels were inserted to ease with pronunciation.  But for simplicity, they used variances of their names and words by changing the vowels.  (Pay attention because this becomes very important in future breakdowns.)  So Eber is the “father” of the Hebrews, so to speak.  Hebrews derives its name from Eber.

And this must be pretty important to God because that name “Hebrews” has not left the vernacular of the faith for millennia, even having a whole book written to these people in the new covenant, yet the word Hebrew is nowhere to be found in that book. 

In fact, when the Israelites were in Egypt for four hundred years, though they carried the name of Jacob/Israel, they were still being referred to as Hebrews by the people of Egypt.  And when the Philistines were challenging the promised land under the reign of King Saul, they were calling the children of Israel “Hebrews” even then, how many hundreds of years after Jacob? 

And when Paul is speaking to the Corinthians he makes a clear distinction like this (2 Cor 11:22):  “Are they Hebrews?  So am I.  Are they Israelites?  So am I.  Are they descendants of Abraham?  So am I.”

So surely by now you can see the name “Hebrew” is of value to God.  And if it matters to God, it matters to me.  If God has not allowed Hebrew to drop from the vernacular after several millennia, I reason there must be a reason.  This must be of value to God.  We do not want to lose the things that are of value to God in the effort to be trendy or modern or progressive or even enlightened.  If God has preserved something, I want to know why and what it means to Him. 

In the meantime, do not scorn your roots.  Embrace them.