The Making of Multitudes of Nations

The Covenant Blessings:

ABRAHAM’S DESCENDANTS NUMBERLESS

“And I will make your descendants as the dust of the earth; so that if anyone can number the dust of the earth, then your descendants can also be numbered.”                                              Gen. 13:16

How much dust is on your bookshelves and in your room?  How much dust do you think is in your house, in your city, your state, in the nation?

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ABRAHAM’S DESCENDANTS WILL BE TUMULTOUS NATIONS

As for me, behold my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of MANY NATIONS   or a MULTITUDE of NATIONS.                                                                      Gen. 17:4

What does multitude mean?  ______________________________________

Feel free to look it up.

We recognize the state of Israel as the descendants of Abraham but does this qualify it as a multitude of nations?  Yes ____________                       NO____________

Do the 5 or 6 nations surrounding the state of Israel, as Ishmael’s descendants qualify as a multitude of nations? Yes ____________                       NO____________

A person could perhaps have that perspective but Abraham’s covenant blessing of becoming a multitude of nations was not passed down through Ishmael- God is emphatic about that Gen 17:19 but through Isaac,  Jacob, and Ephraim (Gen 26: 4, Gen 28:14, Gen. 48:19).  Yes, Ishmael’s mother was promised that her sons would not be numbered for multitude but the original Hebrew simply means abundant. Where as the Hebrew for the blessing given to Abraham means “noise, tumult” and was given in reference to nations. So who, what, & where are these noisy nations? Do you know? __________________

 “Indeed I will greatly bless you, and I will greatly multiply your seed as the stars of the heavens and as the sand which is on the seashore and your seed shall possess the gate of their enemies. And in your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice.”

                                                                                                                                    Gen 22:17

How many stars can you see in the sky?  _______ Try counting 1 night .and remember there are a whole lot more on the other side of the world & more beyond what you can see with your eye.

How much sand is there in an 8 oz. cup? ____________ How much in a quart? ___________

How much in a gallon?  ___________ How much sand on your favorite beach?___________

How many beaches all over the world?  _____________

That’s a lot of sand. Is it hard for you to believe that Abraham would literally have that many physical descendants? ______________________

Remember the injunction on the title page that was given to Abrahams covenant descendants.

“If you do not carefully follow all the words …written in this book,

and do not revere this glorious & awesome name -the Lord your God-….You who were as numerous as the stars in the sky

Will be but few in number and then the LORD will

scatter you among all nations.”    Deut. 28:58

The Covenant Blessing passed on:

THE PROMISE GIVEN TO ISAAC

Sojourn in this land and I will be with you and bless you, for to you and to your descendants I will give all these lands, and I will establish the oath which I swore to your father Abraham.  And I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven, and will give your descendants all these lands and by your descendants all the nations of the earth shall be blessed.”           GEN 26:3, 4

Who was the covenant blessing given to Isaac or Ishmael? _____________________

How numerous would Isaac’s descendants be? ________________________________

Who would be blessed because of the DESCENDANTS  OF ISAAC? ______________    _______________________________________________    

THE PROMISE GIVEN TO JACOB - ISRAEL

 And behold the LORD … said, “I am the LORD, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie, I will give it to you and to your descendants.  YOUR descendants shall also be like the dust of the earth and shall spread out to the west (AMERICAS) and to the east (ASIA) and to the north (EUROPE & RUSSIAN) and to the south (AFRICA); and in you and in your descendants shall all the families of the earth be blessed.”            Gen 28:14

Look at the map.  It is not situated with the USA in the middle but such that all the land masses fit undivided.  It is interesting to note that the covenant promised land is almost the exact middle of the map.

What countries lay to the west of the Holy land? __________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________

What countries lay to the EAST?_______________________________________________

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What countries lay to the NORTH?_____________________________________________

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What countries lay to the SOUTH?  ____________________________________________  _________________________________________________________________________

And God said to him, “Your name is Jacob; you shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel shall be your name (He persists with God).” God also said to him, “I am God Almighty; be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a COMPANY OF NATIONS shall come from you, and kings shall come forth from you.  And the land which I gave to Abraham and Isaac, I will give it to you and I will give the land to your descendants after you.                                                                                                Gen. 35:10

            Now the word company in the original Hebrew actually means “assembly” and again   could be translated as multitude.  Again we recognize the country of Israel as Israel’s descendants.  But it is not any in way a company or multitude of nations.  Is it? ___________

So what did God mean by a COMPANY OF NATIONS WILL COME FORTH FROM YOU?  Are these countries existent now?

Look at the map again. Shortly we will be investigating all of the sons of Israel and their blessings and how they fit into blessing all the families of the earth.  For now take the Israelis for this page and put them in the west, east, north and south on your map.

THE PROMISE GIVEN TO JOSEPH’S SON – EPHRAIM

Israel’s words to Joseph:

            And now your 2 sons who were born to you in the land of Egypt before I came to you in Egypt, are mine; Ephraim and Manasseh shall be mine as Reuben and Simeon are.

And Joseph said to his father, “Not so, my father, for this one (Manasseh) is the first –born.  Place your right hand on his head.” But his father refused and said, “I know, my son, I know; he also shall become a people and he also shall be great.  However his younger brother (Ephraim) shall be greater than he, and his descendants shall become a multitude of Nations.     Gen. 48: 5, 18, 19

Again we have the promise of Ephraim’s descendants becoming noisy, tumultuous nations. I must make a note here.  This promise is not given to Judah whose descendants are known as the  JEWS, BUT IS GIVEN TO EPHRAIM.      Who are the Jews descended from?  _______________________   If the Jews are descended from Judah what are the names of the other descendants from the other tribes? Especially  who is Ephraim and where are these noisy nations? Are they around today?   The answer will surprise and I hope excite you. It is tied in with the other tribes of Israel and the blessings given to them by their father Isaac, which we will be looking at shortly.  It is also tied into the following injunction given by God to the assembled nation of Israel journeying back to the Promised Land.

THE BLESSING GIVEN TO JOSEPH

 Joseph is a fruitful bough, a fruitful bough by a spring; its braches run over a wall.  The archers bitterly attacked him and shot at him and harassed him; but his bow remained firm and his arms were agile, from the hands of the Mighty One of Jacob (From there is the Shepherd, the Stone of Israel),   From the God of your father who helps; you, and by the Almighty who blesses you with blessings of the heaven above blessings of the deep that lies beneath, blessings o the breasts and of the womb.  “The blessings of your father have surpassed the blessings of my ancestors, up to the utmost bound of the everlasting hills; may they be on the head of Joseph, and on the crown of the head of the one distinguished among his brothers.

The Egyptian historian Manetho (ca.261 b.c.e. quoted by Josephus in  Versus Apion) said that the name Hyksos is a compound of Hyc a king and sos shepherd, i.e. they were shepherd kings. At all events, a similar term Haka was later applied by Armenian historians to the Israelite descended Cimmerians and Scythians and in early Medieval English the nickname "HAIK" was considered a form of ISAAC!

The Hebrew brothers of Joseph upon entering Egypt had classified themselves as shepherds and for that reason had been given the land of Goshen to settle in. In another passage Manetho says that Hycsos were also styled captives  17.
Modern scholars believe the name Hycsos to denote foreign ruler and say that it was the particular term applied to the local princes of Canaan from whom (it is now believed) the Hycsos derived. The Hycsos in archaeological terms are defined as a group of foreigners who settled in the eastern Delta of Egypt (i.e. in "Goshen") and at times ruled over all the land as well as Nubia meaning the Sudan. The majority of Hycsos names are West Semitic and today the consensus appears to be that they "originated in the Levant from Middle Bronze Age Canaanite ethnic stock" 18.
This definition is consistent with the Hycsos having been West Semitic Hebrews who before coming to Egypt had sojourned in Canaan and were considered natives and princes in that land. Graves of the Hycsos in Egypt were found to contain remains of mutton19  which suggests that the Hycsos really were sheep-herders or Shepherd kings. The native Egyptians always considered the sheep an unclean animal and would not go near them. In Avaris (Ramses of the Bible) the Hycsos capital  remains of animal sacrifices were found around an altar. The animals killed were mainly cattle with a few sheep and not a single pig

Y.Kiel quotes from the Commentary of the 17th century "Rabbi Yehudah HaHasid" (ca.1690):

           <<Israel received many possessions from their forefathers  in the Land of Canaan. Even though they were in Egypt they were wont to send emissaries  to Canaan to prepare fields and vine yards of their own. The descendants of Joseph  apparently of Ephraim [Joseph's second son]  built cities for themselves  in Canaan in the area of their future inheritances. They caused their servants to settle in these cities and raise them tribute  and tend their inheritances for them. Because of this situation the Egyptians became fearful lest the two bodies [i.e. Israel and their vassalages in Canaan] join together and war against them....Formerly due to Pharoah's esteem of Joseph by virtue of which Pharoah honoured them... the Israelites had received permission from Pharoah to so act [in tending their Canaanite possessions]. In the book of Chronicles..Sherah [daughter of Ephraim] established cities [in Canaan] and she lived at least 6 generations prior to [the Israelites conquering the land after coming out of Egypt under the leadership of] Joshua who conquered the land.>>

Likewise, another Rabbinical source (quoted by Kiel and ascribed to a Student of Saadia Gaon) and perhaps dating to ca.1100 c.e. says:
 

<<Machir [son of Menasseh who was the brother of Ephraim, Menasseh and Ephraim being the two sons of Joseph] ..was the progenitor of Gilead. Later Yair confirmed possession of the lands of Gilead [east of the Jordan River]. After the generation of Joseph and his brothers died out, the surrounding nations increased in power and two of them, Geshur and Aram, seized the villages of Yair....For this reason the later descendants of Machir [after coming out of Egypt] desired to settle in the Land of Gilead. Moses therefore granted them the land which had formerly been held  by their forefather and Joshua [the successor of Moses] confirmed this grant            
          <<This point should be made quite clear, those matters spoken of in the Pentateuch concerning Machir, Nobah, and Yair [having held territory in the land], are speaking of a previous era. Machir, Nobah, and Yair were not alive at the time of the  wandering in the wilderness [after coming out of Egypt] and so they received nothing in  that period.>>