Jews and Christians--One United Israel: The Regathering
In Genesis 13:14-16 Our Heavenly Father promised Abram the land of Canaan as well as a promise of physical multiplicity of his zera or his seed (sperm). Abram was told that this promise of physical multiplicity will be so vast and so extensive that the entire earth will literally be full of his zera. Verse 16 reminds us that at the time that this promise is literally and physically brought to pass it will be absolutely impossible for mankind to even count it, or in any way census it, since mankind is totally impotent and unable to count the dust of the earth. This promise is straightforward, needing absolutely no interpretation or explanation. That same seed will inherit the land eventually to be known as Israel.
In Genesis 15 verses 1-6 we see Abram willing to help God fulfill the promise of Genesis 13 by prematurely and incorrectly choosing Eliezer, a Gentile, who is not a physical offspring of Abram's own sperm or “zera,” to be the one through whom that promise would be brought to pass. However God rebukes Abram and makes it clear to him that His promise of physical multiplicity that would become a number that man would not be able to number would not come through an adopted Gentile or a second class choice. No! Our Heavenly Father ordained that this promised heir would come from Abram's own body. He would not be adopted but he would be a physical descendent of Abram. It is through this physical descendent that God once again promises Abram that his physical offspring will be more than the stars of Heaven. Obviously through modern science we know that our solar system has trillions of stars and of course that other solar systems have many more trillions. These stars in totality produce a number that mankind cannot even fathom.
God challenges Abram's lack of ability in counting the stars with the words "if you can" in verse five. It is because of Abram's pure faith and trust in God that he receives imputed righteousness as a result of his believing and trusting in God's promise. Notice there is only one promise not many promises. Abram was declared righteous by faith in God's one promise. Whoever this physical seed would turn out to be it would literally have to be more than the dust particles of the sea and the visible stars of heaven. This promise must be taken extremely and solely on a literal face value. Any tendency to somehow spiritualize this promise is a lack of faith in God's literal Word. That would be the very opposite of the faith of Abram himself.
This promise of physical multiplicity and blessing is renewed in Genesis 17 verse 4 where Abram is told that this promise will establish him as a father of many nations or "hamon goyim". This term "hamon goyim" is also found in verse 5 and literally means a noisy multitude of Gentile nations. This physical seed that will literally fill the globe will not be a silent group of religious folks, rather they will be a great and noisy multitude making a great noise and tumult about God and His gospel love for humanity. Verse 6 of Genesis 17 promises Abraham that through this seed of promise, kings would be manifest. This of course is talking about the kings that would one day make up the royal House of David through whom Messiah would come to His throne. In verse 7 God reassures Abraham that this promise of greatness through physical multiplicity would be unconditional and everlasting.
After the testing of Abraham's faith in Genesis 22, God renews the promise, due to Abraham's great obedience in the binding of Isaac on Mt Moriah. In verses 17&18 God reminds Abraham that it is he that will inherit the physical promise of physical multiplicity when his seed one day becomes more than the stars of heaven and the dust of the earth. In verse 18 we see that from this earth filling seed, will come one (Messiah), through whom all of the earth's families will be
blessed through unification. In Genesis 24 verse 60, Rebecca's family prophetically prays over her in order that her children may become "a myriad's of peoples" and rule over their enemies.
In Genesis 26 verse 4 we see this promise of physical increase being renewed with Abraham's son Isaac. He is told that his Seed—or “zera” will be more than the stars of heaven. Sound familiar? Isaac becomes the heir of this promise not Ishmael. Therefore when God brings to pass this great and precious promise it will not be through an adopted Gentile like Eliezer or a child of the flesh like Ishmael, but rather through the child of promise (Isaac) the heir proceeding from Abraham's own body. Galatians 4:28 confirms that only Isaac is the child of promise. What promise? The promise of physical multiplicity that would fill the earth, yet still possess the land of Canaan as it own homeland.
Genesis 28 verse three finds Isaac blessing Jacob and prophesying that the promise that God gave Abraham and Isaac would now be bestowed upon Jacob and not Esau. We see that in verse three Isaac prays that Jacob's Seed or “zera,” would be blessed and become a "kehilat goyim" or "assembly of peoples." For the first time in scripture we get a glimpse of God's plan for filling the earth with the seed of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The Hebrew term found in verse three is "kehilat goyim" or a called out assembly of nations or even better an "assembly of goyim". Somehow the Father will fill the earth with the physical seed of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob by putting together an assembly of goyim. Verse 4 confirms that what Isaac is bestowing upon Jacob is none other than the blessing of Abraham.
It is absolutely crucial for us to understand that there are not many promises to Abraham. There are not some that are spiritual and some others that are physical. Rather there is one promise and that one promise contains two aspects of physical blessing. One is The Seed who would bless the nations, that being Messiah Yahushua--Jesus Himself, the other being merely a promise of physical reproduction and multiplicity. In Genesis 28 in the account of Jacob's ladder we find God telling Jacob that his seed will be spread out as the dust of the earth and will break forth to the four corners of the globe. In other words his offspring would find its home in Canaan land, but would somehow through God's divine plan break forth and find its way to the four corners of the earth. This promise is none other than the bestowing upon Jacob of the promise and blessing of Abraham.
The Hebrew term used in Genesis 28 verse 14 is the term "parats" meaning to break forth. It literally means to jump out and spread quickly. This promise
of physical multiplicity must come through Abraham, Isaac and Jacob
therefore nullifying any claims by Islam and Ishmaelites or any other
misguided Bible scholars claiming that this promise is fulfilled in
adding the Jews and Muslims together. That is wrong since this promise
must come through Isaac and Jacob not Ishmael and Esau. The
Ishmaelite, Arab and Muslim peoples are the physical descendants of
Abraham alone, not of the promised heirs Isaac and Jacob. They do not,
I repeat do not, meet the standards set down by God when He stated
that the promise of physical multiplicity would come through Abraham,
Isaac and Jacob. The faith of Islam is not the faith of Abraham
because in order to have the faith of Abraham one must believe it was
Isaac not Ishmael who was the chosen seed!
We find God elaborating on this promise to Jacob in Genesis 35:verse 11 where He declares to Jacob that he would no longer be known as Ya’akov—or Jacob--but as “Israel.” Israel means one who as a Prince struggles with God and prevails. It is as Israel that Jacob will produce seed that will lead to the establishment of a nation and a company of nations. The nation of course is destined to be the Jewish people and the company of nations will be the "kehilat goyim" or the assembly of nations (former Gentiles) that will proceed from his own body.
As we jump forward in time we find Israel the great patriarch dying in the land of Goshen in Egypt and he summons all his sons to his bedside as he is dying. He somehow finds enough strength and leans on his staff and begins to prophecy through the Ruach HaKodesh the events that will befall his sons in the last days. The Brit Chadasha (Renewed Testament) refers to these death bed prophecies of Israel as an act of “worship.” In Genesis 48:5 he adopts Joseph's children born in Egypt, Ephraim and Manasseh as his own. He is declaring his last will and testament right there in front of Joseph. He officially adopts these two boys so that Joseph his most beloved son can receive a double portion of blessing through both his sons (verse 22). In verse 16 of Genesis 48 he calls these two grandchildren "Israel", since he not only adopts them but prophetically declares that the physical promise of physical global multiplicity will come through them. After stating "let my name be called upon them," meaning they are the same status of Israel's children, he prays that they will become a multitude. The Hebrew term used here for multitude can be read as a "teeming multitude of fish". It is interesting to remember that it was none other than our Messiah Yahushua—Jesus Christ--who declared that He would make us fishers of men. Could many of the men he was referring to be the "teeming multitude” proceeding from Ephraim and Manasseh?
As Israel is about to pronounce blessing he lays his right hand on Ephraim instead of Manasseh who was Joseph's firstborn. The right hand is symbolic of the blessing of the first born and should have rightfully fallen to Manasseh. However above the protests of Joseph, Israel crosses his hands and place the right one on the second of Joseph's sons Ephraim. When Joseph objects Israel tells him not to worry that he knows exactly what he is doing and that while Manasseh will become a great nation, Ephraim will be greater than him. In Genesis 48:19 we have one of the most fascinating and important prophecies of scripture. In blessing Ephraim over and above his brother, Israel declares that the “seed” or “zera” of Ephraim will become the "maleh goyim", or the "fullness of the Gentiles". In other words the physical seed of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob that was promised to one day literally fill the earth as the sand and dust of the earth and stars of heaven, will now come to pass in and through Ephraim. Ephraim will be the vehicle though which the great and precious single promise of physical multiplicity will literally come to pass. In English the words "maleh hagoyim" can best be translated as the "fullness of the Gentiles". If that term sounds familiar it should. It is a quotation from Romans 11:25 by Rabbi Sha’ul (The Apostle Paul) as the method and means by which all Israel would be saved. The only other time this word maleh is used in Tanach is in Psalm 24:1, where the psalmist declares that the earth is God's and the fullness thereof. In other words the earth is full of peoples, places and things that belong to God and there is nothing found in the earth that does not belong to God. In like manner there will be virtually no one in the earth that is not somehow belonging to the seed of Ephraim since it is the seed of Ephraim where all the blessings of physical multiplicity will be found. More on that later.
Not only do we see Ephraim receiving the birthright of the first born over and above his older brother Manasseh, but Israel also removes it from Reuben in Genesis 49:3 & 4 since Reuben defiled his father's bed and was sexually impure regarding the privacy and intimacy of Israel's marriage bed. So in reality Ephraim is moved ahead of Reuben, Joseph and Manasseh to receive the blessing of the firstborn of Israel. First Kings 5:1-2 and Jeremiah 31:9, confirms this essential truth. There is however some needed insight at this point. In all ancient Mideast cultures the right of the firstborn was essential in establishing lordship over the house of the dying father. With the birthright went power, authority, respect, grandeur and the right to enact all family business and transactions pertaining to its sustenance, care and well being. In essence the birthright was the permission to the firstborn to take over and rule the fathers' house in the fathers absence through death. Isaac received this right from Abraham even as Jacob received it from Isaac, albeit deceitfully. With the birthright went power and therefore it was coveted greatly in that culture.
When Israel gave Ephraim the birthright, however, he gave it to him with one major reservation. We read about this in Genesis 49:8-10, where Judah is given the pre-eminence or power to rule and reign royally over the House Of Israel! In verse 9 it states that all Israel's children will bow before the royalty of Judah and verse 9 states that the pre-eminence will cause all Israel to pay homage to the “Lion of Judah” whom verse 10 refers to by the Messianic title of “Shiloh.” Shiloh means the "sent one" or the anointed King Messiah from the kingly line of Judah who would be manifest in the natural through the tribe of Judah. Hebrews 7:14 makes it clear that Yahushua--Jesus was Shiloh and it is evident that He sprang forth from Judah. What a mess!
Did Jacob make a major error? Did he go to all the trouble of establishing Ephraim as the firstborn with the firstborn birthright only to give him a title without authority and without preeminence over his brothers? Did he make Ephraim a puppet ruler with just a paper title much like the modern day Queen of England? One thing we know for sure. He brought a split into and among the sons of Israel since one son had a birthright but the other son Judah had the right to rule! What good is a birthright without the authority that goes along with it? The children of Israel would submit to Judah's seed not Ephraim's, yet Ephraim's seed would become the fullness of the Gentiles. Judah would rule over the House Of Israel, but Ephraim would bring forth the promised zera that would fill the globe with the promise to the patriarchs of physical multiplicity. Of course Israel knew what he was doing since he was ministering through the Ruach HaKodesh—Holy Spirit. He split the authority and blessing between the two brothers who would continue to wage war over the fullness of the blessing that would ultimately be played out in a battle royal over the title of who is Israel? How ironic that according to Genesis 49:10 it will be the Lion of Judah (Messiah Yahushua—Jesus Christ), that would gather the goyim or nations of the seed of Ephraim back into the House Of Israel! After Israel died and his children waxed great in Egypt this promise of physical multiplicity began to trouble a Pharaoh who knew not Joseph.
Of course he enslaved the Hebrews and it took Moses our great deliverer to rescue Israel from the house of bondage. As history teaches us Moses took the twelve tribes out of Egypt to Sinai where they received Torah and the twelve tribes settled the land of Canaan. After a period of diverse judges and after King Saul, David was anointed King over all Israel. In the days of David the King, we see the house of Judah ruling and reigning over a united Israel with 12 tribes under David's monarchy. All was well until Solomon, David's' son, began whoring physically as well as spiritually and God revealed to Solomon that the kingdom would be broken in the life of his son Rehoboam because of Solomon's sins. (First Kings 11:11-14). God further revealed to Jeroboam an Ephraimite, one of Solomon's talented craftsman, that he would receive ten tribes resulting from this split in the kingdom of Israel after Solomon's death. This prophecy was acted out in front of Jeroboam by Ahiyah the prophet. The glory days under David was the last time that the kingdom belonged to all Israel, made up of all twelve tribes. In approximately 921 BC the ten northern tribes broke away from the House of David and called themselves “Israel” making Samaria its capital. The southern tribes of Judah, Benjamin and Levi made up the southern kingdom under Rehoboam with Jerusalem as its capital (Read First Kings 11:26-43).
As Rehoboam prepares an army to retake the ten renegade tribes in the north, God forbids it in First Kings 12:24 by telling Rehoboam that this split in the House Of David is from Him and that they should not fight against their brothers. This split in 921 BC was simply the literal fulfillment of the prophetic unction's pronounced by Jacob over his sons when he split the family so to speak. He split the birthright between Ephraim and Judah and that is why God says in First Kings 12:24 that this family split is from Him. He ordained it and desired it so that He could bring to pass the promise He made to the patriarchs. Specifically the promise of physical multiplicity. The means by which our Heavenly Father chose to do this is through this split in David's House. We will see why later! What began with Jacob now was being played out in the natural. The Northern kingdom of ten tribes began to adopt pagan practices, holidays, customs, false worship and unfortunately Jeroboam became the father of Ephraimite pagans. In First Kings 12:26-33 we see the evil heart of Jeroboam son of Nebat at as he devised a scheme for the ten tribes collectively known as the House of Israel or Ephraim to begin to practice a false religion designed to keep Ephraim separate from Judah and separate from Judah's Elohim (God). As we will shortly come to realize this House of Ephraim would one day become hidden as individuals within the Christian Church through God's program of the regathering of Ephraim through Messiah Yahushua—Jesus Christ and would adopt all of the ungodly pagan practices of Jeroboam. This system of Jeroboam had as its basic design the creation of a separate entity from the House of David consisting of the ten tribes in the north.
This separation unto debauchery and unto Ephraim's departure from the family of Israel resulted in God's judgement in approximately 721 BCE when Hashem send Tilgat Pilsger III, the Assyrian king to utterly destroy the House Of Ephraim or the ten northern tribes. Since Ephraim played the harlot and lifted her skirt to every foreign deity, God declared that he would in like manner sift her and cause her to be naked before the Gentile nations, by bringing an end to the northern kingdom, of Israel. This stern punishment would be enacted by the dispersing and swallowing up of these ten tribes by the world's pagan nations. Since Ephraim's lust, penchant and desire for paganism was so great God permitted the ten tribes to become the very thing that they so desperately and so wickedly craved to be! Thus we find that the children of Israel experienced their first holocaust in 721 BCE when ten tribes seemingly disappeared and became lost spiritually as well as physically. Thus was born the ten lost tribes of Israel.
In Genesis 13:14-16 Our Heavenly Father promised Abram the land of Canaan as well as a promise of physical multiplicity of his zera or his seed (sperm). Abram was told that this promise of physical multiplicity will be so vast and so extensive that the entire earth will literally be full of his zera. Verse 16 reminds us that at the time that this promise is literally and physically brought to pass it will be absolutely impossible for mankind to even count it, or in any way census it, since mankind is totally impotent and unable to count the dust of the earth. This promise is straightforward, needing absolutely no interpretation or explanation. That same seed will inherit the land eventually to be known as Israel.
In Genesis 15 verses 1-6 we see Abram willing to help God fulfill the promise of Genesis 13 by prematurely and incorrectly choosing Eliezer, a Gentile, who is not a physical offspring of Abram's own sperm or “zera,” to be the one through whom that promise would be brought to pass. However God rebukes Abram and makes it clear to him that His promise of physical multiplicity that would become a number that man would not be able to number would not come through an adopted Gentile or a second class choice. No! Our Heavenly Father ordained that this promised heir would come from Abram's own body. He would not be adopted but he would be a physical descendent of Abram. It is through this physical descendent that God once again promises Abram that his physical offspring will be more than the stars of Heaven. Obviously through modern science we know that our solar system has trillions of stars and of course that other solar systems have many more trillions. These stars in totality produce a number that mankind cannot even fathom.
God challenges Abram's lack of ability in counting the stars with the words "if you can" in verse five. It is because of Abram's pure faith and trust in God that he receives imputed righteousness as a result of his believing and trusting in God's promise. Notice there is only one promise not many promises. Abram was declared righteous by faith in God's one promise. Whoever this physical seed would turn out to be it would literally have to be more than the dust particles of the sea and the visible stars of heaven. This promise must be taken extremely and solely on a literal face value. Any tendency to somehow spiritualize this promise is a lack of faith in God's literal Word. That would be the very opposite of the faith of Abram himself.
This promise of physical multiplicity and blessing is renewed in Genesis 17 verse 4 where Abram is told that this promise will establish him as a father of many nations or "hamon goyim". This term "hamon goyim" is also found in verse 5 and literally means a noisy multitude of Gentile nations. This physical seed that will literally fill the globe will not be a silent group of religious folks, rather they will be a great and noisy multitude making a great noise and tumult about God and His gospel love for humanity. Verse 6 of Genesis 17 promises Abraham that through this seed of promise, kings would be manifest. This of course is talking about the kings that would one day make up the royal House of David through whom Messiah would come to His throne. In verse 7 God reassures Abraham that this promise of greatness through physical multiplicity would be unconditional and everlasting.
After the testing of Abraham's faith in Genesis 22, God renews the promise, due to Abraham's great obedience in the binding of Isaac on Mt Moriah. In verses 17&18 God reminds Abraham that it is he that will inherit the physical promise of physical multiplicity when his seed one day becomes more than the stars of heaven and the dust of the earth. In verse 18 we see that from this earth filling seed, will come one (Messiah), through whom all of the earth's families will be
blessed through unification. In Genesis 24 verse 60, Rebecca's family prophetically prays over her in order that her children may become "a myriad's of peoples" and rule over their enemies.
In Genesis 26 verse 4 we see this promise of physical increase being renewed with Abraham's son Isaac. He is told that his Seed—or “zera” will be more than the stars of heaven. Sound familiar? Isaac becomes the heir of this promise not Ishmael. Therefore when God brings to pass this great and precious promise it will not be through an adopted Gentile like Eliezer or a child of the flesh like Ishmael, but rather through the child of promise (Isaac) the heir proceeding from Abraham's own body. Galatians 4:28 confirms that only Isaac is the child of promise. What promise? The promise of physical multiplicity that would fill the earth, yet still possess the land of Canaan as it own homeland.
Genesis 28 verse three finds Isaac blessing Jacob and prophesying that the promise that God gave Abraham and Isaac would now be bestowed upon Jacob and not Esau. We see that in verse three Isaac prays that Jacob's Seed or “zera,” would be blessed and become a "kehilat goyim" or "assembly of peoples." For the first time in scripture we get a glimpse of God's plan for filling the earth with the seed of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The Hebrew term found in verse three is "kehilat goyim" or a called out assembly of nations or even better an "assembly of goyim". Somehow the Father will fill the earth with the physical seed of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob by putting together an assembly of goyim. Verse 4 confirms that what Isaac is bestowing upon Jacob is none other than the blessing of Abraham.
It is absolutely crucial for us to understand that there are not many promises to Abraham. There are not some that are spiritual and some others that are physical. Rather there is one promise and that one promise contains two aspects of physical blessing. One is The Seed who would bless the nations, that being Messiah Yahushua--Jesus Himself, the other being merely a promise of physical reproduction and multiplicity. In Genesis 28 in the account of Jacob's ladder we find God telling Jacob that his seed will be spread out as the dust of the earth and will break forth to the four corners of the globe. In other words his offspring would find its home in Canaan land, but would somehow through God's divine plan break forth and find its way to the four corners of the earth. This promise is none other than the bestowing upon Jacob of the promise and blessing of Abraham.
The Hebrew term used in Genesis 28 verse 14 is the term "parats" meaning to break forth. It literally means to jump out and spread quickly. This promise
of physical multiplicity must come through Abraham, Isaac and Jacob
therefore nullifying any claims by Islam and Ishmaelites or any other
misguided Bible scholars claiming that this promise is fulfilled in
adding the Jews and Muslims together. That is wrong since this promise
must come through Isaac and Jacob not Ishmael and Esau. The
Ishmaelite, Arab and Muslim peoples are the physical descendants of
Abraham alone, not of the promised heirs Isaac and Jacob. They do not,
I repeat do not, meet the standards set down by God when He stated
that the promise of physical multiplicity would come through Abraham,
Isaac and Jacob. The faith of Islam is not the faith of Abraham
because in order to have the faith of Abraham one must believe it was
Isaac not Ishmael who was the chosen seed!
We find God elaborating on this promise to Jacob in Genesis 35:verse 11 where He declares to Jacob that he would no longer be known as Ya’akov—or Jacob--but as “Israel.” Israel means one who as a Prince struggles with God and prevails. It is as Israel that Jacob will produce seed that will lead to the establishment of a nation and a company of nations. The nation of course is destined to be the Jewish people and the company of nations will be the "kehilat goyim" or the assembly of nations (former Gentiles) that will proceed from his own body.
As we jump forward in time we find Israel the great patriarch dying in the land of Goshen in Egypt and he summons all his sons to his bedside as he is dying. He somehow finds enough strength and leans on his staff and begins to prophecy through the Ruach HaKodesh the events that will befall his sons in the last days. The Brit Chadasha (Renewed Testament) refers to these death bed prophecies of Israel as an act of “worship.” In Genesis 48:5 he adopts Joseph's children born in Egypt, Ephraim and Manasseh as his own. He is declaring his last will and testament right there in front of Joseph. He officially adopts these two boys so that Joseph his most beloved son can receive a double portion of blessing through both his sons (verse 22). In verse 16 of Genesis 48 he calls these two grandchildren "Israel", since he not only adopts them but prophetically declares that the physical promise of physical global multiplicity will come through them. After stating "let my name be called upon them," meaning they are the same status of Israel's children, he prays that they will become a multitude. The Hebrew term used here for multitude can be read as a "teeming multitude of fish". It is interesting to remember that it was none other than our Messiah Yahushua—Jesus Christ--who declared that He would make us fishers of men. Could many of the men he was referring to be the "teeming multitude” proceeding from Ephraim and Manasseh?
As Israel is about to pronounce blessing he lays his right hand on Ephraim instead of Manasseh who was Joseph's firstborn. The right hand is symbolic of the blessing of the first born and should have rightfully fallen to Manasseh. However above the protests of Joseph, Israel crosses his hands and place the right one on the second of Joseph's sons Ephraim. When Joseph objects Israel tells him not to worry that he knows exactly what he is doing and that while Manasseh will become a great nation, Ephraim will be greater than him. In Genesis 48:19 we have one of the most fascinating and important prophecies of scripture. In blessing Ephraim over and above his brother, Israel declares that the “seed” or “zera” of Ephraim will become the "maleh goyim", or the "fullness of the Gentiles". In other words the physical seed of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob that was promised to one day literally fill the earth as the sand and dust of the earth and stars of heaven, will now come to pass in and through Ephraim. Ephraim will be the vehicle though which the great and precious single promise of physical multiplicity will literally come to pass. In English the words "maleh hagoyim" can best be translated as the "fullness of the Gentiles". If that term sounds familiar it should. It is a quotation from Romans 11:25 by Rabbi Sha’ul (The Apostle Paul) as the method and means by which all Israel would be saved. The only other time this word maleh is used in Tanach is in Psalm 24:1, where the psalmist declares that the earth is God's and the fullness thereof. In other words the earth is full of peoples, places and things that belong to God and there is nothing found in the earth that does not belong to God. In like manner there will be virtually no one in the earth that is not somehow belonging to the seed of Ephraim since it is the seed of Ephraim where all the blessings of physical multiplicity will be found. More on that later.
Not only do we see Ephraim receiving the birthright of the first born over and above his older brother Manasseh, but Israel also removes it from Reuben in Genesis 49:3 & 4 since Reuben defiled his father's bed and was sexually impure regarding the privacy and intimacy of Israel's marriage bed. So in reality Ephraim is moved ahead of Reuben, Joseph and Manasseh to receive the blessing of the firstborn of Israel. First Kings 5:1-2 and Jeremiah 31:9, confirms this essential truth. There is however some needed insight at this point. In all ancient Mideast cultures the right of the firstborn was essential in establishing lordship over the house of the dying father. With the birthright went power, authority, respect, grandeur and the right to enact all family business and transactions pertaining to its sustenance, care and well being. In essence the birthright was the permission to the firstborn to take over and rule the fathers' house in the fathers absence through death. Isaac received this right from Abraham even as Jacob received it from Isaac, albeit deceitfully. With the birthright went power and therefore it was coveted greatly in that culture.
When Israel gave Ephraim the birthright, however, he gave it to him with one major reservation. We read about this in Genesis 49:8-10, where Judah is given the pre-eminence or power to rule and reign royally over the House Of Israel! In verse 9 it states that all Israel's children will bow before the royalty of Judah and verse 9 states that the pre-eminence will cause all Israel to pay homage to the “Lion of Judah” whom verse 10 refers to by the Messianic title of “Shiloh.” Shiloh means the "sent one" or the anointed King Messiah from the kingly line of Judah who would be manifest in the natural through the tribe of Judah. Hebrews 7:14 makes it clear that Yahushua--Jesus was Shiloh and it is evident that He sprang forth from Judah. What a mess!
Did Jacob make a major error? Did he go to all the trouble of establishing Ephraim as the firstborn with the firstborn birthright only to give him a title without authority and without preeminence over his brothers? Did he make Ephraim a puppet ruler with just a paper title much like the modern day Queen of England? One thing we know for sure. He brought a split into and among the sons of Israel since one son had a birthright but the other son Judah had the right to rule! What good is a birthright without the authority that goes along with it? The children of Israel would submit to Judah's seed not Ephraim's, yet Ephraim's seed would become the fullness of the Gentiles. Judah would rule over the House Of Israel, but Ephraim would bring forth the promised zera that would fill the globe with the promise to the patriarchs of physical multiplicity. Of course Israel knew what he was doing since he was ministering through the Ruach HaKodesh—Holy Spirit. He split the authority and blessing between the two brothers who would continue to wage war over the fullness of the blessing that would ultimately be played out in a battle royal over the title of who is Israel? How ironic that according to Genesis 49:10 it will be the Lion of Judah (Messiah Yahushua—Jesus Christ), that would gather the goyim or nations of the seed of Ephraim back into the House Of Israel! After Israel died and his children waxed great in Egypt this promise of physical multiplicity began to trouble a Pharaoh who knew not Joseph.
Of course he enslaved the Hebrews and it took Moses our great deliverer to rescue Israel from the house of bondage. As history teaches us Moses took the twelve tribes out of Egypt to Sinai where they received Torah and the twelve tribes settled the land of Canaan. After a period of diverse judges and after King Saul, David was anointed King over all Israel. In the days of David the King, we see the house of Judah ruling and reigning over a united Israel with 12 tribes under David's monarchy. All was well until Solomon, David's' son, began whoring physically as well as spiritually and God revealed to Solomon that the kingdom would be broken in the life of his son Rehoboam because of Solomon's sins. (First Kings 11:11-14). God further revealed to Jeroboam an Ephraimite, one of Solomon's talented craftsman, that he would receive ten tribes resulting from this split in the kingdom of Israel after Solomon's death. This prophecy was acted out in front of Jeroboam by Ahiyah the prophet. The glory days under David was the last time that the kingdom belonged to all Israel, made up of all twelve tribes. In approximately 921 BC the ten northern tribes broke away from the House of David and called themselves “Israel” making Samaria its capital. The southern tribes of Judah, Benjamin and Levi made up the southern kingdom under Rehoboam with Jerusalem as its capital (Read First Kings 11:26-43).
As Rehoboam prepares an army to retake the ten renegade tribes in the north, God forbids it in First Kings 12:24 by telling Rehoboam that this split in the House Of David is from Him and that they should not fight against their brothers. This split in 921 BC was simply the literal fulfillment of the prophetic unction's pronounced by Jacob over his sons when he split the family so to speak. He split the birthright between Ephraim and Judah and that is why God says in First Kings 12:24 that this family split is from Him. He ordained it and desired it so that He could bring to pass the promise He made to the patriarchs. Specifically the promise of physical multiplicity. The means by which our Heavenly Father chose to do this is through this split in David's House. We will see why later! What began with Jacob now was being played out in the natural. The Northern kingdom of ten tribes began to adopt pagan practices, holidays, customs, false worship and unfortunately Jeroboam became the father of Ephraimite pagans. In First Kings 12:26-33 we see the evil heart of Jeroboam son of Nebat at as he devised a scheme for the ten tribes collectively known as the House of Israel or Ephraim to begin to practice a false religion designed to keep Ephraim separate from Judah and separate from Judah's Elohim (God). As we will shortly come to realize this House of Ephraim would one day become hidden as individuals within the Christian Church through God's program of the regathering of Ephraim through Messiah Yahushua—Jesus Christ and would adopt all of the ungodly pagan practices of Jeroboam. This system of Jeroboam had as its basic design the creation of a separate entity from the House of David consisting of the ten tribes in the north.
This separation unto debauchery and unto Ephraim's departure from the family of Israel resulted in God's judgement in approximately 721 BCE when Hashem send Tilgat Pilsger III, the Assyrian king to utterly destroy the House Of Ephraim or the ten northern tribes. Since Ephraim played the harlot and lifted her skirt to every foreign deity, God declared that he would in like manner sift her and cause her to be naked before the Gentile nations, by bringing an end to the northern kingdom, of Israel. This stern punishment would be enacted by the dispersing and swallowing up of these ten tribes by the world's pagan nations. Since Ephraim's lust, penchant and desire for paganism was so great God permitted the ten tribes to become the very thing that they so desperately and so wickedly craved to be! Thus we find that the children of Israel experienced their first holocaust in 721 BCE when ten tribes seemingly disappeared and became lost spiritually as well as physically. Thus was born the ten lost tribes of Israel.
As we are about to discover this breakage was the method by which God chose to fulfill the family split caused by Jacob himself as well as to fulfill the promise of physical multiplicity to the patriarchs. Are the ten tribes really lost? Can they be found? Have they been destroyed or somehow preserved? Did the Messiah come to restore the Tabernacle of David which had fallen in 920 BCE? Did the ten lost tribes of Israel become Gentiles later to be regathered back into the House of Israel by the ministry of Moshiach? Is it possible that the ten tribes became the "maleh goyim" or the "fullness of the Gentiles" that we read about in Romans and that was promised to be the physical Israelite seed through Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Ephraim? Let's find out!
The prophet Hosea is a great place to start our definitive search for the other house of Israel, the House of Ephraim. From this point forward the key to understanding prophecy related to the restoration of the twelve tribes into the House of David is to understand that after the split in 921 BCE God almost never ever refers to one house but to two houses of Israel! When He speaks to the North (10) tribes He speaks of Israel or Ephraim. When He speaks to the South He speaks of Judah. He always separates these two entities and unless you learn to do likewise you cannot and will not understand any prophetic writings or prophecies given by any of Israel's prophets after the split of the House of David. Get it fully settled in your minds that after 921 BC there was and still is two separate houses of Israel!! If you can comprehend this truth you are well on your way to being an instant prophecy expert!
In Hosea chapter One the prophet sent to the northern kingdom of Israel is told to take a wife who is a whore since that would give him a pretty good idea what the ten tribes have done to God. After cohabiting with Gomer, Hosea calls their daughter "Lo-Ruhammah" (verse 6), meaning “no mercy or compassion”. In verse 4 of Hosea One we see God putting an end to the northern House of Israel and in verse 6 He promises to never again show Israel in the north any mercy. In verse 7 God stated that unlike Israel, He will show mercy to Judah in the south. The couple conceived a son in verse 9 and God commands Hosea to call his name "Lo-Ami" for you are not my people and I am not for you. When God is against you the party is over. Israel or Ephraim is called Lo-Ami, not my people. No more mercy, no more my people, no more a kingdom, and God fighting against you.
We see clearly the end of the ten northern tribes as a nation before God.
A total divorce and rejection has taken place. Hosea 7:8,8:8,9:11,9:17,10:1,12:1 and other passages confirm that Ephraim's plight is to become Lo-Ami, swallowed up among the Gentiles. Yet in verse 10 we see a startling declaration.
Despite a death sentence for the ten tribes as an identifiable kingdom or nation, miraculously they reappear and are born-again so to speak in the last days. Verse 10 of Hosea One begins with the words "Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the seashore.” Here we have a kingdom totally destroyed and swallowed up among the Gentiles, miraculously reappearing as the former children of Israel and are even called the sand of the sea! Sound familiar? It should! This is the sand of the sea promise made to the patriarchs and to Ephraim. This verse further reveals to us just where we are going to find the ten lost tribes or the sand of the sea that cannot be counted.
The ones who call themselves and are called by God children of Elohim! Do you know any modern day group of people that run around referring to themselves and claiming themselves to be children of the living God! You got it! The born-again community of Gentile believers is nothing more than the former dispersed House Of Israel. God further states in this verse that when Ephraim is gathered they will be His people or His Ami and He will be their Elohim (God) since they have become sons of the living Elohim by grace though faith (Hosea 2:21-23). This cannot possibly be made any clearer. A nation that has come to an end, disappeared or become lost if you will, all of a sudden showing up as sons and daughters of God in the last days! Elohim Himself reminds us in verse 10 that this group in nothing more than the former House of Jeroboam or House of Israel. In verse 11 of Hosea One we see this return of the ten lost tribes coming back into the House of David in the days when these former lost Israelites appoint for themselves the same head that Messianic Jews are appointing for themselves.
This one head is the head of the body made up of nothing more than Judahites and Ephraimites with perhaps some true Gentiles, now restored to God as
redeemed individuals from both houses and are learning to trust and lean on the same Head by appointing that Head (Yahushua--Jesus) as personal
Elohim (Lord) and Savior! Verse 11 goes on to say that when individual
Ephraimites and Judahites are making this personal appointment of
Yahushua as king of their lives it will not be a day to build something
called the "Roman Church" where they replace the Jews as God’s chosen people, rather it will be the day of “Jezreal.” Jezreal means the replanting of those who were scattered! Praise God.
Notice the very next verse in Hosea 2:1, where both Judahites (Jews) and Ephraimites (Christians today) who appoint Yahushua as their head (in the day of Jezreal's regathering and replanting into David's rebuilt Tabernacle), will no longer look at their brothers and sisters as only “Spiritual brothers or sisters” only, but will see them in a new light. What light is that? As "ami!" Which means “my own people.” Bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. When Ephraim and Judah are individually regenerated and regathered into the rebuilt Tabernacle of David then we will begin to recognize each other as blood brothers, as physical Israelites from different sides of the same family that have been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb!
Author Unknown, 2004
I think this is one of the better summations I have ever read on this subject--I hope you enjoy it as well!
Ari
Ari
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