Hebrew Forefathers of Western Peoples (9 September 2015, 25 Elul 5775)
Abraham was the first Hebrew. Abraham was promised to become,
"A great nation, and in you will all the families of the earth be blessed" (Genesis 12:2-3).
"Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him. For I know him that he will command his children and his house after him, and they shall keep the way of the LORD to do justice and judgement; that the LORD may bring upon Abraham that which he had spoken of him" (Genesis 18:18-19).
Isaac was the son of Abraham. He received the promised blessings:
"My covenant will I establish with Isaac" (Genesis 17:21);
"I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his seed after him" (Genesis 17:19).
God informed Abraham,
"In Isaac shall your seed be called" (Genesis 21:21).
Isaac begat the twins Esau and Jacob. Of Esau it was foretold,
"By your sword you shall live, and shall serve your brother" (Genesis 27:40).
Jacob received the Blessings promised to Abraham and to Isaac. The Children of Jacob were to become the Chosen People. Isaac blessed Jacob,
"God Almighty bless you, and make you fruitful and multiply you, that you may be a multitude of people; And give you the blessing of ABRAHAM, to you and to your seed with you" (Genesis 28:2-3).
Jacob was given the additional name ISRAEL (Genesis 32:8, 35:10).
"Now the sons of Jacob were twelve" (Genesis 36:22).
The TWELVE SONS OF ISRAEL were Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Zebulon, Joseph, Benjamin, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, and Asher. All the sons of Israel received a Blessing from their father,
"Everyone according to his blessing he blessed them" (Genesis 49:28).
There were to be two leading tribes in Israel:
"Judah prevailed above his brethren, and of him (comes) the chief ruler; but the birthright was Joseph's" (1-Chronicles 5:1-2).
The Israelite Tribes increased and multiplied. They were united under kings Saul, David, and Solomon. In the reign of Rehoboam, son of Solomon, the ten northern tribes seceded and set up their own kingdom (1-Kings 12:19). Henceforth the Israelites were divided into two:
There was the Kingdom of Judah (2-Chronicles 11:17) comprising the Tribes of Judah, Benjamin, Levi, and minority sections of the other tribes. From the Kingdom of Judah emerged the core section of the Jewish People as we know them today.
There was also the House of Israel (1-Kings 12:21) with Ten Tribes (1 Kings 11:31,35).
Less than 200 years later the Ten Tribes were conquered by the Assyrians and all taken into Exile (2-Kings 17:6). The Assyrians in partnership with Edomite descendants of Esau (Amos ch.1) resettled the Exiles in various parts of the Assyrian Empire. They lost awareness of their ancestry. Part had been taken in Philistine and Phoenician ships directly to the west while others reached the west centuries later after moving overland. Eventually they all converged in the same areas. We find descendants of Israelites from the Ten Tribes throughout Western Europe. The British Isles were especially important in this scenario and came to be dominated by descendants of Joseph. The Blessings to Israel had been unconditional,
"By myself have I sworn, says the LORD...that in Blessing I will bless you and in multiplying I will multiply your seed..." (Genesis 28:15).
"God is not a man neither the son of man that he should repent. He has blessed and I cannot reverse it" (Numbers 23:19-20).
The Bible prophesied that the Lost Ten Tribes would by at the Ends of the Earth meaning the geographical extremities (Isaiah 24:16, 26:15, 41:8-9 43:6 49:6); in Islands and peninsulas (Isaiah 24:15 49:6 60:9 Jeremiah 31: 8-10); and associated with Tarshish meaning the Atlantic Ocean Area (Isaiah 60:9); generally to the west of the Land of Israel (Isaiah 24:14, Hosea 1:10); and to its Northwest (Isaiah 49:12); in the "North" Land (Jeremiah 3:18 31: 6-10); with colonies in the land of Sinim meaning Australia and New Zealand (Isaiah 49:12); in the best parts of the world (Isaiah 41: 9); in Zarephath, meaning France and Britain (Obadiah 1:20); in Many Waters i.e. Several Oceans (Numbers 24:7); the Dominant World Power (Numbers 24:7-9 Micah 5:7-9); possess great Military Might (Deuteronomy 33:27 33:29 Jer. 51:20-21); becoming the Battle-Axe of the Almighty or "Police-Man of the Globe" (Jeremiah 51:20 Zechariah 10:7); extremely numerous (Genesis 15:5, 22:17, 24:60, 32:12, Numbers 23:10, Isaiah 10:22, 24:16, 26:15 Hosea 1:10); possess agricultural plenty (Genesis 27:28 49:25 Deuteronomy 33:13-16 Hosea 2:8); and control vast mineral resources (Genesis 49:25 Deuteronomy 33:13, 15). They would also possess the gates of their enemies, and of those that hate them meaning International Strategic Points (Genesis 22:17 24:60). And much more.
The peoples of the West especially the English-speaking nations have fulfilled the above. This was the case in the 1930s and for more than a century before then and in principle is still the case today.
Consider the following excerpts from Naill Ferguson: "The War of the World," UK, 2006:
# For rearmament in the 1930s , if one wished to possess the most up-to-date weaponry, required copious supplies of a variety of crucial raw materials... the lion's share of the world's accessible supplies lay within the borders of one of four rival powers: the British Empire. the French Empire, the Soviet Union, and the United States... (p.179).
# Another way of looking at the problem was to relate arable land to the population employed in agriculture... Canada was ten times better endowed than Germany and the United states six times better. Even Germany's European neighbors had more "farming space": the average Danish farmer had 229 per cent more land than the average German; the average British farmer 182 per cent more and the average French farmer 34 per cent more... (p.182).
# Just as important [as coal and iron] were oil and rubber. The production of these commodities was dominated by the United States, the British Empire, and the Soviet Union or countries under their direct or indirect influence. American oil fields accounted for just under 70 per cent global crude petroleum production... Modern planes, tanks, and ships which could be manufactured only with the admixture of more or less rare metals like antimony, chromium, cobalt, manganese, molybdenum, nickel, titanium, tungsten, and vandium.. here too the situation of the Western powers and the Soviet Union was dominant, if not monopolistic (p.284).
Naill Ferguson: "The War of the World", UK, 2006
The above description includes the Soviet Union alongside western nations in which descendants of the Ten Tribes were dominant. When World War-2 did break out it was the Soviet Union that needed the aid of the USA to build its tanks and planes etc., and not the other way around.
The Ten Tribes are often referred to collectively as "Joseph" or "Ephraim". Joseph had been sold as a slave into Egypt. He rose to become an effective ruler of the land and second only to Pharaoh (Genesis chapters 39-41, 41:41-44). As ruler of Egypt, Joseph saved much of the world from famine (Genesis 41:57) and changed the Egyptian economic and social order (Gen. 47:19-26). Joseph was unknown to his brothers at first and not identified by them (Genesis 42:8). They referred to him as "The man, the lord of the country" (Gen. 42:33). This situation had been necessary in order for Joseph to fulfill that task allocated him by Divine Providence, "God meant it unto good, to bring to pass as it is this day, to save much people alive" (Genesis 50:20). So too, descendants of Joseph through the British Empire and through the USA and the Green Revolution and other aid save the lives of, and enabled the coming into being of, 100s of millions of other peoples, and did much good in the world.
We are therefore concerned with descendants of Israelites amongst Western Peoples especially the English-speaking nations. These emanated from the British Isles. Britain was first settled by various peoples who received Celtic Civilization, then came the Angles, Saxons, Jutes and others. Then came the Vikings from Denmark and Norway. Then the Normans arrived, and others after them.
All of these groups were descended from Israelites.
This corresponds with the evidence from Scripture.