“We have a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts. Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the Scripture is of any private interpretation.”—2 Peter i. 19, 20.

I am about to give you a few Discourses on Prophecy, and in doing so I desire, in the first place, to point out to you a few very important distinctions included in the prophecies. Suppose the Bible to be a great palace, with its royalty, royal children, servants, and subjects. You desire to go through it and view it intelligently, and to understand all about its inhabitants and laws of government; now to do so, you must have keys, and you must learn who is who, their place, authority, and work. If not so qualified, you could not pass from room to room, and you might confound the King with some servant, and visitors might be mistaken for the children of the household. Thus your ideas would be considerably mixed; you would be guilty of talking about the King, when you really meant some servant, and of prophesying for the royal children in the name of the visitors. The years would come and go, but events would not happen as you had prophesied. Each generation would take your report and follow in your footsteps, thus confusion and disappointment would keep pace with the passing generations.

What is here made a matter of supposition, has been a solemn fact on the line of human experience. Men have studied the Bible and Providence in this ignorant and confused way. Theologians have thrown aside all restraints, and well-defined limitations and distinctions of the Bible in their assumed liberty of expounding and spiritualising the same. No matter to them that there is a God-revealed distinction between Judah and Israel, Manasseh and Ephraim, Samaritans and Gentiles, and the throne of David and the throne of the heathen. Writers and speakers are guilty of using the words Judah and Israel in a synonymous sense, though the words stand for different people, history, and prophecies, soon after the descendants of Jacob settled in Palestine. To aid you in seeing this historical confusion and folly, let me call your attention to them separately.

JUDAH.

What does this word stand for in the Bible? In the first place it is the name of the fourth son of Jacob. In the second place it was the name of his direct descendants or Tribe. In the third place it became the name of the portion of the country occupied by this Tribe in the Promised Land. In the fourth place it became the name of a kingdom and government; this fourth name included the Tribe of Benjamin and their territory. In the fifth place it became the name of the whole country of Palestine, and is now often so used. To-day this word stands for those we call Jews, who, as they allow among themselves, represent and only include Judah and Levi.

On the death of Solomon the country and Tribes finally separated into two Houses, kingdoms, and governments. Nine Tribes went with Jeroboam, and three with Rehoboam—namely, Judah, Levi, and Benjamin. The nine-tribed House was called Israel, the three-tribed House Judah. This separation was about 975 b.c. (1 Kings xii.). From that day to this these two Houses have never been united; but they are to be, as scores of statements to that effect are in the good Book (Hosea i. 11). About 580 b.c. the House of Judah was taken captive into Babylon, remaining 70 years, then they returned to their own land and remained till the year of our Lord 70, when Jerusalem was destroyed and they were scattered.

Prophecies referring to the Jews are numerous and in striking contrast to those that refer to Israel. 1. The Jews were to be a scattered people. 2. A specially persecuted people. 3. To be without a nationality. 4. To be without government. 5. Not to be owners of landed property, though they will have money, until toward the latter days. 6. They were to be a proverb. 7. They were to be few in number. 8. They are to retain a special type of features. 9. They were to be repeatedly robbed. 10. They were to reject Christ. 11. To retain the Mosaic service till returned to their own land. 12. They are to keep their name, and many such distinctions, none of which should be applied to Israel. All these things have been and are fulfilled, or fulfilling, and though men are wonderfully given to spiritualising, few, if any, venture to spiritualise Judah’s curses. Men and ministers calling themselves Gentiles, are rude enough to spiritualise the blessings of Judah, and stealing them, apply them to themselves.

ISRAEL.

1. A name given to Jacob after wrestling with the Angel. 2. A term applied sometimes to all the descendants of Jacob. 3. In a spiritual sense, those who believe in Christ. 4. A name that covered and included the nine Tribes which went with Jeroboam and formed the kingdom of Israel. They remained a distinct kingdom, and till now a nationality. From 975 to 725 b.c. they had some 19 kings. They were finally carried captive into Assyria by Shalmanezer (2 Kings xvii.). From that captivity they have never returned; as a body they never can, only representatives, as stated in Jer. iii. 14, “One of a city, and two of a family.”

Now prophecy points out that it was Israel that was to be lost for a while, and come to light in the latter day. They are known in the Scriptures in contradistinction from others by such terms as the following: “All Israel,” “All the House of Israel wholly,” “The House of Israel,” “Men of Israel,” and God calls them His “Servants, Witnesses, Chosen People, Inheritance, and Seed.” The lot, course, and providential portion of this people are very marked from any other, especially from the Jew, with whom they are so often confounded. The history of the two peoples have been wide apart and as different as they well could be.

1. They were to be lost. 2. They were to be divorced from the Mosaic law. 3. They were to lose their name. 4. They were to lose their language. 5. They were to possess the isles of the sea, coasts of the earth, waste and desolate places, to inherit the portion of the Gentiles, their seed, land, and cities. 6. They are to be great and successful colonisers. 7. Before them other people are to die out. 8. They are to be a head nation. 9. To be a company of nations. 10. To be great in war on land or sea. 11. To be lenders of money. 12. To have a monarchy. 13. To be keepers of the Sabbath. 14. To have David’s throne and seed ruling over them. 15. They are to possess Palestine, and invite their brethren of Judah to return. And thus I might repeat some sixty positive marks and distinctions setting forth Israel; and yet men wilfully persist in confounding them with the Jews, or looking for this great and favoured people of the Lord among the lowest of human kind, Indians, Africans, and so on.

SAMARITANS.

The Samaritans were not Jews or Israelites, strictly speaking. They of course became Jewish in their customs and worship. Originally they were Assyrians. When the nine Tribes were carried captive, they were brought and put in their place. “And the King of Assyria brought men from Babylon and from Cuthah, and from Ava, and from Hamath, and from Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria, instead of the children of Israel” (2 Kings xvii. 24). The Jews and the Samaritans never wholly mixed; one was always distasteful to the other. They never were taken captive, and to this day they live in and about Mount Scychar, numbering between three and four hundreds.

BENJAMIN.

The Tribe of Benjamin has a singular and special place in the history of Israel and Judah. Neither the Old or New Testament can be well understood unless one understands the place of this Tribe in Providence. They were always counted one of the Ten Tribes, and reckoned with them in the prophetic visions. They were only loaned to Judah about 800 years. Read 1 Kings xi. They were to be a light for David in Jerusalem. God, foreseeing that the Jews would reject Christ, kept back this one Tribe to be in readiness to receive Him, and so they did. At the destruction of Jerusalem they escaped, and after centuries of wanderings turn up as the proud and haughty Normans. Finally they unite with the other Tribes under William the Conqueror. A proper insight into the work and mission of Benjamin will greatly aid one in interpreting the New Testament. He was set apart as a missionary Tribe, and at once set to work to spread the Gospel of Jesus. Most of the disciples were Benjaminites. Then, after 800 years of fellowship with Judah, they were cut loose and sent after their brethren of the House of Israel. It was needful that the Lion and the Unicorn should unite.

MANASSEH AND EPHRAIM.

The history of these two representative characters is worth your careful study. The whole of the circumstances of Jacob blessing them must be accepted as Divinely directed. Manasseh was to be a great people, and so I believe he is. In the United States I find this promise literally fulfilled. This is the Key to the settlement of this land; to the agitations of the Pilgrims and Puritans in England. The mission, work, and place of the United States may be found in the prophecies relating to this Tribe. Let anyone examine the great seal of the United States, and study its design, and surprise will fill the mind that facts, Providence, and prophecies do so wonderfully agree. Take the obverse side. Here you have an eagle with outstretched wings; the bird is perfect, not double headed and deformed, as in other cases where the eagle has been or is the national bird. The striped escutcheon on its breast, in its beak a scroll, inscribed with a motto, “E pluribus Unum”—one out of many, as Manasseh was, and as the country is building up a grand nationality and oneness out of all nations nearly. Over the head of the eagle there is a glory—the parting of clouds by light; in the opening appear 13 stars, forming a constellation argent, on an azure field. In the dexter or right talon is an olive branch, a symbol of peace; in the sinister or left talon is a bundle of 13 arrows. But it is on the reverse side of the great seal that we have a wonder. Here we have an unfinished Pyramid; a portion of the top is gone, exactly the same as the Great Pyramid in Egypt is at this day—anticipating this very day (Isa. xix. 19): “In that day shall there be an altar to the Lord. And it shall be for a sign and for a witness unto the Lord of hosts in the land of Egypt.” Now it is somewhat singular that the Congress of 1782 should have adopted so remarkable a sign, one that would witness to God and tell of their origin. The reverse side is the under side, and shows from whence the nation came, and on what it is built. In the zenith—that is, above the top of the Pyramid—is a triangle surrounded by a glory; and in the centre is an all-seeing eye. Over the eye we have Annuit Coeptis, which means, “He prospers our beginning.” On the base of the Pyramid we have in letters, 1776, and underneath the following motto—“Novus ordo seclorum,” meaning a “New era in the ages.” The suggestion of the items upon the great seal was from Sir John Prestwich, Bart., an Englishman. He gave the suggestions to the American Minister, John Adams, and thus the same were conveyed to Congress and adopted.

We have in the facts of the great seal a series of coincidents that connect this country with the Tribe of Manasseh. When the Tribes marched, Benjamin, Ephraim, and Manasseh went together on the West side of the ark, for their homes were Westward. On their battalion banner was the figure of a youth, denoting activity, with the motto, “The cloud of Jehovah rest on them, even when they go forth out of the camp.” Here we have the origin of the cloud on the seal. And when we remember that Manasseh was brought up at the foot of the Pyramid, and could see it from his palace home at Memphis, then we get a cue to the figure of the Pyramid on the seal. [23]

PYRAMID.

The Pyramid is a wonderful witness for God and His people. This building in Egypt has stood for 4,000 years; finished and complete, it stood for about 3,000 before anybody ventured to find a way into it. Then, at a great cost of men, money, and time, a way was forced in by an Arab chief. There surely is something remarkable that the only thing found in it should be a stone trough, and more singular to my mind, that the Ark of the Covenant and this stone trough should be of equal capacity; and the laver in which the priest washed his feet in the temple was exactly of the same size. And Solomon’s molten sea contained just as much water as would fill the King’s Chamber in which this trough was found. Can any man know these things and believe them to be accidental? Verily not. They do most assuredly pledge a God and Providence.

EPHRAIM.

This word is not only the name of Joseph’s son and the Tribe, but it is used quite frequently in a generic sense, and stands for the Ten Tribes and Manasseh. To Reuben by birthright was the lead politically, but it was taken from him and given to Joseph, and so to Ephraim. From Judah came the Chief Ruler—that is, Christ; but the birthright was Joseph’s (1 Chron. v. 1).

THRONE OF DAVID.

To this throne God pledged under oath a perpetuity. Also He pledged that some one of David’s seed should always be on it. The throne and seed are pledged an unconditional existence. This being so, it follows that they must be now in existence, and that finally all thrones will be swallowed up by this one. Queen Victoria is of David, and the English throne is David’s. Hence all the promises and prophecies referring to David’s throne may be found on this line. For prophecy not being of private interpretation such facts may be proven.

GENTILES.

The word Gentile generally embraces all those nations and people outside of the Twelve Tribes. Keeping these few distinctions in mind, you will be enabled to read the Bible interestingly and with the proper understanding. Prophetic evidence is a strong kind of proof. Study the Word on this line and you will find Providence and history lending glorious confirmation to the same.