The Historic Abraham

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Foundation For Genesis 12-14, The Historic Abraham--Tape 2

According To Josephus, Abraham Was Threatening The Chaldean Worship System

“Isn’t it interesting that we can quote something that was written by Abraham. I didn’t think of that until just now. But apparently Josephus had reference to some things that had been left, now he’s quoting Abraham directly here. Listen to this, “For which doctrine the Chaldeans and other people of Mesopotamia raised a tumult against him, he thought fit to leave that country, and at the command and by the assistance of God, he came and lived in the land of Canaan, and there he built an altar and sacrificed to God.” OK now, we begin to understand why they were persecuting him. Now the reason they were persecuting him was this, Abraham was a mathematician, he was an astronomer, and what he did is he analyzed the things that he was able to see, it says “both on land and at sea, and in the heavens.” And using reason, I think by the inspiration of God, really, he came to see that the heavenly bodies did not move at their own command, but rather they were in regular courses, by which they were set by the command of a Creator. Now, this went directly in the face of the Chaldean priests, who claimed that they were close to these “gods,” because they could predict where these “gods” were going to be. Now they claimed that the sun, moon and the stars and other heavenly bodies like the planets were gods. And that because they were able to predict where the gods would be, that they therefore had connections to the supernatural, and therefore they were a class of people to be respected. Now, you see Abraham just refuted that theory completely, that these heavenly bodies were not gods at all, but rather they were under the control of some Supreme Being, who set them in their course, and they could not be changed from that course. Since they could not command their own movements, therefore they were subservient to somebody else. Now, it begins to get hairy, because the Chaldean priests evidently knew that they were pulling something over on the people. And that they were about ready to get exposed. Now what do you do when you’re about to be proven to be wrong, or to be ridiculed, or to be made to be looked to as being dumb? Well they had two alternatives, either they could repent and admit that they were wrong, or they could get rid of Abraham. So they chose to get rid of Abraham. Now that’s where the motivation for all of the persecution on Abraham came from, that he was a threat to the religious figures who evidently in turn inspired the political figure, that is Horus and Arioch to try to get rid of Abraham. That has always been the course of history. That the religious element has always tried to get rid, through governmental power, the element that was teaching or preaching the truth [i.e the truths of the Bible, God’s Word]. So they tried to get rid of him, and really, they succeeded, but it was only by God’s design. They didn’t get rid of him by killing him, but they did get rid of him by getting him out of the country. So since Abraham’s truth was spreading over the country, their course was set before them, and that’s the course they took. OK now, let’s go to another Scripture, let me see here, now before you go there I’ll just read this, again, this is from the same section of Josephus, only a different paragraph, this is paragraph 2. “Barosis” who is another historian, “mentions our father Abram without naming him, when he says thus, ‘In the 10th generation after the Flood there was among the Chaldeans, a man, righteous and great, and skillful in the celestial science,” ok that’s a quote from Barosis. I think he was a Greek, not real sure. OK, this Scripture then, in Joshua 24, we’ve been to it before, we’ll look at it again, Joshua 24 and verse 2, just consider the times again, “And Joshua said unto all the people, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Your fathers dwelt on the other side of the flood” that is the Euphrates River “in old time, even Terah, the father of Abraham, and the father of Nachor: and they served other gods.” Now Terah is pointed out here, that is Abraham’s father, as serving other gods, so he evidently drifted into idolatry. Now remember, this is the holy line, this is the line of people that God chose to preserve his truth, and the man who was Abraham’s father was an idolator. OK that shows you how far things had slipped, or drifted in Abraham’s day. Noah was dead, Shem was way off in Italy. Eber was way off in Greece, or who knows where, since he was apparently always moving around, and thus the term Hebrew or Migrant, Pilgrim, somebody whose always on the move…So God actually had to call Abraham, to begin to restore the truth. It seems to be evident that Abraham didn’t have the truth either. But he didn’t have anybody to teach it to him, that his own father was an idolator. And there he was, living in the land of the Chaldeans, they didn’t have the truth, that was the land, remember, of Nimrod, Semiramis and Horus. That was the very center of paganism. So when Abraham came on the scene, the truth of God had just about died out in that area of the world. And so we have come to a very significant time in God’s plan, that God is getting ready to dispose of the patriarchal system, and to begin through Abraham the development of another way of dealing with the world. Now you recall that God dealt through the patriarchs, God dealt through Abraham, and then he developed the nation of Israel, he dealt with the world through Israel, that is to be his model nation, he dealt with people through Judges, he dealt with people through the kings, and through the Prophets, as they would yield to him, and then finally through his Son Jesus Christ and then on down to the Church [i.e. the Greater Body of Christ]. So God has used various means of dealing with the world. And it is with Abraham that a very significant change took place, that is, the beginning of the nation of Israel. Abraham then had to learn truth. We can get here from Josephus that Abraham had to first of all prove the very existence of a Creator God, and come out with a booklet Does God Exist? Sound familiar doesn’t it? But that’s what it amounted to, that’s what Josephus is saying here, that Abraham proved the existence of a Supreme Creator God, one God who commanded and controlled all of the heavenly bodies, and of course the Creator of all life on the earth as well. Now Abraham then had to learn the plan of God, the doctrines of God, bit by bit, piece by piece, he had to grow the faith and knowledge of Jesus Christ, he didn’t just have it all poured into him, and it took a lot of time, years and years went by. Abraham sinned, he made mistakes, he was married too many times, he took concubines that he should not have ever done. He had sons that he should have never had. He lied about Sarah his wife. And so he had to grow in faith, he had to grow in knowledge, and as he learned these things he repented, he was corrected of God, he grew in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ. So you see God was dealing with this man to start something new. And back here in the Book of Revelation, and in chapter 3 and verse 1, this very same condition existed when Mr. Herbert Armstrong was involved, and it existed at several other times in the history of mankind as well, there is a quote that one of our men dug up from a man named Coombs, he wrote a history of the Waldensians, the Waldensians were a religious group there during the Middle Ages (see https://unityinchrist.com/history/revivals3.htm and https://unityinchrist.com/history/revivals4.htm). But anyway, in the course of describing the history of the Waldensians, he made the statement that many times during the course of history, the light of truth was flickering out, until it was almost ready to go out, but just about the time it was ready to go out, God would raise somebody up, and this person would then restore his truth. And we know some of these people’s names, like Constantine of Maninali, and Peter de Waldo, that God raised those men up, and they restored the truth of God for a period of time, then it began to flicker out again, and God would raise somebody up again. And here in Revelation 3 and verse 1 it says “And unto the angel of the church in Sardis write; These things saith he that hath the seven Spirits of God, and the seven stars; I know thy works, that thou hast a name, that thou livest, and art dead. Be watchful and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die: for I have not found thy works perfect before God.” (verses 1-2) the light of truth was just about ready to go out, and that’s the time that God raised Mr. Armstrong up in 1927 and began restoring his truth. [Those within the Worldwide Church of God believed, and I believe accurately, that the churches of God Mr. Armstrong had come out of, which go all the way back to the churches of God that had been around London in the 1600s, and the 1660s in the colony of Rhode Island, and then all the way across the United States to Oregon in the late 1800s was indeed the Sardis era of the Sabbath-keeping Churches of God, which can trace their roots to the Sabbath-keeping Churches of God going all the way back to Asia Minor of the 300s AD (see https://unityinchrist.com/history/historycog1.htm)] Mr. Armstrong had to learn it the same way Abraham did, but Mr. Armstrong had an advantage in that he had the Bible, and Abraham had to do a great deal more on his own, and rely a great deal more I’m sure on family tradition and legends and things of that nature [but he was also relying on Yahweh God]. But now we have the advantage of God’s inspiration of Moses and others. Now, back in Genesis 12 in verse 1. Let’s focus on another word, or another two words. First phrase, “Now the LORD had said unto Abram,” did you ever notice that before? I never did until today, at least it never registered in my mind. That’s in the past-perfect tense, “had said,” it happened some time in the past, at an undetermined time or an indefinite time, God had already told Abraham to get out of his country. By the time that this event in chapter 12 occurred. Now hold your finger there, and go back to Acts again, the Book of Acts, where Stephen is talking about Abraham. And in chapter 7, verse 2, “And he said, Men, brethren, and fathers, hearken; The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Charan. And said unto him, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and come into the land which I shall shew thee. Then came he out of the land of the Chaldeans, and dwelt in Charan: and from thence, when his father was dead, he removed him into this land, wherein ye now dwell.” (verses 2-4) So Abraham did not leave [Haran] until after his father was dead. Now let’s go back to Genesis 11 now. Now notice verse 28, “And Haran died before his father Terah in the land of his nativity, in Ur of the Chaldees.” then in verse 31, “And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran his son’s son, and Sarai his daughter in law, his son Abram’s wife; and they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan; and they came unto Haran, and dwelt there. And the days of Terah were two hundred and five years: and Terah died in Haran.” (verses 31-32) Now what we’re able to determine from this, very strong possibility, that Christ [as the pre-Incarnate Yahweh-God] actually appeared to Abraham twice, the one time, motivated even Terah to go with Abraham from Ur to Haran. In Haran Terah died. Then God appeared, that is Christ [as Yahweh, Jesus actually refers to this in John 8:56-58], and told him to get out, and then he left from Haran, as it says in verse 5 of Genesis 12, and went into Canaan. Now, how long were they in Haran? The Bible doesn’t say, but it gives a little indication. In verse 5, “And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son, and all their substance that they had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten in Haran; and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan; and into the land of Canaan they came.” OK, “all the souls they had gotten” now did Abraham leave alone? No. He had Sarai, he had Lot. Who else did he have? He had Susanna, remember, this was still 1942-41BC period, he had Susanna, he had the baby, Acahim with him. Now who else? It says that all of their substance, “and all of the souls that they had gathered.” Now how many were there? In Genesis 14 it says that Abraham had an army of 318 men. Now that was his personal guard. Now they had cattle, it took people to take care of the cattle, didn’t it. Now I’m not going to fill in all the details, but it is quite possible that there were as many as somewhere between a thousand and two thousand people that went with Abraham. When you start adding up the armed guards, 318, those people had wives, they had children, there were cattle, there were shepherds, there were weavers, there were all kinds of servants. Remember, Abraham was a king, he wasn’t any ding of ding-a-lings, he was a royal person. And he took with him “the souls that they had gotten,” Abraham might have preached, and people who he had converted went with him as well. So there was quite a retinue, without a doubt, that went out of Haran with him, into Canaan…So his group was not tiny. Let’s see, what time is it here, ok, 20 to 9. Now if we can understand Abraham’s movement, and try to get a feeling for the situation that he was in. Maybe we can relate to him a little bit better. Now remember he fled for his life, went to Austria [as the Austrian Chronicle shows], stayed there for three years, came back to get his wife and child, no doubt with every intention of gathering up his substance, as much as he possibly could, going back to Austria and there living out his life. Now this is when God undoubtedly intervened, visibly, and said ‘Abraham, I have other plans, you’ve chosen the land that you want to, now I’m going to direct you to a different land that I have chosen for you.’ I want you to try to think of the sacrifice that that man was making. I’ll tell you, I think that God rewards us in accordance for what we give up. I think that that principle is shown there in Luke the 18^th chapter, where Jesus said ‘that there’s no man who has given up father, mother, sister, brother, lands and houses and things, who will not be rewarded, manifold more, in this present time and in the world to come life everlasting.’ I think that he not only rewards us for what we have to sacrifice and give up, but also for our works as well. Now there’s no doubt, we know that Abraham is going to be right under Jesus Christ, there’s nobody among men whose going to be higher than Abraham. And I think that that is evident in what he gave up, as well as his works. When he decided to cast his lot with God, rather than to try to impress his own decision upon the group and go back to Austria, that he recognized that he was giving up all claims to rulership, of all the Semitic peoples, at the very least, he was the rightful heir of all the Semitic peoples on earth [what he’s saying is, all the descendants of Shem, listed in Genesis 10:21-31]. And those Semitic peoples were destined to become the most dominant people on earth. Maybe not the most popular, but they were without a doubt, destined to become the most dominant family on earth, the descendants of Shem. Now I am sure that Abraham had a sense of destiny, he had a sense of history, he was no dumb-dumb ding-a-ling, and when he made that decision to go with God to a land where he didn’t know, into a future that was very uncertain, that he was giving up all the security and the wealth of being king of the Semitic people(s) for a very uncertain future. And you understand of course, that God’s going to give it all back to him. And he’s not only going to become king of the Semitic peoples, but he’s going to become king of the people who came from Ham, and Japheth as well [log onto https://www.unityinchrist.com/kingdomofgod/MillennialKingdomofGod.pdf and scroll to and read from pages 49-53]. Abraham is going to be under Christ as king over the whole earth. Now he made a very momentous decision.

Abram & Sarai In Egypt

You know, it is stated so simply in the Bible, “So Abram departed,” (verse 4a) I’ll tell you, there was an awful lot of history and an awful lot of pressure on that man. And I think that in accordance with the reward…and queen, whether she received the name when she married him and became queen, or whether that was her name from birth or something that had been God-inspired because of what he had in mind for her, I don’t know. But at any rate, that’s what her name means [he must be talking about Sarah, some of the tape got cut off]. In Genesis 17, and in verse 15, “And God said unto Abraham, As for Sarai thy wife, thou shalt not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall her name be. And I will bless her, and give thee a son also of her: yea, I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of people shall be of her.” (verses 15-16) Now like Abraham, she underwent a name change, and the name Sarah comes from the same root. Now Adam Clarke in his commentary on this verse says that Sarai seems to refer to her position in the government within the patriarchal family. Whereas Sarah refers to Sarah’s position in the government over nations. Now if that’s true, it shows you, it gives you a little indication that Sarah’s going to be up there on the same level with Abraham, and perhaps his partner in ruling under Christ. Interesting concept. You know, those of us who are husband and wife, and converted, will we go on in the Kingdom, those of us who are married, to be working together? Maybe, maybe this gives us a little bit of an insight. Better learn to work together [he laughs]. Now, in Genesis 20, and in verse 12, Abraham is speaking, he says [speaking to Abimelech king of Gerar], “And yet indeed she is my sister; she is the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother; and she became my wife.” Sarah was his half-sister. Now Adam Clarke again says that Terah first married a woman named Yona, and from her Abraham came. Then she died, and he married a woman named Teativita, and from her came Sarai, Sarah, so they both have the same father, but different mothers. OK now, back in Genesis 12 and in verse 11, “And it came to pass, when he was come near to enter into Egypt, that he said unto Sarai his wife, Behold now, I know that thou art a fair woman to look upon: therefore it shall come to pass, when the Egyptians shall see thee, that they shall say, This is his wife: and they will kill me, but they will save thee alive.” (verses 11-12) now this word “fair” can go in one of two directions, maybe both, to be correct. It means that she was, it says that Mentuhotep was famous for digging wells, so thus they had water during the famine, thus that’s where Abraham headed, ‘Hey they’ve got water in Egypt,’ so he went down there with all of his retinue. Now, Rawlinson also reveals that Mentuhotep had a harem, and in fact, archaeologists dug up where this man’s harem was, they have located mummies, hairpieces, pieces of jewelry and things like that, that were apparently buried with these women. Now, let’s see if I can find it, verse 14, “And it came to pass, that, when Abram was come into Egypt, the Egyptians beheld the woman that she was very fair. The princes also of Pharaoh saw her, and commended her before Pharaoh: and the woman was taken into Pharaoh’s house.” (verses 14-15) Now he evidently had people going out through the land to find the fairest of the fair, so that he could have them in his harem. Now what do you think happened when these servants of his saw this blond woman? ‘Now there’s something that the Pharaoh would like, because all the other women are dark, olive-skinned, black haired,’ that’s the way most Egyptians are, you’ve seen pictures of Egyptians. Now wouldn’t it be nice to have this jewel of a blond woman in the harem? Now you can see all of the servants beating a path back to him to be the first one to tell him about this woman who was blond, and thus getting in with the king, with the Pharaoh, and that’s undoubtedly what happened. A statue has been found of Mentuhotep, he’s a short man, the description of it is being a man of a lot of energy, great deal of dynamic power. So, I’m going to read to you from Josephus again, about this episode, “Now after this, when a famine had invaded the land of Canaan, and Abram had discovered that the Egyptians were in a flourishing condition, he disposed to go down to them, both to partake of the plenty they enjoyed, and to become an auditor of their priests, and to know what they said concerning the gods.” now remember this when we get back to it, “Now seeing that he was to take Sarai with him, and was afraid of the badness of the Egyptians with regard to women, lest the king should kill him on the occasion of his wife’s great beauty, he contrived this device.” and we know what it was, “Now when he was coming to Egypt it happened to Abram as he supposed it would, for the fame of his wife’s beauty was greatly talked of, for which reason Pharaoh the king of Egypt would not be satisfied with what he was reported of her, but would needs see her for himself, and was preparing to enjoy her, but God put a stop to his unjust inclinations by sending in a distemper and a sedition against his government, and when he enquired of the priests how he might be freed from his calamities, they told him that his miserable condition was derived from the wrath of God on account of…[tape ceases here for a bit]…Well we ended the last Bible study with the event of the last part of chapter 12, that is of Genesis, remember that Abraham is in Egypt, he’s been driven there by a famine, as it shows in verse 10, where it says that Abram journeyed going still on towards the south, and there was a famine in the land, and Abram went down “into Egypt to sojourn there; for the famine was grievous in the land.” So that’s why he was there in the first place, but remember he had with him Sarai, Lot, Susanna, Hagar [no, I believe Hagar was given to Abram by Pharaoh during this incident], Acahim who was a baby at that time, and a large retinue of servants, of cattle. And it’s very likely that just from what Genesis 14 tells us about size of his personal armed guard, or bodyguard or whatever you want to call it, his army, that considering all that he and Lot had together, there might very well have been in excess of 1,000 people. I have read a source that says that it could very possibly have been as high as 2,000 people who were in Abraham’s armed entourage. That’s an entirely different picture than one could get from even some theological sources, which tend to look upon Abraham as just a single individual moving around with his family, and Lot thrown in for good measure, couple of donkeys and a couple of cattle. But as we have been seeing, Abraham was not that kind of an individual. He was a very well-known and, and though he was also a respected individual, he was also a very much disliked individual as well, because of the things he was publishing, as we showed the last time, there in his homeland, publishing things about God being a Creator, about God being a single God, that he was not a whole polytheistic type of religion that the people of the land had. So he got a great deal of persecution upon himself. Remember the year is about 1940BC, close as we’re able to determine, 1940BC. Sarai as the Bible says here a little bit later, is a beautiful woman, and as we also told you, it’s quite possible that she was a blond, the Hebrew kind of gives that indication as well, that she was very fair as it says in the King James here in verse 11, that she was a fair woman. So the word can go either way, she either could have been fair complexioned, or she was very definitely a very good looking woman as well. So she had been taken into the Pharaoh’s household, for the purpose of becoming a part of his harem. Now that Pharaoh’s name, I will give it to you again, the last time I gave you only one name, Mentuhotep II. However he has two names, and if you’re ever reading anything about Egyptian history you may come across the first name that I’m going to give here, it’s I’ll spell it for you, N E B H E P E T R E, N E B H E P E T R E, actually the two names go together, Nebheptre, Mentuhotep-II, I’ll say Mentuhotep-II because that’s a lot easier. Now again, if you ever do any reading in ancient history, one of the things that we do have to be very careful about, is depending upon who wrote the history, a name might be assigned to an individual and you think that he’s somebody that you’ve never run across before, and actually you have run across him before, he’s just been identified in another writer’s writings as under a different name. Nimrod, for instance has several names, so did Semiramis, the Egyptians called her Isis, the Babylonians called her Semiramis, the Palestinians call her, the Canaanites called her Ashtaroth. And I believe it’s up around where present-day Syria is, they called her Ishtar, or Easter, from which we get the name of that day, Easter. So these ancient characters had several different names, and we’ll mention a couple of them just a little bit later on.

The Egypt That Abram Stepped Into

But Mentuhotep-II was of dynasty 11 of Thebes, again, just for the purposes of identifying him. [From a chart on page 9 of “Atlas of Ancient Egypt” by John Baines & Jaromir Malek, “Middle Kingdom 2040-1640BC, 11^th Dynasty (all Egypt) 2040-1991BC,” his dynasty is described on page 40, par. 1-3] He was of Dynasty 11 of Thebes. Now that dynasty began in 2035BC and lasted 143 years until 1892BC. Now again if you look back into Egyptian history, there is some confusion because Egyptian writers wanted to brag about their country’s ancientness, and so writers like Manetho, who was probably the most well-known Egyptian historian, had a tendency to string the dynasties together end-to-end, that is Dynasty-2 followed Dynasty-1, and Dynasty-3 followed Dynasty-2, and Dynasty-4 followed Dynasty-3. However when later researchers began to look into it, they found that that was not the way it was. The way it was, was that Egypt was a confederation of city-states, the foremost well-known are Memphis, Thebes, Thinis and Hieracula or something like that. When I look at it I think I’ll be able to say it Heracleopolis. And so there would be one dynasty reigning in Thinis, another dynasty reigning in Thebes, another dynasty in Memphis, and a fourth dynasty in Heracleopolis. OK, and they overlapped somewhat. You see, one would go for a certain number of years, and the next one would stop or start, and a third one would be going on maybe when both of them were going on. As I said, what the Egyptian writers did, they put them all one after another in order, and made Egypt seem as though it was very ancient. But it just was not so. So here we have a Dynasty 11 of Thebes, was actually ruling just about 300 years after the Flood. And it was into this period of time that Abraham stepped into Egyptian history. So Mentuhotep-II was the most outstanding ruler of this particular dynasty. Now he began ruling in 1962BC, he ruled all the way down to 1911, a 51-year reign, a very long one. Now according to Rawlinson who was one of the more famous modern, I mean modern within the last 100 years, historian [Egyptologist], said that Mentuhotep was famous for two things, at least in his perception, one, that he dug wells all over the place, and thus he enabled Egypt to have a more continuous supply of water. And two, he is noted for being the first man or the first ruler, let me put it that way, the first king that openly admitted to having a harem. So, from what it says in the Bible, it’s not surprising that Sarai was very quickly introduced to the Pharaoh, being a very beautiful woman, very possibly a blond woman who was strikingly different than your ordinary Egyptian, who was olive-skinned and black haired. So that would seem to be a plum to get hold of and to make part of your harem, if you were that kind of an individual, which he was. Now he was really significant for something that was far more important than either of those two things. And this has a great deal to with our story with Abraham. Egypt was a confederation of city-states, and there was constant warfare between these four main ones. Now you remember I mentioned to you again before, that as best we’re able to determine, Noah died in 2019BC. Noah was, for all intensive purposes, the patriarch of the entire family on earth. He passed that patriarchy onto Shem. Now Shem, as can very clearly be seen from Egyptian history, was ruling over Egypt until the time of Noah’s death. In just a little bit I’ll give you Shem’s Egyptian name. When Noah died in 2019BC, Shem had to leave Egypt. Noah died in Italy. Shem left Egypt and went to Italy to assume the reigns that had been passed on to him by Noah. Now Shem appears in Egyptian history as a man named S E M E M P S E S, Semempses, almost sounds like the city of Memphis, he is also called Semsem, S E M S E M. That incidentally means “the Great Shem,” Semsem means The Great Shem. And incidentally he had another name or two which I could not dig up on short notice today. Again it just simply depends on whose doing the writing, and what they called, if somebody was writing for Dynasty-12 or so or he mentioned Dynasty-1, of which Shem was a ruler, Shem was in Dynasty-1, he would call him by maybe a different name. But one thing they all have a tendency to agree on is dates. And it says in several Egyptian histories, that Semsem or Semempses left rulership in 2019BC, now that’s very plain. So that’s when Shem’s rule ended there, he did not die, he just left. Now when he left, the Egyptians record that war broke out almost immediately, that is, between these four city-states. But primarily the war was between Thebes and this Heracleopolis, H E R A C L E O P O L I S. Now they were squabbling over a third city that both of them wanted to control, that third one was Thinis, and Thinis was the city from which Shem ruled, Thinis today is called Abydos, same place but just a different name, you can look on a modern map and you can see it there [see https://www.worldhistory.org/image/12990/map-of-ancient-egypt/]. And some of these other cities continue to exist, Thebes is still there, so is Memphis still there. Heracleopolis has a different name now, it’s very similar but I can’t think of it’s modern name. So this war broke out between these two over the control of Tanis. Well in 1954BC, the Theban dynasty, which was Dynasty 11, under Mentuhotep won a pretty good sized victory, and they gained the upper hand, although there was still continuous warfare from one place to another from time to time. Now incidentally, the name Pharaoh even implies that Egypt was a confederation of city-states. The name Pharaoh means “Great House,” which indicates there were lesser houses, or lesser dynasties. And so the Pharaoh-ship shifted from one place to the other, it was not always centered in the same city. It shifted from one place to the other depending upon which one of these city-states was able to gain the upper hand. And so at one time the Pharaoh would be from Dynasty 11, and another time it would be from a different dynasty, centered in a different city. And so it went back and forth. That’s why Dynasty 11 is counted from 2035BC to 1892BC. So this was the period of time that Abraham stepped into Egyptian history. Now remember, he left Ur of the Chaldees, went to Haran, and into Palestine around 1942BC, and he then went into Canaan, and no doubt spent a bit of time there, and was into Egypt, without doubt, sometime around 1940BC, and probably a little bit earlier, it could probably be around 1941BC. Incidentally, if you want another Biblical proof that Egypt was a confederation of states, rather than one solid country, as we would view the United States, you can look in 2^nd Kings 7, and verse 6, where it very plainly says that the king of Israel, singular, one king of Israel, was having problems with the “kings,” plural, of Egypt, that would indicate a confederation. So that’s why if you read Egyptian history, you will always see things about the dynasties, so these dynasties tended to be parallel, not end-to-end. So it makes it very difficult to piece Egyptian history together in a logical, or chronological sequence.

The Effect Abram Had On Egypt

OK, I’m going to read from Josephus again, this is from “Antiquities of the Jews” it’s from Book 1, and from chapter 8, the first two paragraphs, as we have to understand what Abraham did. “Now after this when a famine had invaded the land of Canaan, and Abram had discovered that the Egyptians were in a flourishing condition, he was disposed to go down to them, both to partake of the plenty they enjoyed, and to become an auditor of their priests.” Now if any of you have gone to college, you know there are usually some students who are auditing a class, that is, they are sitting in on, listening to the discussion. OK now, that was part of apparently Abraham’s intention, he was a very intelligent fellow, always wanted to learn, and he wanted to see if these people had anything, “and to know what they said concerning the gods, designing either to follow them, if they had better notions than he, or to convert them to a better way if his own notions proved the truest.” Now seeing he was taking Sarai with him, and is afraid of the madness of the Egyptians with regard to women, “Lest the king should kill him on occasion of his wife’s great beauty, he contrived this device, he pretended to be her brother, and directed her in a dissembling way to pretend the same. For he said it would be for their benefit. Now as soon as he came into Egypt it happened that Abram, as he supposed it would, for the fame of his wife’s beauty was greatly talked of, and for which reason Pharaoh the king of Egypt would not be satisfied with what he was reported of her, but would needs see her for himself, and was preparing to enjoy her. But God put a stop to his unjust inclinations by sending upon him a distemper and a sedition against his government.” You can see here in Genesis 12 and in verse 17, it says “The LORD plagued Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai Abram’s wife.” Now Josephus adds a bit more information, but also apparently a kind of rebellion, a sedition broke out within the government. ok, “When he enquired of the priests about how he might be freed from these calamities, they told him that his miserable condition was derived from the wrath of God on account of his inclinations to abuse the stranger’s wife. Now he then out of fear of Sarai and who she was and who it was that she brought along with her, and when he found out the truth he excused himself to Abram, that supposing the woman to be his sister and not his wife, he set his affections on her as desiring an affinity with him by marrying her, but not as incited by lust to abuse her.” Now that’s questionable. “He also made him a large present in money, and gave him leave to enter into conversation with the most learned among the Egyptians, upon which conversations his virtue and his reputation became the more conspicuous than they had been before.” Now did you catch the end of that? He gave Abram a large present of money, and gave him leave, or permission, to enter into conversation with the most learned among the Egyptians, from which conversation his virtue, that is Abraham’s, and his reputation became the more conspicuous than they had been before. So you see, all this thing did, God worked it out, I’m sure, so that Abraham had the opportunity then presented to him the very thing that he apparently designed to do in the first place anyway. But it certainly facilitated matters to have the king or the Pharaoh open up the door for you. And so he was brought into the very presence of the most learned men there in Egypt. Now to paragraph 2, “For, whereas the Egyptians were formerly addicted to different customs, and despised one another’s sacred and accustoms rights,” that’s another reason why there was so much warfare between those city-states, “and were very angry one with another on that account, Abram conferred with each of them, and confuting the reasonings they made use of every one for their own practices, demonstrated that such reasonings were vain and void of truth. Whereupon he was admired by them and these conferences as a very wise man, and one of great sagacity, when he discoursed on any subject he undertook, and this not only understanding it, but in persuading other men also that were sent to him. He communicated to them arithmetic and delivered to them the science of astronomy, for before Abram came into Egypt, they were unacquainted with those parts of learning, for that science came from the Chaldeans to Egypt and from thence to the Greeks also.” [Obviously this knowledge came to the Egyptians from the Chaldeans via Abraham.] OK now, it should begin to become apparent to you, who have some knowledge of the history of the Bible or of Biblical characters, of what God was doing through this man. But just as surely as Mentuhotep was bringing political stability to Egypt, after a long almost 100 years of division and strife, Mentuhotep was able to unite the city-states into one united nation under him. Now he was no doubt a very vigorous, ambitious, ah probably looking back on it, maybe very hard, austere and cruel person as well, looking at it from a Biblical standpoint. But he was uniting the country. Now it was not yet complete, he did not completely unite the country until 1935BC, that he was just about ready to unite it, by the time Abraham stepped on the scene, there in about 1940BC. Not just as surely as Mentuhotep united them, and began to provide political stability, so Abraham, after this confrontation with Mentuhotep over Sarai, was permitted to have conversations and talks and so forth with the educated of the land of Egypt, convincing them in many cases I’m sure, that their way of thinking was wrong in the areas of religion, in the areas of education and particularly as Josephus mentions here, mathematic science, that is astronomy, and religion. Now you can imagine, in a very much disunited country, what it would be like. That one group of people would use one system of weights and measures, of boundaries and things of that nature, and have a different religion. Another one would have a wholly different set, and a third one would have a third different set, much like it was in Europe just up until the Common Market began to form. You know, you ride a train through Germany, and you come to France, and you have to undergo a complete change, because the rails are a different gauge than they are in Germany, because they use a somewhat different system. So what Abraham did is that he gave them really what amounted to a much better system of mathematics than they themselves had discovered on their own, or that they may previously had had, but lost in the mean time in all of their fightings and squabbling’s, and so he re-established a common system of weights and measures, a way of marking boundaries, he very likely, in fact I think Josephus even mentioned it here, somewhere, that he introduced them to a calendar that worked reasonably well, that is the Babylonian calendar, or the Chaldean calendar, something that they had not had before, then with a common set of weights and measures and boundaries, being able to survey, so that they were then able to establish [a much better system] than they previously had had. He put into the nation of Egypt a very much more refined culture than they previous had had. Now what the historians say is this, the Dynasty 11 gave rise to Dynasty 12, also of Thebes, and that Dynasty 12 was the greatest of all the Egyptian dynasties, that was the one that produced a very flourishing nation that existed by the time Joseph came into Egypt. Now that dynasty began in 1892, at the end of Dynasty 11, and it lasted until 1680BC. Now Joseph came into Egypt in 1734BC, let me take that back, Joseph came into rulership in Egypt as Prime Minister in 1734BC, and he held that position for 66 years, until 1668BC. So that’s the period of time that Jacob and his sons came down to Egypt, and they actually entered into Egypt in 1726BC, getting toward the end of the 7^th year of Josephs reign, remember the 7 lean years and the 7 fat years and so forth, and so it was 1726BC when the Israelites came into Egypt [or 280 years from the 7^th year of the famine, and the entry of Josephs 12 brothers and their families, to the Exodus in 1446BC, for accurate dating and history of the Exodus, see https://unityinchrist.com/lamb/exodus1.html The dating Mr. Rittenbaugh is using is only off from the actual dates of the Exodus by about 40 years, which is not bad, concerning the fact that the dating of Egyptian history up until really recently, has been so scrambled, due to what he has shown here. Now almost all recent historians are saying the Exodus was in 1446BC, under the reign of Amenhotep-II, supreme Pharaoh of Upper & Lower Egypt.] And by that time Egypt was the world’s leading nation. Now maybe we can brag about Abraham a little bit, but I think he had a great deal to do with it, because he was the man, I think without a doubt, who laid the foundation for their educational system and especially in the areas of science, mathematics and astronomy. So what it did is it provided the beginnings of a refined culture that made it possible for Egypt to grow, and provided the kind of environment in which God later planned to bring his children, you know, the children of Israel, his nation, into, and make it possible for them to grow into a nation within the confines of a very prosperous nation, that is, Egypt. OK, one little sidelight, archeologists discovered a novel, I think today we’d call it a historical novel, that was written during the time of Dynasty IX, now Dynasty-9 believe it or not, even though it has an earlier number than Dynasty XI, it is actually parallel to Dynasty XI, it’s assigned from 2035BC until 1626BC, it’s a very long dynasty. However, this historical novel, the author is unknown, but they found it in clay tablets, it tells a story about a Semitic stranger who came into Egypt, and the Pharaoh consulted with this Semitic stranger. Now the stranger is unnamed, remember it’s a novel. But the Pharaoh consulted with this stranger, and between the two of them they came up with a great deal of wisdom, that’s the way it’s presented. But in order to make the Egyptians look good, the author of this novel said that the Pharaoh knew this wisdom all along, and he just wanted to hear this stranger confirm it [sounds about right 😊]. You can take it for what it’s worth, but very interesting that it should be written apparently during that same period of time or maybe just after that time Abraham was there.

The Kind Of Man That Abram Was, The Way We Should Be

OK now, let’s go onto Genesis chapter 13, verse 1, “And Abram went up out of Egypt, he, and his wife, and all that he had, and Lot with him, into the south.” that is the south of the land of Canaan, now this would put the time, at the very earliest in early 1938BC. Now it could have been some time in 1939BC. Now the reason I say very early 1938BC as the very latest that he could have done this, is because we know definitely the date for chapter 14, this thing is generally in chronological sequence. And so the events of chapter 13, as you’re going to see very clearly, have to precede chapter 14. So, probably the best date we can assign would be sometime in 1939. Now verse 2, “And Abram was very rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold.” Now that’s an interesting statement, first thing we might ask, is who says God hates the rich? If there was anybody more beloved than Abraham I’d like to know who it was. God is not against rich people. He’s against the attitude that rich people have toward money. Now we’re going to see that Lot was very rich too, not just Abraham, but Lot was very, very wealthy as well. And incidentally, just again to go off on a little tangent, this world has a tendency to teach us that most of the servants of God were kind of fanatical weirdos, you know, that they went about in rags, ranting and raving, groveling around in the dirt, had long hair and scraggly beards and all tied up in knots like they’ve never combed it before, wild-eyed looking. I’ll tell you, the Bible record just does not show that. Almost every one of these people mentioned in the Bible were rich men, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were rich! I mean, they had money running out of their ears. David was rich, Solomon was rich, Samuel was rich, and on and on, Moses came right out of the Pharaoh’s household. And according to Egyptian history he was ready to become the next Pharaoh, he was rich! And he was no dum-dum when it comes to what was upstairs. And it’s the same way with Abraham. He was no ding-a-ling that God rescued out of a bad situation, he was a highly intelligent, capable individual, a man capable of using his noodle to become wealthy, which he did. I’m sure that he employed hundreds upon hundreds of people. And Jacob did too, as he began to grow older. [And Jacob started from scratch, working for his conniving uncle Laban.] OK, it says they went to Bethel, which is of course up near Jerusalem, and Abram camped between Bethel and Hai, at the place of the altar he erected before (verse 3). “And Lot also, which went with Abram, had flocks, and herds, and tents. And the land was not able to bear them, that they might dwell together: for their substance was great, so that they could not dwell together.” (verses 5-6) You know when I get a picture of Abraham I begin to get a picture of thousands of head of cattle and sheep, that’s the picture I get. Maybe yours isn’t quite the same. In addition to that, he had horses and camels as well. OK, verse 7, “And there was a strife between the herdmen of Abram’s cattle and the herdmen of Lot’s cattle: and the Canaanite and the Perizzite dwelled then in the land. And Abram said unto Lot, Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and thee, and between my herdmen and thy herdmen; for we be brethren. Is not the whole land before thee? separate thyself, I pray thee, from me: if thou wilt take the left hand, then I will go to the right; or if thou depart to the right hand, then I will go to the left.” (verses 7-9) Now it shows Abraham’s magnanimity, that he was willing to take what was left, which is not the way most rich people are. Most rich people want more all the time. But Abram did not have that attitude, he said ‘Lot, look, you take first choice Lot, and whatever you take, I’ll take what’s left.’ Remember God had promised the whole land to him, and so it was Abraham’s right to give it away, and he gave Lot first choice of the whole land of Canaan. So, Lot begins a very interesting study here, and it’s something that we need to be aware of, really. Let’s look at what happened with Lot, verse 10, “And Lot lifted up his eyes, and beheld all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered every where, before the LORD destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, even as the garden of the LORD,” meaning the Garden of Eden, “like the land of Egypt, as thou comest unto Zoar.” Now imagine that, that here was this area that was very verdant, productive. Now again, try to erase from your mind the pictures of Palestine being nothing but sand and rocks. Because at this time it wasn’t sand and rocks, you see it was very verdant, and as we know, heavily forested, just like it is up in our mountains here, heavily forested. And apparently they got plenty of rain, it was green everywhere. And so what I want you to think of here, is Lot lifted up his eyes. Now there’s a very interesting progression, and so in lifting up his eyes, it’s sort of a figurative way of saying ‘He looked over the land,’ you see, he viewed it. Now he was picking out the best part for himself. It was a very natural inclination. But notice where it led him. Let’s go on to verse 12, after they made their choice, he decided to take the plain, Abraham said ‘Fine, I’ll take the mountains,’ and so he did, “Abram dwelled in the land of Canaan, and Lot dwelled in the cities of the plain, and pitched his tent toward Sodom.” Now you know what Sodom is, and what it represents. Now when Lot lifted up his eyes, he couldn’t help but see the cities down there, understanding that he was on a high place, looking over the valley, and so he first looked at Sodom. Now we find him pitched on the outside of the city. He’s getting a little bit closer, all the time. Now hold your finger there, and go ahead to chapter 14, and verse 12, “And they took Lot, Abram’s brother’s son, who dwelt in Sodom, and his goods, and departed.” Now you see, as time progresses, you see how the allurements of this very attractive sinful city was, first he looked at it, then he got close to it, now he’s inside of it! You see? Now look ahead in chapter 19, we’ll just jump ahead a little bit, in chapter 19 and verse 16, talking about Lot in verse 15, “And while he lingered, the men laid hold upon his hand, and upon the hand of his wife, and upon the hand of his two daughters; the LORD being merciful unto him: and they brought him forth, and set him without the city.” and they had to bring him out of the city. You see the way his attitude changed? And below it, you see what motivated it at the very beginning, was an idea “to get more for himself.” And the first thing you know, he was involved in the life of the city. You see, he gradually lost it. Whatever he had picked up from Abraham and his contact with him, it was very weakly ingrained within him, and so he lost it. Now there’s a very deep spiritual lesson there. And that is, you know, you and I, if we allow ourselves to snuggle up against something that we know is evil, it won’t be very long before the first thing you know we’re inside of it. And then, even though we might think that we’re not a part of it, whenever the opportunity comes to leave it, we’re still going to desire to stay on and linger within it, just like Lot did. So you have to do what Joseph did, don’t even go near the place in the first time. When the temptation arises, be willing to take a loss to get away, Joseph lost his sweater or his coat, or whatever it was that he had there [and then he lost his freedom, as Potiphar put him in prison]. So we can see that Lot was really lustful for the good life, La Dolce Vita was what he wanted. He wanted the wealth, the entertainment, the leisure, all he thought of when Abraham put this proposition to him, a very common businessman approach, ‘Will it pay?’ You see he didn’t ask the question like Abraham no doubt did, ‘Is it right?’ All he wanted to know is ‘Will it pay?’ And he no doubt saw the valley as being the area that was going to pay the most, and so that’s the way he went. It just shows you the difference between the two. Now Abraham on the other hand was willing to take a loss, even though he was the owner of the land, he was willing to take a loss, in order to make peace, in order to maintain it. There’s no doubt that illustrations like that, that made Paul say what he did here in 1^st Corinthians 6, when talking about a dispute between brothers, he says “I speak to your shame, is it so that there is not a wise man among you? No, not one that should be able to judge between his brothers, but brother goes to law with brother, and that before the unbelievers? Now therefore there is utterly a fault among you, because you go to law one with another. Why do you not rather take wrong?” ‘why don’t you suffer the indignity or take a loss? Why do you not allow yourself to be defrauded?’ You see, that’s what our spiritual father did. He was a peacemaker, and to his brother he didn’t go to war. He said, ‘Look, we want peace, you take the best part and I’ll take what’s left over.’ I’ll tell you, you can begin to understand, when you see story after story, example after example like this in this man’s life, he was a tremendous individual. Now we’ll skip ahead, in chapter 13, “And the LORD said unto Abram, after that Lot was separated from him, Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art northward, and southward, and eastward; and westward; for all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever.” (verses 14-15) So the promise there involved eternal life, that’s the only way that you can have an eternal inheritance would be to have eternal life to go with it.

The Crucial Role That Abraham Played In Shrinking The Assyrian Empire, So That Egypt Could Grow Great

OK, let’s jump up to Genesis chapter 14, “And it came to pass in the days of Amraphel king of Shinar, Arioch king of Ellasar, Chedorlaomer king of Elam, and Tidal king of nations; that these made war with Bera king of Sodom, and with Birsha king of Gomorrah, Shinab king of Admah, and Shemeber king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela, which is Zoar.” (verses 1-2) OK now, I’m going to read to you from Josephus again, Antiquities of the Jews, Book 1, chapter 9, paragraph 1. Now notice in the Bible, it does not identify where these kings were from, except to name cities. Now here we can go to an outside source, and at the beginning of the paragraph it says this, “At this time, when Assyrians had the dominion over Asia,” ok now, with that little clue, and doing some research in archeological findings, we can identify these people a little bit more firmly. Amraphel was a son of Horus, remember Horus. Amraphel was a son of Horus. He lived in what the archeologists now called Sumaria, Sumaria is called in the Bible “Shinar,” and later of course became Babylon. So he ruled in southern Mesopotamia. Now this was the land of Cush, of Nimrod, Semiramis and of course Horus. Now Arioch, now we’ve met him before, he was the fellow who persecuted Abraham, and was largely responsible for Abraham’s leaving Ur of the Chaldees in the first place. Arioch was another son of Horus, and he lived in northern Mesopotamia, Ellasar is just another name for Asshur. Remember Asshur is the father of the Assyrian people. He gave his name to a city, that is identified here Biblically as Ellasar, and so Arioch’s capital city was the city of Asshur or Ellasar. Now Chedorlaomer, he’s identified here as Elam, now Elam was that piece of ground or that country that lay between the River Jordan and the River Euphrates, now it didn’t occupy all of that land, but a major portion of it. So that was east of Jerusalem, and west of what then became Babylon. And later on, part of Palestine or Canaan was carved out of Elam. Remember the three tribes of Israel that stayed on the east side of the Jordan River? The half tribe of Manasseh, Gad and Reuben. And part of that territory was carved out of Elam, so that’s where Elam was. OK now, Tidal is identified here as “king of nations,” Tidal ruled in what is today Turkey, Asia Minor. There was a confederation of city-states there and he was the top dog in that confederation. OK now, when you put this together with what Josephus says there, you can begin to get a bit of the extent, an idea of the extent of the Assyrian empire at that time. That it stretched all the way from the Bosporus Dardanelles up northwest of Jerusalem and in a semicircle all the way into what is today present day northern Iraq, down into southern Iraq and into present day Iran, down to the Persian Gulf. It included all of that land inbetween, including present day Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq. The only thing that it did not include was Egypt. It included present-day Israel as well. Now you see, these kings of Sodom and Gomorrah were subject to these Assyrian kings, every one of these names incidentally is Assyrian, Amraphel, Arioch, Chedorlaomer and Tidal are all Assyrian names. OK, they then came to war with these five kings in the area of Canaan, it says in verse 3, “All these were joined together in the vale of Siddim, which is the salt sea.” So you know where that is. The Salt Sea is just southeast of Jerusalem and is at the end of the Jordan River [and I believe the actual sites for Sodom and Gomorrah are on the southwestern side of the Dead Sea, the salt sea]. Now look at verse 4, “Twelve years they served Chedorlaomer, and in the thirteenth year they rebelled.” Chedorlaomer is pointed out here being the leader of these other three Assyrian kings, at least on this expedition anyway. Now guess whose in the land? See Abraham’s in the land, in this 13^th year, and that 13^th year was 1939BC. “And in the fourteenth year came Chedorlaomer, and the kings that were with him, and smote the Rephaims in Ashteroth Karnaim, and the Zuzims in Ham, and the Emims in Shaveh Kiriathaim, and the Horites in the mount Seir, unto Elparan, which is by the wilderness.” Now the Rephaims were the giants that you read about in other parts of the Bible, and he mentions here the Emims, the Emims were also a race of very large men, and the Horites in verse 6, in mount Seir, you know where mount Seir is, that’s south of Palestine, so you can see how far they have gone with their conquest. In verse 7, “And they returned, and came to Enmishpat, which is Kadesh, and smote all the country of the Amalekites, and also the Amorites, that dwelt in Hazezontamar.” Kadesh is that area in which Petra is located. “And there went out the king of Sodom, and the king of Gomorrah, and the king of Admah, and the king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela (the same is Zoar;) and they joined battle with them in the vale of Siddim; with Chedorlaomer the king of Elam, and with Tidal king of nations, and Amraphel king of Shinar, and Arioch king of Ellasar; four kings with five.” (verse 8) And so we see then that the four kings of Assyria were victorious over the five kings of Canaan in verse 10, and then in verse 12 they made a mistake “And they took Lot, Abram’s brother’s son, who dwelt in Sodom, and his goods, and departed.” Well that made that righteous man angry, and he took off after them. Now you see with his brother’s son he was very conciliatory, but with the stranger he was not, he was ready to fight. “And there came one that had escaped, and told Abram the Hebrew; for he dwelt in the plain of Mamre the Amorite, brother of Eshcol, and brother of Aner: and these were confederate with Abram. And when Abram heard that his brother was taken captive, he armed his trained servants, born in his own house, three hundred and eighteen, and pursued them unto Dan.” (verses 13-14) Now these were servants born in his own house, how many people would it have taken to bring forth the birth of these 318? So it just gives you some kind of an idea of the size of Abraham’s entourage, to have an army of 318. Now granted that the populations were not large, as they are today. But in that day, Abraham’s entourage was a large one. So he took off with his crack troops, I guess the best way that you can put it, and sort of a private bodyguard, and this is what resulted. And I’m going to go to Josephus again, Book 1, chapter 10, paragraph 1, “When Abram heard of their calamity, he was at once afraid for Lot his kinsman, and pitied the Sodomites, his friends and neighbours, and thinking it proper to afford them assistance, he did not delay it, but marched hastily, and the fifth night,” that is a forced march for five nights, “fell upon the Assyrians near Dan.” Now Dan is in northern Palestine or Canaan, “for that is the name of the other spring of Jordan, and before they could arm themselves, he slew some as they were in their beds,” as he made a night attack, “and flew upon them, and before they could suspect any harm, and others who were not yet gone to sleep, but were so drunk they could not fight ran away, and Abram pursued after them, till on the second day he drove them in a body unto Hobah, a place belonging to Damascus, and thereby demonstrated that victory did not depend on multitude and number of hands, but the alacrity and courage of soldiers [can] overcome the most numerous bodies of men, while he got the victory over so great an army with no more than three hundred and eighteen of his servants, and three of his friends, all those who fled returned home ingloriously.” OK, now that’s what happened to that group of confederate Assyrians. Now down to verse 17, “And the king of Sodom went out to meet him after his return from the slaughter of Chedorlaomer, and of the kings that were with him, at the valley of Shaveh, which is the king’s dale.” When the archeologists look into history, all these kings died in the same year, 1938BC. Arioch’s reign is listed in Assyrians records ending in 1938BC, the same four, Amraphel, Chedorlaomer, and the same for Tidal. Now we know what Abraham did to them all, he killed them all. I don’t mean that he necessarily killed them personally, but his army was responsible for the death of all four of those kings. OK now, that caused a massive change in world history. Now remember what I described to you as being the scope of the Assyrian empire to that time, that it stretched all the way from the Bosporus Dardanelles, actually, it went further into Europe, but for the sake of our discussion here, all the way from the Bosporus Dardanelles to the Persian Gulf. Now in one fell swoop, in one night, Abraham’s army wiped out the four kings of these territories. Now what happened was, is that it threw Assyria into a very serious division. And the country, or the nation declined very rapidly, because immediately there was all kinds of internal strife in an effort for somebody to grab hold of the leadership within the nation [empire], to take the place of these four kings. But it didn’t work, the whole thing went downhill, it went downhill so far that Assyria began to shrink as a world power, and did not really come on the scene as a power again until the 700s BC. In the 700s BC we begin to see kings of the stature of Shalmaneser [726-722], Tilgath-pileser III, Sargon, and Pul, Pul was the first of the great Assyrian kings and began a dynasty that eventually resulted in Israel [the ten northern tribes] being overthrown between 721BC and 718BC [see https://unityinchrist.com/kings/3.html].

· Tilgath-pileser III/Pul (744-727 BC) – 2 Kings 15:19; 2 Kings 16:7; 1 Chron. ...

· Shalmaneser V (726-722 BC) – 2 Kings 17:3; 2 Kings 18:9.

· Sargon II (721-705 BC) – Isaiah 20:1.

· Sennacherib (704-681 BC) – 2 Kings 18-19; 2 Chron.

I think it was Sargon, was the one who actually conquered Israel, took them into captivity, and that’s what’s recorded there in 2^nd Kings 16, 17, and 18. So this vastly altered world history, because what it did is it completely threw world dominion out of balance, and what it did is it provided for Egypt the opportunity to become a great nation. Now remember, the Assyrian empire stretched from the Dardanelles down to the Persian Gulf and included Arabia, because those cities are mentioned here, Kadesh, and the Amalekites [the Amalekites hadn’t been born yet, but it’s talking about the territory the Amalekites would end up living in. Don’t forget, Moses was used by God to pen the first five books of the Bible, Genesis through Deuteronomy. So Moses is using place-names for territories known to him when he was writing Exodus through Deuteronomy, even though those territories being described in Genesis would have had their own Canaanite names at that time]. Assyria was right on the border-step of Egypt, where Abraham had just left, where Mentuhotep-II just united or was just in the process of uniting Egypt into one country. They, the Assyrians, were just about ready to go into Egypt and conquer it when Abraham pulled off this daring victory, and so it enabled Egypt to develop during a period of great tranquility, and become a wealthy and powerful nation, without having the harassment of anybody. Nobody came at Egypt during that period of time, they had virtually, except for internal problems, a long, long period of peace. So, it certainly looks to me, as though God intervened through Abraham to bring this to pass. Now why? Now consider this. I am sure, from the Biblical record, that God wanted Egypt to prosper, because this was the nation that he eventually was going to bring these descendants of Abraham into, where they could mature into a nation themselves, and during a period of tranquility and prosperity, which indeed did occur. He, God, wanted to reduce Assyria’s influence. Now again, why? Because the Assyrians were a very warlike people. You can read their history, they wanted to enforce organization, all German organization on whoever they conquered, so that they had one system of government and one religious system, one educational system throughout their empire. And they were very aggressive about it. And so if Assyria had continued to exist with all of their aggressiveness, they would very likely have attacked Egypt. So they were stopped. Now even if they had not attacked Egypt, when Israel came out of Egypt, and into Canaan, who would have been there to fight them? Well the Assyrians would have been. And the Assyrians with their aggressiveness, I am sure would not have permitted Israel to grow into a great nation, without challenging them. That’s their history, the Assyrians are a very aggressive people, and when somebody begins, they feel challenges them, they’ll go to war, practically at the drop of a hat, and they would have. So, it seems to me that God just intervened, and made it possible for those things to occur. The Egyptian people are a much more tolerant group of people, they’re not warlike. And the Egyptians today are not Egyptians, they are Arabs. But the Egyptians historically, have not…[transcript of the 2nd expository sermon from a series on The Historic Abraham, given by Mr. Rittenbaugh, a pastor in a Sabbath-keeping Church of God, 17 October 1979.]