Merits & Shortcomings of British-Israel, Part #15
This is the 15th critical review of the beliefs known collectively as British-Israel, and as with the first fourteen, we will address statements which W.H. Poole made in his book entitled Anglo-Israel Or, The British Nation: The Lost Tribes Of Israel (hereinafter A-I/BN). The purpose of this series is to confirm such a belief system where it is correct and to give constructive criticism where it is in error. With this paper we will explore more of the topics which Poole addresses, and we’ll evaluate whether his premises are valid or flawed. We will start this session by quoting Poole on page 68:
“THE GIRDLE.
“4. The colonial possessions of Israel were to encircle both continents. Deuteronomy xxxii, 8, ‘When the Most High divided the nations he set the bounds of the people according to their inheritance.’ ‘The Lord’s portion is his people, Israel is the (measuring) rod of his inheritance.’ ‘He hath determined the bounds of their habitation’.”
My critique: As I have shown before, Poole has a habit of misquoting Scripture. Deut. 32:8 actually says: “When the most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel.” To add to this, he didn’t identify from where he was quoting “He hath determined the bounds of their habitation.” The only passage that I could find that reads remotely like this is Acts 17:26, and to his credit, it does cross-reference with Deut. 32:8. Also, to Poole’s credit, the term “rod” is used along with the term “inheritance” at Psalm 74:2. To Poole’s discredit, an electronic search does not describe “rod” as “girdle”, “belt” or “circle”, let alone all three in any Hebrew or Greek word. Otherwise, I don’t disagree with his conclusions under this heading. Back to Poole:
“The ‘rod’ means girdle, belt, circle. So the possessions of Israel are to be so situated that they will bound, or encircle the other nations. Israel is to possess the ‘sides of the earth,’ the ‘coasts of the earth,’ the ‘ends of the earth,’ the ‘uttermost parts of the earth,’ the ‘uttermost boundaries of the everlasting hills.’ This could not be said of two nations. If, therefore, we find a nation holding this position, we find Israel.
“Now our vast possessions do positively encircle the great Gentile nations; we do occupy ‘the sea coasts;’ we do possess ‘the ends of the earth.’ Upon the empire of our Queen the sun never sets.
“The great Daniel Webster once said of Britain, ‘Her morning drum-beat, keeping time with the hours, encircles the earth with one unbroken strain of the martial airs of England.’
“Look at the map, and note how fully God has made good his promise. We surround the Eastern hemisphere with our possessions. Make the British Isles an observatory and look around, there is Heligoland, Gibraltar, Malta, Gambia, Sierra-Leone, Cape of Good Hope, Natal, Mauritius, Aden, Perim, Straits Settlements, India, Ceylon, Labuan, Northern, Western, and Southern Australia, Queensland, Tasmania, Hong-Kong, and fifteen Chinese ports; thus completing circle No. 1. The same is true of the Western hemisphere: there is Canada, Manitoba, British Columbia, Vancouvers Island, United States, Fiji, and other Pacific Islands, New Zealand, Falkland Islands, St. Helena, and Ascension Islands, British Guiana, Trinidad, Windward Islands, Granada, Barbados, St. Lucia, St. Vincent, Tobago, Leeward Islands, Antigua, Montserrat, St. Christopher, Nevis, Virgin Islands, Dominica, Jamaica, British Honduras, Turks Island, Bahamas, Bermuda, Nova-Scotia, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, and Newfoundland; so we complete circle No., 2. Thus we become, in our national history, a living power toprove God’s, inspired word.”
My critique: To Poole’s credit, it would be hard to argue that Great Britain does not fulfill, to a large degree, Yahweh’s promises to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob! Back to Poole:
“THE ISLES AND THE WASTES.
“5. Israel was to possess an extensive Gentile empire, and to possess the desolate or unoccupied lands and territories. Isaiah liv, 3, ‘Thou shall break forth on the right. hand and on the left; and thy seed shall inherit the Gentiles, and make the desolate cities to be inhabited.’ Isaiah xlix, 1: ‘Listen, O Isles, unto me, and hearken ye people from far.’
“‘8 Thus saith the Lord, in an acceptable time have I heard thee, and in a day of salvation have I helped thee: and I will preserve thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, to establish the earth, to cause to inherit the desolate heritages. 22 Thus saith the Lord God, behold, I will lift up mine hand to the Gentiles, and set up my standard to the people: and they shall bring thy sons in their arms,. and thy daughters shall be carried upon their shoulders.’
“‘To establish the earth, to cause to inherit the desolate heritages,’ and the reason given is ‘For Israel is graven upon the palms of my hands.’ [Isa. xlix, 16] This is to be ‘in the appointed time, in the latter days.’
“When the Roman poet conjured up in his prophetic fancy a temple, and games, and a theatre for the honour of Augustus, triumphant over the East, he saw in ivory and gold upon the temple gates, the Nile surging with flood and war, Asia conquered, and the mighty Ganges witnessing the subjugation of her sons. But we, too, had a place in that vision. Gigantic Britons, posted on either side, seemed to draw the tapestry that revealed the ever changing scene. Little did that poet think that those very Britons would one day raise the curtain, and present to the world a vast imperial assemblage such as met at Delhi in January 1877, to celebrate the assumption by Her Majesty Queen Victoria of the Eastern title of–
‘EMPRESS OF INDIA’
–the all powerful successor of the great Mogul. Was not that occasion a literal fulfilment of the divine promise,’ ‘Ye shall possess nations greater and mightier than yourselves,’ and ‘thy seed shall inherit the Gentiles?’ Then and there one sixth of the human race were cast upon our hands, no doubt for the wisest of purposes, and here recently there has been further inheriting of the Gentiles in the annexation of Transvaal, a territory 400,000 square miles, also Fiji, and Cyprus.
“It ought to be remembered that all these immense territories are ours in answer to prayer. The time was to come when that Island home would be too small for its inhabitants, and the cry was to go up to God, ‘Give us room that we may dwell, for the place is too straight for us,’ Isaiah xlix, 20; and the answer to that prayer is (Isaiah liv, 3):
“‘For thou shalt break forth on the right hand and on the left; and thy seed shall inherit the Gentiles, and make the desolate cities to be inhabited.’
“In filling up the desolate territories they find room for the surplus population of those crowded Isles. How farseeing was that venerable man of God, as he leaned upon his staff and called his sons to him, that he might tell them what would come ‘to pass in the latter days!’ When he came to Joseph, and under a large measure of inspiration, he said, (Genesis xlix) 22) ‘Joseph is a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by a well, whose branches run over the wall;’ the thrifty vine grew too rapidly to be controlled, and it ran over the wall of restraint, and away into a luxuriant and glorious independence.
“NEW ENGLAND.
“6. Israel was to grow up a young nation, a colonial child – a daughter, like the mother, in nature, in language, in laws, in enterprise, in religion: and that daughter was to be lost to her mother, as a child is lost to parents when she leaves her home, and refuses parental restraint. I am not blaming either the mother, or the daughter, but I think I see an Israelitish photograph in the facts of history, and I see the providence of God in the provision made for our surplus population. The Prophet (Isaiah xlix, 20,) saw that Island home still crowded, and he says:
“‘The children which thou shalt have, after thou hast lost the other, shall say again in thine ears, the place is too strait for me: give place to me that I may dwell.’
“THE SAXON EVERYWHERE.
“That colonial child was lost to the mother and still the cry was ‘Give us room,’ and Canada became the lovely and dutiful child, the home of millions of trusty hearts: ‘We want room,’ and Australia in her desolation blooms as a beautiful rose: ‘We want room,’ and British Columbia and Manitoba in their loneliness and desolation have learned to rejoice, and I fully believe that the ‘desolate heritages’ away on the West and North of us, on and on, to the everlasting hills, and still on to the setting sun, must and will be peopled by those ever conquering, ever progressive Saxons. The command still is, as I read it some years ago,
“Stretch forth! stretch forth from South to North;
From East to West, stretch forth! stretch forth!
Strengthen thy stakes, and lengthen thy cords,
The world is a tent for the world’s true lords,
Break forth, and spread over every place,
The world is a world for the Saxon race.
“Britain sowed the glorious seed,
In her wise old laws, and her pure old creed;
And her stout old heart and her plain old tongue,
And her resolute energies ever young,
And her free bold hand, and her frank fair face
And her faith in the rule of the Saxon race.
“Feebly dwindling day by day,
All other races are fading away,
The sensual South, and the servile East,
And the tottering throne of the treacherous priest,
And every land is in evil case,
But the wide spread realm of the Saxon race.
“Englishmen, Irishmen, Scotchmen all,
By one great name on your millions I call;
Norman, American, Gael or Celt,
In to this, this fine mixed mass ye melt,
And all the best of your best, I trace,
In the gold and the brass of the Saxon race.
“Britons, everywhere, faithful and free,
Lords of the land and kings of the sea:
Anglo-Israelites, honest and true
By hundreds of millions, my word is to you,
Love one another, as brothers embrace,
That the world may be blessed in the Saxon race.”
“LAND AND SEA.
“7. Israel must be the first naval power in the world: ‘to possess the sea coasts,’ ‘to possess the Isles of the sea,’ ‘to possess many waters,’ ‘to go down to the sea in ships,’ ‘to do business in great waters.’ ‘He shall pour the water out of his buckets,’ i.e. shall use it, and control it; shall do a large ocean trade. Facts are stubborn things. The Board of Trade, in a report of 1875, shows that, when you compare the tonnage of our steam and sailing vessels with the tonnage of France, Spain; Portugal, Italy, Austria, Turkey, Russia, China and all the other Gentile nations, our tonnage is to the whole of them put together, 15½ to 6½, or more than two to one.
“‘Sing, my hearties,’ says the sailor to his mates,
‘Britannia Rules the Waves.’
“‘THEY RUN!’
“8. Israel was to conquer against the greatest odds. Deuteronomy xx, 1; Leviticus xxvi, 7, 8; Joshua xxviii, 10; Deuteronomy xxxii, 30:
“‘When thou goest out to battle against thine enemies, and seest horses, and chariots, and a people more than thou, be not afraid of them: for the Lord thy God is with thee. 7 And ye shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword. 8 And five of you shall chase an hundred, and an hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight: and your enemies shall fall before you by the sword. 10 One man of you shall chase a thousand: for the Lord your God, he it is that fighteth for you, as he hath promised you. 30 How should one chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight, except their Rock had sold them, and the Lord had shut them up?’
“‘And I will make all thine enemies turn their back upon thee,’– Israel. For Jeremiah li, 20:–
“‘Thou art my battle axe and weapons of war: for with thee will I break in pieces the nations, and with thee will I destroy kingdoms.’
“The battle axe has been doing the work of God for ages.
“How extraordinary those promises, and yet, our history, from the first day until now, is one continued illustration of their fulfilment in our behalf! A few red coats, and a few Scotch Greys awed and conquered China. A very small detachment brought the Abyssinian hordes to terms without the loss of a single man.
“We hold India with her teeming millions by a few soldiers, who, it is said, ‘if they did not drink whiskey, would thrash all creation.’
“The Duke of Wellington was the hero of one hundred battles, and every fight he fought, he won, and never in any field did he lose a single cannon.
“The prophet Micah describes the prowess of Israel’s arms; v, 8:–
“‘And the remnant of Jacob shall be among the Gentiles in the midst of many people as a lion among the beasts. of the forest, as a young lion among the flocks of sheep: who, if he go through, both treadeth down, and, teareth in pieces, and none can deliver.’
“Israel was not to be conquered by a Gentile nation, and indeed it stands to-day the only undefeated nation in Europe. It was necessary that the Saxons and Danes should be made a part of the confederacy, as in 1066 A.D. It was necessary that Benjamin, ‘little Benjamin their ruler,’ Psalms lxviii, 27, should be admitted into the body politic. Since then, Germany, Austria, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Russia, and France have all been made to own themselves ‘whipped;’ but Britain has had an assurance, as in the fate of the Spanish Armada and Napoleon’s projected invasion, of the truth of God’s Word; Isaiah xvii, 13 :–
“‘The nations shall rush like the rushing of many waters: but God shall rebuke them, and they shall flee far off, and shall be chased as the chaff of the mountains before the wind, and like a rolling thing before the whirlwind.’
“OUR ROYAL STANDARD.
“‘All the great empires or kingdoms, that have passed across the stage of this world’s history, have had their national standards.
“9. Israel received from God a Royal Standard, or Coat of Arms, and that standard is rightfully claimed to be the Royal Standard of Britain.
“The Assyrians had a Bull, the Macedonians the Goat, Persia the Sun, Turkey the Moon, or Crescent, Austria and Russia the Double-headed Eagle, France the Eagle, etc.
“Look at our National Standard:
“This is the Coat of Arms affixed to every document proceeding from the supreme authorities of every British possession – an emblem commanding and obtaining respect from every British subject, and which, displayed on the breasts of our heroic kings has struck terror and dismay to our enemies on the battle field. Let us proceed to analize this time-honoured symbol of our great nation:–
“On the first quarter there are three Lions, on the second the Scotch Lion, on the third the Harp that was taken from Mount Zion to Tara, Ireland, and on the fourth quarter, three more Lions, then a Lion and a Unicorn rampant, and above all the Crowned Lion standing on a Crown. Only nine lions and a unicorn!! How came all these lions here? The richly endowed, strangely gifted Israel, when leaning upon his staff gave us the origin of all heraldly; as he blessed his sons, he said (Genesis xlix, 9):–-
“‘Judah is a lion’s whelp; from the prey, my son, thou art gone up: he stooped down, he couched as a lion, and as an old lion; who shall rouse him up?’”
“NINE LIONS.
“And inspiration used the same and similar language throughout. ‘Israel hath the strength of a unicorn, he couched, he lay down as a lion, and as an old lion.’
“Behold the people shall rise up as a great lion and lift himself up as a young lion.
“And the remnant of Jacob shall be among the Gentiles in the midst of many people as a young lion among a flock of sheep.
“Behold he shall come up as a lion.
“He hath the strength of a unicorn, his horns are like the ‘horns of a unicorn’.”
“My heritage is unto me as a lion of the forest.
“His glory is like the firstlings of his bullock, (‘a bullock!’ that sounds like John Bull) and his horns like the horns of unicorns.
“With them he shall push the people together to the ends of the earth: and they are the ten thousands of Ephraim, and they are the thousands of Manasseh.”
“THE STANDARD GOES TO ISRAEL.
“Judah was the recognized leader in all their journeys, marches, and wars, and was known as the royal tribe, and the lion was the heraldry of Judah. This device was given to them by God, and by them retained until the event alluded to in Matthew xxi, 43. When the Jews killed the son and heir of the vineyard, and Jesus said unto them, ‘The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.’ The Jews had borne the royal emblems until now; but rejecting the son and the heir, they lost the honour and the glory, and even the semblance of a national existence passed away from them. The disciples, who were Benjamites, so understood it, for they came together and asked Jesus, ‘Lord wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel.’ Jesus did not inform them that it was merged in Judah, nor did he censure them for entertaining such an opinion; but he assured them of the promised baptism of power to aid them in the work demanding their attention. It was not for them to know when, or how his Israel should be identified and fully re-instated; they had work to do.”
My critique: While British-Israel makes many positive cases for the Israel Identity message, Poole and the others of that specific group are intensely blind to the fact that the Canaanite-Kenite-Edomite elements proselyted to what became known as “Judaism”, and the pureblooded members of the tribe of Judah are entirely two different entities!
It was the Kenite-Canaanite-Edomite-jews who were responsible for the crucifixion of Christ, not the pureblooded Judahites of Judaea! David clearly prophesied at Psalm 22 that Christ would be crucified by the “power of the dog”, and throughout Scripture the Canaanites were always considered dogs!
