Misconception of Arabia & Arab Peoples

Most Christians familiar only with Scripture would reply, upon a request to define these terms, that the Arabs are the descendants of Ishmael, the son of Abraham by Hagar (which a few of them can partially claim). In addition, these same unenlightened people believe that all Arabs today are pure Shemites and are somehow cousins to the true Israelites. Both of these assumptions are dangerously flawed, and the terms “arabia” and “arab” are almost impossible to define, and therefore hardly deserve to be capitalized. This paper will be an attempt to set the record straight.

As the term “arabia” is ambiguous as to a land area, so too is the term “arab” as to a people. Ambiguous is an accurate expression, as one of its synonyms is “dusky”, meaning shadowy, a condition of not being entirely light nor entirely dark. I will now endeavor to address the term “arabia” as a land mass. My first source for doing so will be gleaned from the Dictionary of the Apostolic Church by James Hastings, vol. 1, p. 88. I will not quote from it directly, but tailor it in my own words:

In our day, “arabia” denotes the great peninsula lying between the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. But in ancient times, it was a singularly elusive (evasive or slippery) term. Its ancient usage was simply “desert” or “desolation”, but later when it became an ethnographic proper name (if such a thing is possible), it took an extended time period in acquiring a fixed and generally understood meaning. Arabia, as a landed area, shifted from time to time like the nomads who occupied it. Like the shifting sand, it did not denote a country whose boundaries could be negotiated by treaty, shown by landmarks, or set down in a map. It was a vast area of vague demarcation with a character and history of its own.

To the settled races occupying Mesopotamia, Syria and Palestine, arabia meant any part of that uncultured hinterland skirting the confines of civilization, which was the camping grounds of wandering tribes forever hovering around peaceful towns waiting for an opportunity to spread terror among their inhabitants in raids on their food supply, burning homes, killing the men and raping their women. It amounted to a dim border region, not so wholly unproductive as to be incapable of supporting life, interposed between cultivation and the sheer wilderness. So uncertain was the application of the term “arabia” that there was no part of the semi-desert fringe area extending from the lower Tigris to the lower Nile which was not, at one time or another, referred to as such. To the prophets of Israel, “arabia” had one meaning; while on Persian inscriptions it had yet another; and to the Greek writers yet another. Thus, “arabia” became a generally used term for various hinterlands peculiar to each individual writer. To Hastings’ description of the raids by early arabs I made an embellishment, for women were treated as spoils and with the shifting sand came shifting races.

In the 1980 Collier’s Encyclopedia under the topic “Arabia” and the subtopic “Inhabitants”, upon explaining an arab connection to the “Caucasoid race” we read, speaking of the arabs as a people: “The people of the Arabian Peninsula are Arabs, members of the Semitic subgroup of the Caucasoid race, with some admixture of the Caucasoid groups and of Negroids from Africa in the coastal areas. The Negroid admixture is due chiefly to the importation of slaves from Africa, which was an active trade until recent years.” While this is an important admission, the arabs had mixed their race since time immemorial. It is evident from the language of this short quotation that by 1980 the civil rights movement was already well under way, and the tone of the writer’s words seem to imply that today an admixture with the negroid should not be considered a stigmatizing phenomenon.

I must now make known some little-known-facts concerning traditional arab beliefs; about half of them claim descent from Ishmael while the other half claim descent from Joktan, who is recorded as being the brother of Peleg, (first mentioned at Gen. 10:25), an ancestor of Abraham. Like most poorly informed Christians, I was aware of the Ishmael connection but totally oblivious to that of Joktan. I first gained the information on Joktan by reading some of Nord Davis’ literature. I then discovered that Nord was correct when I found the same data about Joktan (Yoktan) in The History Of The Jews by Heinrich Graetz, vol. 3, pp. 60-63. Since these two finds, I have found many references to Joktan being the father of the arab people. But it is parallel to a similar claim by the bad-fig-jews to be Israelites. It is evident that alien peoples dwelt in and/or moved into the geographic area which the descendants of Joktan once occupied, in what is now southern Arabia, and have absorbed – or been absorbed by – Joktan’s descendants, claiming Joktan’s heritage. Of course, it cannot be told whether Joktan’s descendants did themselves, through raids, pillage and rape, gradually absorb the genetics of various alien peoples, or whether they were victims of such. The Sabeans, as recorded at Job, were descendants of Joktan, who was a White man, but one can read in Job the pillage they did of Job’s possessions. In those ancient times, usually rape was part of the plunder. All we know today is that the arabs are NOT White, so it is glaringly apparent that something drastic happened to their genetic makeup along the line somewhere. Nord Davis said the following in his 1990 booklet Desert Shield on page 49:

“My teacher’s historical panorama of Arabia, with its people descending from Shem through Joktan, the brother of Peleg, began to open the eyes of those who make a study of racial backgrounds and peoples.

“About three years ago, my friend made a whirlwind tour of America, speaking to 50 groups in 36 states telling these Christian Americans the story of Joktan, and the Queen of Sheba. One of his stops was at Northpoint Team headquarters here in the Smoky Mountains. He spoke to us regarding the urgency of getting a pro-Arab public relations effort going to prevent the upcoming war in the Middle East.”

About six years after this publication, Nord died of cancer. Nord was a tremendously gifted Two Seedline Bible teacher, but I have often wondered whether or not Yahweh took him home to prevent his involvement with the multi-breed arabs. I will now cite the 9th edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica under the topic “Arabia” and subtopic “Origins of Koreysh”, where one of the editors scoffingly remarks:

“In this assembly the immediate local proximity of the Koreysh chiefs, joined to their personal wealth, courage, and address, assigned them a predominant position.

“Of their pedigree, which, as is well known, includes that of Mahomet himself, we have a carefully – too carefully, indeed, for authenticity – constructed chronicle, bringing the family tree up in due form to Ishmael, the son of Abraham, of whom the Koreysh figure as the direct descendants. In the same artificial annals the Yemenite or genuine Arabs appear under the cousinly character of the children of Joktan, the son of Heber. On these points all Mahometan annalists are equally positive and distinct; all other Arab testimony equally adverse or silent. That a fable so utterly defiant of reasonable chronology, and even of the common sense of history itself, should have been adopted as matter of fact by Arab vanity and ignorance, is less surprising than that it should have found favor in the eyes of not a few, indeed of most, of our own European writers.”

Most commentaries ignore by skipping over or making little comment on the genealogy of Peleg and Joktan at Gen. 10:25. But the Jamieson, Fausset and Brown Commentary on the Old and New Testaments shows, though maybe not perfectly, an awareness of a connection of the arabs to Joktan, vol. 1, p. 118, saying:

“There is no special distinction attached to Eber. He is only a link in the genealogical chain. The Hebrews never rested on him as their progenitor; and, on the contrary, he is mentioned as the common ancestor of that people and the Arabians. 25. Peleg [Septuagint, φαλεγ] – division. for in his days the earth was divided. The natural view of these words implies a reference to a formal division of the earth, which, as has been thought, from several passages of Scripture ... Others are of the opinion that extensive landslips occurred – the sea bursting through many parts of the solid land and forming straits and gulfs, or separating continents, and that it was to such breaches ‘the dividing of the earth’ refers. A third class suppose that the allusion is not to the general dispersion of Noah’s descendants, but to a division in Eber’s family – the Joktanidœ, leaving the paternal settlement in Mesopotamia, to which the elder branch adhered, migrated into Southern Arabia (old Arabia Felix; the Yemen). This view would necessitate the bestowment of the name Peleg at an advanced period of his life. The common interpretation of the passage is preferable to any of these. The posterity of Peleg are neither forgotten nor overlooked, but reserved to the next chapter.”

Whatever all of this “dividing of the earth” business is about, it surely isn’t speaking of a continental drift as some surmise. The term “earth” would be better rendered “land”, and there are many possibilities for such a land division. Many times when an estate is settled upon the death of a large landholder, the land is divided among his descendants. At other times it became necessary to divide land due to a lack for supporting cattle herds, such as between Abraham and Lot. Peleg was so named, for “in his days the earth (land) was divided.” The text of Gen. 10:25 and 1 Chron. 1:19 do not say that this notable division came at Peleg’s birth, but “in his days”. In other words, his name did not mean “division” at birth, but his name Peleg acquired that meaning later. Had the meaning meant continental drift, that would have all happened during his lifetime, which is illogical, as the hypothesis for a continental drift is theorized to have taken many thousands of years to develop. Whatever else this division might be about, we know that the descendants of Peleg appeared in Mesopotamia while the descendants of Joktan appeared at various places in south and southwest Arabia, as per the book of Job. Gen. 10:30 says, “from Mesha, as thou goest unto Sephar.” The Greek Septuagint has translated the name Mesha as Mas-se, the name of an Ishmaelite whose descendants appear to have settled in northern Arabia (Gen 25:13-14). The location Sephar, while uncertain, also suggests a location in southern Arabia, agreeing with the book of Job.

While preparing for this pamphlet, I happened on some unexpected evidence which I will reproduce here from the New Bible Dictionary p. 549, which may shed some new light on our subject:

“Jerah. One of the sons of Joktan (Gn. 10:26; 1 Ch. 1:20), some of whom can be connected with tribes of South Arabia. The name (yerah) is identical in form with the Heb. for ‘month’ or ‘moon’, and the word occurs in the South Arabian inscriptions (yrh) with this meaning, so it may be concluded that the descendants of Jerah had likewise settled in South Arabia. The site of Beth-Yerah (Khirbet Kerak) on the Sea of Galilee is probably unrelated.”

Notice that the name Jerah is identical to that of the moon. Could that be why the arabs use the crescent moon as their identifying symbol? Or are the arabs an alien people pretending to be the descendants of Joktan, thus stealing Joktan’s heritage? Whatever the case, the arabs are definitely not a pure race by any stretch of the imagination! If they were, they’d have the complexion of a Caucasian! Rather, they appear more like a Canaanite; and evidence reveals they are closely genetically related to the bad-fig-canaanite-jews whom true Israel was commissioned to exterminate – man, woman and child (Num. 33:51-55; Deut. 20:15-16; Josh. 17:13-18)! That may seem severe, but it would be better than pricks and thorns in our eyes!

THE WORD “ARAB” IN SCRIPTURE

The term “arab” in the Strong’s Concordance is #’s 6154 and 6151. Strong’s defines #6154 as: “...ʿêreb, ay´-reb; or ... ʿereb (1 Kings 10:15), (with the article prefixed), eh´-reb; from 6148; the web (or transverse threads of cloth); also a mixture, (or mongrel race):– Arabia, mingled people, mixed (multitude), woof.” Strong’s defines #6151 as: “... ‘arab (Chald.), ar-ab´; corresponding to 6148; to commingle:– mingle (self), mix.” The root of this verb in Strong’s is #6150, and is defined: “... ‘ârab, aw-rab´; a primitive root [rather identical with 6148 through the idea of covering with texture]; to grow dusky at sundown:– be darkened, (toward) evening.” [Note: The “mixed” in “mixed multitude”, Ex. 12:38, Neh. 13:3, is from #6154, “arab multitude”!]

I don’t know whether or not the reader has entirely comprehended the full implications of what he has just read. With the above criteria as one’s guide in our search for the first Biblical arab, it can be no other than Cain, for he was the mixed progeny of the serpent by Eve. Yahweh said to Cain at Gen. 4:7: “If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, [interracial] sin lieth at the door [of the birth canal]. And [if you are racially pure] unto thee shall be his [Abel’s] desire, and thou shalt rule over him.” For the words here added in brackets, I apologize not!

To get a better handle on this thing, we need to go to John 8:21-24: “²¹ Then said Yahshua again unto them, I go my way, and ye shall seek me, and shall die in your sins: whither I go, ye cannot come. ²² Then said the Jews, Will he kill himself? because he saith, Whither I go, ye cannot come. ²³ And he said unto them, Ye are from beneath; I am from above: ye are of this cosmos; I am not of this cosmos. ²⁴ I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins.” Our Messiah was as much as telling the bad-fig-jews that they would die in their mixed racial sins, which no amount of soap can wash away (Jer. 2:22). He was so much as declaring to the bad-fig-jews that they were dead men walking, in modern terms “zombies”, and zombies are incapable of understanding or believing anything of the Spirit. Thus, all racially-mixed people (arabs) are dead men walking, or zombies, without the Spirit. All one need do today is to go shopping at a supermarket or large department store, and there are zombies (walking dead people) all over the place. Thus, Cain was the first arab-walking-dead-zombie! And all of the goody-goody two-shoes liberal pastors telling us today, that if we curse these bad-fig-jewish-arab-walking-dead-zombies that we will be cursed, and if we bless them we will be blessed, is pure poppycock. The truth is, if we curse them we will be blessed, and if we bless them we will be cursed! Not only does the lineage of the bad-fig-jews go back to Cain, but also the lineage of the arabs, for they are both mixed with the Canaanite nations listed at Gen. 15:19-21: “¹⁹ The Kenites, and the Kenizzites, and the Kadmonites, ²⁰ And the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Rephaims, ²¹ And the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.”

These ten nations race-mixed so much that at Deut. 7:1-2 they merged to become only seven. The Kenites, Kenizzites and Rephaim were completely absorbed by the other nations of this group from which the bad-fig-jews are extracted. The Adam Clarke’s Commentary on the Bible, Abridged by Ralph Earle, page 38, has this to say: “The Kenites. Here are ten nations mentioned, though afterwards reckoned but seven; see Deut. vii. 1; Acts xiii. 19. Probably some of them which existed in Abram’s time had been blended with others before the time of Moses, so that seven only out of the ten, then remained.”

In the Peake’s Commentary on the Bible, page 116, we find this about this mixed group of nations spoken of at Genesis 15:19-21: “When the Israelites entered Canaan they found there a very mixed population generally designated by the term Amorite or Canaanite.” So what were originally ten nations is later, because of absorption by racemixing, designated as seven and often referred to as an all inclusive one, Amorite or Canaanite.

There are two nations among these ten needful of further mention: the Kenites and Rephaim. Kenite is Strong’s #7017: “Qênîy ... or ... Qînîy ... patronymic from 7014; a Kenite or member of the tribe of Kajin:– Kenite.” And 7014 is: “Qayin ... Kajin, the name of the first child ...:– Cain, Kenite(-s).” The children of Cain, the Kenites, are mentioned later in the Bible at Num. 24:21-22; in Judges chapters 1, 4 and 5; 1 Sam. 15, 27 and 30; and at 1 Chron. 2:55, where it is revealed that some of them became scribes in Judah. Their continued existence shows that they were absorbed into the remaining nations of Canaan, as explained above.

Let’s now consider the “Rephaim”. The Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible, volume 5, page 64, says this in part: “REPHAIM. ... The inhabitants of Trans-Jordan in pre-Israelite times whom the Moabites and Ammonites called respectively ‘Emim’ and ‘Zamzummim’ ... ‘giants’ ... Their land is one of ten ethnic groups promised to Abraham (Gen. 15:20). ... Deuteronomy 2:10, 11 says that they were great, many and tall like the Anakim. Og, king of Bashan, for example possessed a king size iron bed, nine cubits long and four cubits broad. ... Giants among the Philistines who fought against David and his mighty men along their disputed border both at Gezer ... and at Gath ... These giants were the descendants of Rapha, the eponymous ancestor of these Rephaim.”

Harper’s Bible Dictionary, p. 345 defines Rephaim as: “Rephaim (ref´ ay-im), a noun appearing in three contexts in the Bible. 1 Those who are dead and inhabit Sheol, ‘shades’ (Ps. 88:10), ‘dead’ (Prov. 9:18). 2 Pre-Israelite inhabitants of Transjordan (Gen. 14:5; Deut. 2:10-11). 3 ‘Giants’ from Philistia (1 Chron. 20:4, 6, 8; 2 Sam. 21:16, 18, 20) ...” As you can see, we are right back to the walking-dead-zombies. Let’s now check with Ezra 9:1:

“¹ Now when these things were done, the princes came to me, saying, The people of Israel, and the priests, and the Levites, have not separated themselves from the people of the lands, doing according to their abominations, even of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians, and the Amorites. ² For they have taken of their daughters for themselves, and for their sons: so that the holy seed have mingled themselves with the people of those lands: yea, the hand of the princes and rulers hath been chief in this trespass.”

I have already shown the connection of the bad-fig-jews with the Gen. 15:19-21 ten nations in other essays, but Jeremiah 25:24 connects the terms “Arabia” and “mingled” people into one and the same, as follows: “... And all the kings of Arabia, and all the kings of the mingled people that dwell in the desert ...” The second statement simply reinforces the first!

At Matt. 23:35, Christ told the bad-fig-jews: “That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar.” Had they not been Cain’s literal descendants, Yahshua could not have made that statement! Had the bad-fig-jews not been Cain’s literal descendants, He would have been bearing false witness, a crime worthy of death! Yes, Cain was the zombie who killed Abel, and akin to the satanic-walking-dead-arabs!