Steven M. Collins’ Pretzel Factory #1
This is a critical review of Steven M. Collins’ stance in his “JEWS ARE JUDAH” position paper on Internet web site http://www.israelite.info/Christian_ Authors/Jews-are-Judahreasons.htm. If there were ever a thesis that needed thorough criticism, this one requires an expeditious response. Steven M. Collins’ mailing address is: P.O. Box 88735, Sioux Falls, SD 57109-1005. Collins is the author of a book entitled The Lost Tribes of Israel ... Found, which I would only give a mediocre rating.
The heading at the top of Collins’ “JEWS ARE JUDAH” paper, reads: “Four Reasons The Jews Are ‘Judah’.” Collins claims his is “a faithful presentation of the Bible’s information and prophecies on this subject.” However, it is a far cry from that, and we will examine each of his faulty premises by which he arrives at several incorrect conclusions! Not only has Collins perpetrated many errors, his misjudgment of Yahweh’s Word is quite dangerous, and he is scattering the Israel sheep rather than gathering them! Search the world over, and one will be hard pressed to find a written article so nauseating and iniquitous. In fact, one would not be incorrect to charge that every word of Collins’ postulation comes right out of the pits of Hell. Yes, it’s that bad!
Because some people don’t pay any attention to quotation marks when they are reading, I will put all of Collins’ words in italics. I surely don’t want the reader to assume that I’m the one who is presenting all this garbage! We will go now to Collins’ first reason why he thinks “The Jews are Judah.” Collins states the following, starting at page #1:
“The title of this article indicates that the author [Steven M. Collins] believes that modern Jews are the biblical, prophetic ‘House of Judah.’ The pages that follow [in Collins’ article] will present: (A) an examination of secular evidence about the Jews, and (B) a faithful presentation of the Bible’s information and prophecies on this subject. Presented below [in Collins’ article] are four reasons why I [Steven M. Collins] believe that modern Jews are, indeed, the biblical and prophetic ‘house of Judah’.”
“REASON 1: FULFILLMENT OF ZEPHANIAH'S PROPHECY”
“Zephaniah chapter two begins with statements clearly indicating it is a ‘latter day’ prophecy. Verse two sets the time-frame of this chapter as being just ‘before the day of the Lord’s anger,’ and verse three reiterates that this prophecy applies to the time just prior to ‘the day of the Lord.’ Verses 4-5 pronounce ‘woe’ upon the cities and inhabitants ‘of the seacoast,’ and it [sic.] clear that the ‘seacoast’ of Palestine is being discussed due to the mention of the cities of Gaza, Ashdod, and Ekron. Verse seven describes the ‘woe’ that will befall these people (also called ‘Cherethites’ and ‘Philistines’ in verse 5) in the following prophecy of God: ‘the coast shall be for the remnant of Judah; they shall feed thereupon; in the houses of Ashkelon shall they lie down in the evening; for the Lord their God shall visit them, and turn away their captivity.”
“This prophecy clearly states that God will give the historic land of the Philistines (Palestine) to ‘Judah’ just prior to the ‘day of the Lord.’ It furthermore indicates that God was not going to ‘turn away [Judah’s] captivity’ until just prior to the day of the Lord. The phrase ‘turn away their captivity’ is a bit clumsy; it simply means ‘end their captivity.’ In 1948, the Jewish nation called Israel was born in the ‘seacoast’ region of old Palestine, fulfilling this prophecy. Indeed, the 1988 Edition of the Encyclopedia Americana notes this about Israel’s population: ‘About 70% of it is concentrated in the Mediterranean coastal strip...’] [sic.] This is exactly what Zephaniah 2 prophesied would occur to Judah in the latter days.”
LET’S ANALYZE COLLINS’ HOCUS-POCUS THUS FAR
Collins’ very first supposition is incorrect! But before we get to that, let’s read the passage at Zephaniah 2:1-7 which he cites:
“1 Gather yourselves together, yea, gather together, O nation not desired; 2 Before the decree bring forth, before the day pass as the chaff, before the fierce anger of Yahweh come upon you, before the day of Yahweh’s anger come upon you. 3 Seek ye Yahweh, all ye meek of the earth, which have wrought his judgment; seek righteousness, seek meekness: it may be ye shall be hid in the day of Yahweh’s anger. 4 For Gaza shall be forsaken, and Ashkelon a desolation: they shall drive out Ashdod at the noon day, and Ekron shall be rooted up. 5 Woe unto the inhabitants of the sea coast, the nation of the Cherethites! the word of Yahweh is against you; O Canaan, the land of the Philistines, I will even destroy thee, that there shall be no inhabitant. 6 And the sea coast shall be dwellings and cottages for shepherds, and folds for flocks. 7 And the coast shall be for the remnant of the house of Judah; they shall feed thereupon: in the houses of Ashkelon shall they lie down in the evening: for Yahweh their God shall visit them, and turn away their captivity.”
Collins’ reads “before the day of Yahweh’s anger” and arbitrarily assumes it is speaking of the 2nd Advent of Christ! That could hardly be the case. If it were the case, the peoples occupying Gaza, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Ekron and Philistia today, would have to be the same people occupying that area 2500 years ago. How fantastic! This is definitely not a prophecy for our day! Collins is one of these guys who tries to connect sound-alike words. It’s like his calling Ruth a Moabite! But if one will carefully study the Scripture, Israel had driven the Moabites out of the land of Moab 130 years before the famine recorded at Ruth 1:1. Therefore, Ruth was an Israelite! And by the way, Ruth didn’t change gods! The term god in Hebrew is “elohim” (#430) but can also mean a “judge.” Ruth was simply stating to Naomi that she would change from the judge in her jurisdiction to the judge in Naomi’s jurisdiction. Later on in his diatribe on page 7 Collins refers to “Ruth, a Moabitess.” Then Collins goes on, in his universalistic concept and accuses Moses of marrying a “Gentile Cushite.” This demonstrates how little Collins has studied the Scriptures! But Collins gets only more absurd as he continues on.
To see what Zephaniah 2:1-7 is all about, I will now go to Adam Clarke’s Commentary On The Bible to show you how absurd Collins’ supposition is.
“1. Gather yourselves. The Israelites are addressed.
“3. Ye meek of the earth. Ye oppressed and humbled of the land. It may be ye shall be hid. The sword has not a commission against you. Ask God, and He will be a Refuge to you from the storm and from the tempest.
“4. Gaza shall be forsaken. This prophecy is against the Philistines. They had been greatly harassed by the kings of Egypt; but were completely ruined by Nebuchadnezzar, who took all Phoenicia from the Egyptians; and about the time of his taking Tyre, devastated all the seigniories of the Philistines.
“5. The sea coast, the nation of the Cherethites. The sea coast means all the country lying on the Mediterranean coast from Egypt to Joppa and Gaza. The Cherethites – the Cretans, who were probably a colony of the Phoenicians. See 1 Sam. xxx. 14 and Amos ix. 7.
“6. And the sea coast shall be dwellings. Newcome considers keroth as a proper name, not cottages or folds. The Septuagint [Seventy] has ‘Crete,’ and so has the Syriac.
“7. The coast shall be for the remnant. Several devastations fell on the Philistines. Gaza was ruined by the army of Alexander the Great, and the Maccabees finally accomplished all that was predicted by the prophets against this invariably wicked people. They lost their polity, and were at last obliged to receive circumcision.”
Then Zephaniah goes on to prophecy concerning the Moabites and Ammonites, along with the Ethiopians and Assyrians in the rest of chapter 2, and not one of Zephaniah’s prophecies in chapter 2 was a prophecy for the 20th or 21st centuries A.D.! Surely all of Zephaniah’s prophecies here were fulfilled before the 1st Advent of Christ! That blows Collins’ so-called “time-frame” clean out of the water!
Zephaniah prophesied about 630 B.C., and speaking of “the remnant of the house of Judah; they shall feed thereupon: in the houses of Ashkelon shall they lie down in the evening: for Yahweh their God shall visit them, and turn away their captivity”, at verse 7 could only mean those who returned to Judaea after the Babylonian captivity, (Barnes’ Notes, volume Minor Prophets by E. B. Pusey, page 260). So Collins strikes out on that one also. But, let’s continue with Steven M. Collins’ diatribe:
“Because the Jews had been a stateless people scattered among the nations for centuries (even millennia), the prophecy’s language that their captivity would be ‘turned away’ (i.e. ‘ended’) is very descriptive of the fate of the Jews, a people who had not had their own nation for a very long time.”
“Furthermore, we must accept the fact that God, in his perfect knowledge, has always known where ‘the house of Judah’ was! The historic fact is that God chose to use modern Jews to fulfill this prophecy about ‘the house of Judah.’ This is powerful evidence that modern Jews are the modern house of Judah. Zephaniah 2:6 also prophesies that agricultural pursuits were to prosper when the ‘house of Judah’ reestablished a nation in Palestine, and much has been written documenting that the Israelis have ‘made the desert bloom’ with their innovative, high-tech agricultural efforts.”
“A prophecy in Zechariah 14 supports the above analysis of Zephaniah 2. Zechariah 14:1 begins with ‘Behold the day of the Lord cometh...’ This is the same time frame as Zephaniah 2 (just prior to the day of the Lord). Zechariah 14:2-3 prophesies that ‘all nations’ will be gathered to battle in the region of Jerusalem, and that the Lord will come to fight against the nations attacking Jerusalem when ‘his feet shall stand on the mount of olives.’ Christians understand this to be a prophesy of the second coming of Jesus Christ, and verse five adds that the Lord will bring ‘all the saints’ with him (an obvious reference to the resurrection of the dead). The rest of the chapter gives more information about this climactic battle and the establishment of the Lord’s rule on earth. Verse 14 states: ‘Judah also shall fight at Jerusalem.’ None of the other tribes of Israel is [sic.] specifically mentioned in this prophecy, but ‘Judah’ is there in sufficiently large numbers to warrant God’s mentioning them by name. This is consistent with Zephaniah’s prophecy that Judah will build a nation in Palestine in the latter days. Zechariah’s prophecy indicates that Judah will be fighting to defend Jerusalem in a great war which climaxes with the return of the Conquering Messiah! What people now live in and have sovereignty over the city of Jerusalem? The Jews! Again, Bible prophecies for the latter days indicate that modern Jews are the house (or tribe) of Judah.”
Evidently Collins is unaware that the present state of Israeli is an illegitimate, outlaw state not recognized by Yahweh! Rather, the state of Israeli is only recognized by the United Nations, an organization conceived by the “seed of the serpent” (Genesis 3:15). Collins is greatly mistaken if he thinks the United Nations speaks or acts for Yahweh!
What Collins doesn’t seem to realize is the fact that Jerusalem was under a penalty period for 2520 years: referred to as the “times of the Gentiles”, but could be better translated “heathen.” Most of us are familiar with how the Tribes didn’t all go into captivity at the same time, and therefore didn’t come out from under the seven times punishment period at the same time. While I do not care for most of the materials from the Jehovah’s Witnesses, they did come close to when Jerusalem would be freed from heathen rule. I would rather believe that the Jehovah’s Witnesses expropriate other peoples’ data.
That Jehovah’s Witnesses’ book, Babylon The Great Has Fallen!, had some things correct on pages 179-180: “But in a symbolic or prophetic year, the number of days is fixed at the unchanging number of 360, and each day thereof stands for a whole year. ‘A day for a year, a day for a year.’ — Numbers 14:34; Ezekiel 4:6.
“In the prophetic book of Revelation a thousand two hundred and sixty days are spoken of as being equal to a ‘time and times and half a time’, or three and a half times. (Revelation 12:6, 14) If we divide three and a half (3.5) into a thousand two hundred and sixty days, it gives us three hundred and sixty (360) days to a ‘time’.
“Accordingly, a symbolic or prophetic ‘time’ would Scripturally equal three hundred and sixty (360) years. If, now, three and a half symbolic ‘times’ amounted to 1,260 symbolic days, that is to say, 1,260 years, then twice three and a half (or seven) symbolic ‘times’ would be twice 1,260 years, that is to say, 2,520 years. Thus the ‘seven times’ that are mentioned in Daniel 4:16, 23, 25 & 32 in connection with the tree dream would stand for two thousand five hundred and twenty literal years ... In the fulfillment of the greater prophetic meaning, the ‘seven times’ of 2,520 years began to count when Jehovah God let go the world domination as represented by his typical kingdom on earth ... By count, then, those Gentile Times, those ‘appointed times of the [non-Israel] nations’ ... would end 2,520 years ... about ... 1914.”
They’re three years off on their arithmetic, but one can see what is meant by the “times of the gentiles”, as for 2,520 years Judaea was ruled by foreign powers. Then, something interesting happened in 1917, when Jerusalem was delivered to the British. After “seven times” it again came under the authority of King George VI, a bona fide descendant of David. King George VI lived until 1952; long enough to decree that the “Jews” and Palestinians would have to settle their differences by blood. There is no evidence that Queen Elizabeth has ever countermanded that decree, so it is still in effect, and the “Jews” and Palestinians are still lawfully under that King in Yahweh’s sight. Therefore, that unlawful United Nations’ recognition of Israeli in 1948 is null and void. They still have the mark of a vagabond, with no legitimate place to call home.
Documentation on King George VI’s decision concerning Palestine is found in Understanding The Dead Sea Scrolls, edited by Hershel Shanks, chapter by Harry Thomas Frank, page 8: “His Majesty’s Foreign Office had somewhat irresponsibly decided that since the problem of Palestine could not be solved by reason they would withdraw, leaving the two sides to decide the issue by blood.” So that is where we are today. As a second witness to Daniel 12:12, in 1917 an Egyptian coin that year was inscribed 1335 in Arabic. Thus we have two types of people occupying Palestine today, squatters and trespassers.
Though I don’t agree entirely with the book Testimony In Stone by J. Bernard Nicklin; his explanation of “the times of the Gentiles” is supportive of this thesis on pages 70, 72, 75, 106, 109, and 129.
On pages 78-80, Nicklin points to the date September 17, 2001 as the beginning of a period of “cleansing.” That date is too close to September 11, 2001 to be coincidental. We have already witnessed the exposure of fraud in the money markets, and the age-old secret sexual practices of the Roman Catholic clergy. If Nicklin is correct, we are in for some very startling revelations. Scripture says this cleansing will start first with the House of Yahweh. I, for one, am going to enjoy every minute of it. Moreover, many in Israel Identity have the need of being cleansed of the anti-seedline and universalism doctrines!
Thus, Collins is entirely incorrect with his fallacious theory that the present-day Jews are Judah. Judaea is, rather, legally in the hands of true Judah through the House of David in England under Queen Elisabeth, who has no legitimate heirs to take her place on the throne.
COLLINS REJECTS PAUL’S WITNESS
The very people whom Collins claims “JEWS ARE JUDAH”, Paul identifies as “the seed of the serpent” of Genesis 3:15. The first prophecy concerning the Crucifixion is found at Genesis 3:15, “And I will put enmity (hatred) between thee (Satan) and the woman, and between thy seed (genetic physical offspring) and her seed (genetic physical offspring); it (the woman’s seed) shall bruise thy head, and thou (Satan’s seed) shalt bruise his heel.” The “chosen vessel” Paul, in addressing the Romans at 16:20: “And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your (Roman) feet shortly.” Hence, in Paul’s day the Romans were of the “woman’s seed”, or true Israelites, and the bruising of Satan was the siege and destruction of Jerusalem by Titus in 70 A.D., for which Josephus’ Wars gives a graphic blow by blow account. Therefore, it was rather some Kenite(Cain)-Canaanite- Edomites pretending to be of the Tribe of Judah, and not the Romans, who committed the premeditated murder of Christ!
Thus, Paul identified the Romans by-and-large as the “seed of the woman”, and the “serpent people” at Jerusalem as the “seed (physical descendants) of the serpent.” Not only did Paul identify the Romans as the “seed of the woman” of Genesis 3:15, but also identified the false-Judahites who by-and-large occupied Jerusalem and vicinity in-and-around Judaea in 70 A.D. I don’t know about your Bible, but the center reference in mine takes me to Genesis 3:15 from Romans 16:20.
Not only this, but the Messiah Himself forgave the Roman soldiers for their part in that Crucifixion at Luke 23:34: “Then said Yahshua, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. And they [the Roman soldiers] parted his raiment, and cast lots.”
Hence, Collins strikes out on his 1st of 4 reasons.
Clifton A. Emahiser’s Teaching Ministries
