Watchman's Teaching Letter #27 July 2000
This is my twenty-seventh monthly teaching letter and continues my third year of publication. It is still my striving goal to make each succeeding letter to transcend, eclipse and outshine the ones preceding it. It is a very rigorous, difficult and demanding goal to try to meet each month, but meet it I will. In the last lesson, we got on the subject of the Phoenicians which is probably one of the lesser understood subjects of Israelite history. This is a subject which we all need to get better acquainted with. I am trying to establish the groundwork for a series on Esau-Edom, and we need to take into account some secular history surrounding him to understand what was going on which affected him in his early days. Really, secular history is very much compatible with Bible history if we understand them both correctly. As we study this history, we may find the circumstances and lifestyles of the people living at that time entirely different from what we ever dreamed. Unless we can come to an understanding of the background stage for our investigation, we will miss much of the story. With these teaching letters, I am trying to bring you the best selected articles of reference I can find. This way you can benefit, in a few minutes of reading, from what it took me many hours of research to find.
THE DEMISE OF EDOM
There is still more we should consider about the Phoenicians, and I did find a better-than-normal article in a book entitled Early Progress by Willis Mason West. Sometimes articles found in smaller history books are more concise and, therefore, give a better overall view on a subject. Quoting now from page 55-57:
“THE PHOENICIANS dwelt on a little strip of broken coast shut off from the interior by the Lebanon Mountains. Long before 1000 B.C. they had far outrun Egypt and Babylonia in trade, so that we think of their country as almost the first land of commerce. The Mediterranean was to them all that the Nile was to the Egyptians. Their many harbors invited them seaward, and the “cedar of Lebanon” offered the best of ship timber. At first, half traders, half pirates, their crews crept from island to island, to barter with the natives or to sweep them off for slaves, as chance might best suggest. Then, more daringly, they sought wealth farther and farther on the sea, until they passed even the Pillars of Hercules, into the open Atlantic, and we see them exchanging the precious tin of Britain, the yellow amber of the Baltic, and the slaves and ivory of West Africa, for the spices, gold, scented wood, and precious stones of India. The ship that Neco sent to circumnavigate Africa was manned by Phoenician sailors; and the chief Phoenician cities, Tyre and Sidon, were among the most splendid and wealthy in the world. The Hebrew prophet Ezekiel exclaimed:
O thou that dwellest at the entry of the sea, which art the merchant of the peoples ... thou, O Tyre, hast said, I am perfect in beauty. Thy borders are in the heart of the seas; thy builders have perfected thy beauty. They have made all thy planks of fir trees ... They have taken cedars from Lebanon to be masts for thee; they have made thy benches of ivory inlaid in boxwood from the isles of Kittim [Kition in Cyprus]. Of fine linen with broidered work from Egypt was thy sail, ... blue and purple from the isles of Elishah [North Africa] was thy awning ... All the ships of the sea were in thee to exchange merchandise ... With Silver, iron, tin, and lead they traded for thy wares. [Ezekiel names also, among the articles of exchange, emeralds, coral, ivory, ebony, rubies, wheat, honey, oil, balm, wine, wool, yarn, spices, horses, mules, lambs, and goats.]
“And when we think of these adventurous ‘ships’ we must try to remember that they were still only small open boats, driven mainly by oars. Sometimes the boatmen used also a square sail, but only to run before the wind. (It was many hundreds of years before sailors learned to ‘tack.’) The had no compass. Their only guides, when they were out of sight of land, were the sun and stars. Centuries later, the Greeks still called the North Star the ‘Phoenicians’ Star’, because the daring Phoenician mariners had become famous for steering by it.
“The Phoenicians were the first colonizers. They fringed the larger islands and the shores of the Mediterranean with trading stations, which became new centers of civilization. Carthage, Utica, Gades, (Cadiz, on the Atlantic), were among their colonies. They worked tin mines in Colchis, in Spain, and finally in Britain, and so made possible the manufacture of bronze on a larger scale than before, to replace stone implements. Probably they first introduced bronze into many parts of Europe.
“To get things wherewith to trade, the Phoenicians became manufacturers, — learning from Egyptians and Babylonians to work in metals, glass, and textiles. Hammer, loom, potter’s wheel, engraver’s knife, were always busy in Tyre, and quantities of their products are found in ancient tombs of Greece and Italy — the earliest European homes of civilization. Especially prized, too, among wealthy and ruling classes of all the world was a rich crimson dye, the long-famous ‘Tyrian purple’ (obtained from the bodies of a shellfish that abounded near Phoenicia), with which Phoenician weavers colored their most costly woolen robes. The main service of the Phoenicians was to spread civilization that others had created. They were ‘missionaries of culture.’ Especially did they teach the Greeks, who were to teach the rest of Europe.
“One mighty invention does seem due chiefly to the Phoenicians themselves. When the Egyptians first conquered Syria, about 1600 B.C., the Phoenicians were using the cuneiform script ... But their commerce made it necessary to keep complicated accounts and to communicate with agents in distant ports. This called for a simpler way of writing; and about 1100 B.C., we find them with a true alphabet of twenty-two letters (for consonant sounds only) probably based upon Egyptian ‘sound-symbols.’ This, it is well said, was ‘their chief export.’ All the alphabets in use in the world to-day are derived from this one.”
Another source which spells out why Phoenicia became an ideal area for a major defensive seaport in ancient times is examined by the Cyclopædia of Universal History, volume 1, pages 238-239, by John Clark Ridpath, LL. D., as follows:
“The western slope of Libanus, dropping down to the Mediterranean, extending along the coast for about one hundred and eighty miles, constituted Phoenicia, one of the smallest, but at the same time most important, countries ... Next to the sea the land had no great fertility, being a mere strip of sand; but here was the possibility of commerce. Here, too, rose the long line of date-palms, which gave the name of Phoenicia — land of the purple date.
“In its widest part the country was scarcely twenty miles in breadth, and anon [soon] the mountain spurs came within a mile of the sea. An insignificant belt of sand! But Nature had chosen it as the spot from which should begin the dominion of man over the deeps. Commerce was a necessity of the situation. The forests of Lebanon have been proverbial in all ages. The heavy cedars almost overhung the sea. To cut these giants of the wood and float them down the short swift streams to the coast gave a vent to the energies and profit to the industry of men at a time when Egypt was still fresh in her youth. All this would have passed perhaps but for the safe and frequent harbors which indented the shore, holding at perpetual bay the storms of the boisterous sea. These quiet havens of Phoenicia were the birthplace of the navies of the world. Here man first learned to contend successfully with the perils of the open ocean and to make Neptune, as well as Mars and Jove, his confederate and friend.
“The fleets of Phoenicia put boldly to sea. When History was still in the dawn the strange crafts of the hardy maratime [sic] people were seen creeping around the shores of the Mediterranean. In the great days of Assyria and Babylon the overland trade from the valley of the Euphrates and still further east was brought to the Phoenician coast to be carried to the distant colonies and growing nations of the West. By and by these same fleets became important in discovery and in war. The cities of Phoenicia grew rich. They were arbiters of the deep. Government flourished. The court was one of the most splendid in the East. Tyre and Sidon became first known and then famous as far as the knowledge of man extended by communication in the earth; insomuch that the insignificant strip of territory in which they were situated possessed a greater importance in the destinies of the ancient world than did whole kingdoms which were given up to torpor [lethargy] and inaction.”
From the book Tracing Our White Ancestors by Frederick Haberman, pages 22-23, we get the following concerning the Phoenicians:
“THE PHOENICIANS. Having identified the Aryan race with the Adamic or white Caucasian race originating in the mountains of Central Asia, let us now turn to the so-called Phoenicians, who were known to be the leading pioneers, merchants, inventors, and mariners of antiquity, who, coming from north of the Persain Gulf, kept pushing eastward [westward] to the shores of the Mediterranean, sailing in their galleys along the coastlands of the Mediterranean, following the setting sun through the Pillars of Hercules, sailed northwestward along the Atlantic seaboard of Europe into Britain, along the coasts of Africa, rounded the Cape of Good Hope, and even crossed the Atlantic to the shores of South and Central America, as we have record of.
“Let us bear in mind here that it was the Greeks who gave these ancient mariners and colonizers the name of Phoenicians; and they existed for a period of over 1000 years before the Greeks and continued in name until the Christian era, their language, the Punic, being the commercial language of antiquity, as English is today.
“Let us now analyze the word ‘Phoenician’ and ‘Phoenicia.’ Professor George Rawlinson, in his Story of Phoenicia, tells us that Phoenicia derived its name from the forests of date or Phoenix palms which grew there in great luxuriance. So far so good; but whence did the Phoenix palm derive its name? Horapollo says: ‘A palm branch was the symbol of the Phoenix.’ Yes, but what or who was the Phoenix? Sanchoniathon, the Phoenician writer, states that ‘Phoenix was the first Phoenician.’ Phoenix, then, was a man. Now, the word Phoenix is the Greek form of the Egyptian term ‘Pa-Hanok’, the house of Enoch. In Hebrew Enoch also is Hanok. Thus the mystery of that ancient race is solved: they were the sons and descendants of Enoch and of Noah and his three sons, who after the Flood started their westward march. Their descendants have kept it up since, settled first north of the Persian Gulf in the bushlands of Mesopotamia, where they found a dusky race in occupation of the land, the ancient Sumerians, and from thence towards the Mediterranean.
“Chambers Encyclopedia in the article ‘Phoenicia’ gives us the following account of the origin of the Phoenicians, page 136, volume 8: ‘Two accounts have come down to us of the origin of the Phoenicians. According to Herodotus, Strabo, Pliny, and others, they dwelt anciently on the shores of the Persian Gulf, whence they crossed by land to Syria, and settled on the coast of the Mediterranean. Herodotus (vii 89) declares this to be their own account of themselves, and Strabo says that there was a similar tradition among the inhabitants of the gulf, who showed, in proof of it, Phoenician temples on some of the islands. Justin, on the contrary, in his epitome of Trogus Pompeius, declares that they were driven out of their country by an earthquake, and passed to the Mediterranean.’”
THE EGYPTIAN, SINUHE
At this point, we must take into consideration an Egyptian official who lived somewhere during the 12th dynasty (1938-1756 B.C.), for this person plays an important role in understanding the events and conditions during the period of time of our Patriarchs. Which, again, plays an important part in understanding the story of Esau as we will see later on. This man’s name was Sinuhe, and he has proved to be more than a myth. To verify there was such a person, I will quote from The Encyclopedia Britannica © 1994, volume 10, page 840:2b:
“Sinuhe (fl. 20th century BC) Middle Kingdom Egyptian official of the 12th dynasty (1938-1756 BC) who fled Egypt to settle in Syria. His biography yields information about politics and social conditions of the time.
“Sinuhe was an official of the harem maintained for Amenemhet 1 by his queen. While on an expedition to Libya he learned of the king’s assassination (1908 BC) and fled, either from fright or because of his complicity. He intended to travel southward but was blown to the north while crossing the Nile, and he passed into Palestine. After much wandering in Palestine and Lebanon, he was invited to settle with the chieftain of southern Syria, who adopted him and married him to his eldest daughter. In that land Sinuhe raised a family and became a veritable patriarch. He defended his father-in-law’s territory and entertained emissaries traveling to and from Egypt.
“The pharaoh Sesostris 1 invited Sinuhe to return to Egypt, and Sinuhe eagerly accepted. The king forgave him his real or imagined crimes and welcomed him with rich gifts; thereafter Sinuhe remarried in his homeland, while the pharaoh ordered a fine tomb built for him. Sinuhe’s biography survived as a popular epic; internal evidence suggests that it is based on actual events. The story of Sinuhe was adapted by a modern Finnish writer, Mika Waltari, for a popular novel, The Egyptian (1949)”
EGYPT’S IRON CURTAIN
For further details of Sinuhe’s story, I will quote excerpts from The Bible As History by Werner Keller, pages 59-60:
“With the campaign of Sesostris III about 1850 B.C., we are right in the middle of the patriarchal period. Meantime Egypt had taken possession of the whole of Canaan: the country now lay under the suzerainty of the Pharaohs. Thanks to the archaeologists, we possess a unique document from this epoch, a gem of ancient literature. The author: a certain Sinuhe of Egypt. Scene: Canaan. Time: between 1971 and 1928 B.C., under Pharaoh Sesostris 1. Sinuhe, a nobleman in attendance at court, became involved in a political intrigue. He feared for his life and emigrated to Canaan:
“‘As I headed north I came to the Princes’ Wall, which was built to keep out the Bedouins and crush the Sand ramblers. I hid in a thicket in case the guard on the wall, who was on patrol at the time, would see me. I did not move out of it till the evening. When daylight came ... and I had reached the Bitter Lake I collapsed. I was parched with thirst, my throat was red-hot. I said to myself: This is the taste of death! But as I made another effort and pulled myself onto my feet, I heard the roaring of cattle and some Bedouins came in sight. Their leader, who had been in Egypt, recognized me. He gave me some water and boiled some milk, and I went with him to his tribe. They were very kind to me.’
“Sinuhe’s escape had been successful. He had been able to slip unseen past the great barrier wall on the frontier of the kingdom of the Pharaohs which ran exactly along the line which is followed by the Suez Canal today. The ‘Princes’ Wall’ was even then several hundred years old. A priest mentions it as far back as 2650 B.C.: ‘The Princes’ Walls are being built to prevent the Asiatics forcing their way into Egypt. (Bingo - Hurrians!) ‘They want water ... to give to their cattle.’ Later on, the children of Israel were to pass this wall many times: there was no other way into Egypt. Abraham must have been the first of them to see it when he emigrated to the land of the Nile during a famine. (Gen. 12:10)
Sinuhe continues his story of how he passed from one area in Retenu (the old name for Canaan or Palestine) to another; how he went to Byblos and continued to Kedme (a desert country east of Damascus) where he spent eighteen months. He was welcomed by the chief of Upper Retenu named Ammi-Enschi. Sinuhe was assured he would be safe and well treated. Ammi-Enschi gave Sinuhe priority over his own family, offering him his eldest daughter for a wife, and land to occupy with his children. There was nothing lacking in the way of honey, oil, fruit trees, corn, barley, along with sheep and cattle. Ammi-Enschi made Sinuhe chief over his tribe in the choicest allotment of his dominion. Sinuhe had at his disposal nothing except the finest of food and drink. As the years passed, Sinuhe’s children grew into hardy men, and each became ruler of his own tribe. Sinuhe’s house became a station of hospitality for all couriers to and from the royal court of Egypt, giving water to the thirsty, befriending the wanderer and protecting the dispossessed. Sinuhe became chief protector against the attacks of the Bedouins upon his neighbors and organized defensive measures to protect their family members from becoming slaves, safeguarding pastures, wells, sheep, cattle, and stores. Sinuhe, being a great swordsman and archer, personally killed many of the enemy Bedouins along with making defensive strategies. Continuing quoting from The Bible As History by Werner Keller, page 61:
“Out of his many experiences among the ‘Asiatics’ (Bingo — Hurrians!) a life-and-death duel, which he describes in detail, seems to have made the deepest impression on Sinuhe. A ‘Strong man of Retenu’ had jeered at him one day in his tent and called him out. He was sure he could kill Sinuhe and appropriate his flocks and herds and properties. But Sinuhe, like all Egyptians, was a practiced bowman from his earliest days and killed the ‘strong man’ who was armed with shield, spear, and dagger, by putting an arrow through his throat. The spoils that came to him as a result of this combat made him even richer and more powerful.”
MORE ON EGYPT’S IRON CURTAIN, “PRINCES’ WALL”
For more on Egypt’s “Princes’ Wall”, I will quote from pages 71-72 of The Bible As History by Werner Keller:
“In times of famine, Egypt was for Canaanite nomads their place of refuge and often their only salvation. When the ground dried up in their own country, the land of the Pharaohs always afforded green pastures ...
“On the other hand the proverbial wealth of Egypt was often a temptation to thieving bands of daring nomads who were not interested in finding pasture but were much more concerned with the bursting granaries and sumptuous palaces. Often they could only be got rid of by force of arms. As a protection against these unwelcome invaders and to keep a closer check on the frontier, the erection of the great ‘Princes’ Wall’ was begun in the third millennium B.C. It consisted of a chain of forts, watchtowers, and strong points. It was only under cover of darkness that the Egyptian Sinuhe with his local knowledge was able to slip through unobserved. Six hundred and fifty years later, at the time of the Exodus from Egypt, the frontier was also strongly guarded. Moses knew only too well that escape from the country in defiance of Pharaoh’s orders was impossible. The sentries would at once have sounded the alarm and summoned the guards. Any attempt to break through would have been nipped in the bud by sharpshooters and commandos in armored chariots and would have ended in bloodshed. That was the reason why the prophet, knowing the country, chose another, quite unusual route. Moses led the children of Israel southward, as far as the Red Sea, where there was no longer any wall.”
Now back to page 56 of The Bible As History by Werner Keller:
If we look at a globe of the world, Palestine is only a tiny spot on the earth’s surface, a narrow streak. It is possible to drive comfortably in a single day round the borders of the old kingdom of Israel: 150 miles from North to South, 25 miles across at its narrowest point, 9,500 square miles in all, its size was about that of the island of Sicily. Only for a few decades in its turbulent history was it any bigger. Under its renowned kings David and Solomon its territory reached to the arm of the Red Sea at Ezion-geber in the south, and far beyond Damascus into Syria on the north. The present state of Israel with its 8000 square miles is smaller by a fifth than the old kingdom.
“... Traversed by hills and mountain chains whose summits rose to over 3000 feet, surrounded in the south and east by scrub and desert, in the north by the mountains of Lebanon and Hermon, in the west by a flat coast with no natural harbors, it lay like a ... island between the great kingdoms on the Nile and the Euphrates, on the frontier between two continents. East of the Nile delta, Africa stops. After a desolate stretch of 100 miles of desert Asia begins, and at its threshold lies Palestine.
“When in the course of its eventful history it was constantly being dragged into the affairs of the wider world, it had its position to thank for it. Canaan is the link between Egypt and Asia. The most important trade route of the ancient world passes through this country. Merchants and caravans, migratory tribes and peoples, followed this road, which the armies of the great conquerors were later to make use of. Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, and Romans, one after another, made the land and its people the plaything of their economic, strategic, and political concerns.
“It was in the interests of trade that the giant on the Nile in the third millennium B.C. was the first great power to stretch out its tentacles toward Canaan.
“‘We brought 40 ships, laden with cedar trunks, We built ships of cedarwood-one ‘Pride of Two Lands’, a ship of 150 feet — and of meru wood, two ships 150 feet long. We made the doors of the king’s palace of cedarwood.’ That is the substance of the world’s oldest business record from a timber importer about 2700 B.C. The details of this cargo of timber in the reign of Pharaoh Snefru are scratched on a tablet of hard black diorite which is carefully preserved in the museum at Palermo. Dense woods covered the slopes of Lebanon then. The excellent wood from its cedars and meru, a kind of conifer, was just what the Pharaohs needed for their building schemes.
Five hundred years before Abraham’s day there was a flourishing import and export trade on the Canaanite coast. Egypt exchanged gold and spices from Nubia, copper and turquoise from the mines at Sinai, linen and ivory, for silver from the Taurus, leather goods from Byblos, painted vases from Crete. In the great Phoenician dyeworks well-to-do Egyptians had their robes dyed purple. For their society women they bought a wonderful lapis lazuli blue — eyelids dyed blue were all the rage — and stibium, a cosmetic which was highly thought of by the ladies for touching up their eyelashes.
In the seaports of Ugarit (now Ras Shamra) and Tyre there were Egyptian consuls; the coastal fortress of Byblos became an Egyptian colony; monuments were erected to the Pharaohs, and Phoenician princes adopted Egyptian names”
BIBLICAL AND SECULAR HISTORICAL CHRONOLOGY
There are very serious problems with biblical and secular historical chronological dating. Most biblical chronological dating is based upon James Ussher’s work. Most Egyptian historical chronological dating is based on a work by Manetho, and we get it secondhand. In my opinion, I prefer to use Adam Rutherford’s work in his four books entitled Pyramidology. I cite three reasons: (1) Rutherford establishes Adam at 5407 B.C. which coincides with the book of “Adam And Eve”, chapter 3, verses 6 and 16 in The Lost Books of The Bible and The Forgotten Books of Eden. (2) Rutherford establishes 2623 B.C. for the beginning of the work on the Great Pyramid which is very near, (3) “Peleg” when “the earth” was “divided”, Genesis (10:25). It was the Great Pyramid which divided the earth. The Great Pyramid was located in the very center of the earth, thus dividing equally the land mass of the world, east and west, and also, north and south.
400 YEAR EGYPTIAN BLACKOUT OF THE HISTORY OF ISRAEL
Oddly enough, there are no Egyptian written records of the Israelites ever being in Egypt, free or in bondage (with the exception of possibly one item). There is almost a total 400 year blackout of this history on Egypt’s part. For this information, I will quote The Bible as History in Pictures by Werner Keller, page 58:
“If it seems surprising that this success story is given not even the barest mention in the otherwise meticulously accurate Egyptian records — at least so far as we possess them — we may put it down to the special circumstances of the period in which Joseph in all probability lived.”
Again, in The Bible As History by Werner Keller, page 86:
“On the debit side, there was not the slightest trace of Israel’s sojourn in Egypt apart from the Bible itself. Historians and professors of theology alike spoke of the ‘Legend of Joseph.’ Egypt was just the kind of country from which one might hope for, and even expect, contemporary documentation about the events recorded in the Bible.”
The one lone record I could find, other than the Bible, giving evidence to Israel’s sojourn in Egypt was in Archæology And The Bible by George A. Barton, page 37:
“Merneptah in the fifth year of his reign set up a hymn of victory on a pillar in a temple erected by his father, Ramses II. This hymn discovered by Petrie in 1896 is famous as the only writing outside the Bible that mentions Israel by name. A part of it is translated in Part II, p. 331, where its bearing on Exodus is discussed: (see Fig. 15).”
In the back of his book, Barton displays Plate 6, Fig. 15, which is a pictorial representation of The “Israel” Inscription Of Merneptah, the only known Egyptian evidence of Israel’s sojourn among them.
According to The Bible as History in Pictures, by Werner Keller, page 130, these are the words of the “Israel-stela”:
“‘In Egypt there is great rejoicing, Her cities shout for joy ... All men speak of Merneptah’s conquest ... The princes are prostrate and cry: Peace! The vanquished are laid low ... Libya is devastated, the Hittites are pacified. Canaan is conquered and all her wickedness. Askelon is captive, Gezer is fallen, Yenoam is no more. Israel is ravaged and has no offspring. Palestine is widowed ...’
“This monument of Pharaoh Merneptah has often been called the ‘Israel-stela’ since it is so far the only contemporary Egyptian document containing the name of the Israelite people. The relief above the inscription is divided into almost identical scenes. One one side, in the centre, the god Amon stands under the winged sun-disk. He is giving Merneptah the sickle-sword with his right hand and holding the sceptre of the gods in his left. The pharaoh wears the decorative war-helmet, and above him hovers the sun-disk with pendant heraldic vipers. With one hand he grasps the sword offered to him by the god Amon, with the other he holds the crock. Behind Merneptah, on the right of the picture, stands the falcon-headed god Horus, while on the left is Mut, wife of Amon and goddess of Thebes. Horus and Mut both have one hand raised in greeting, in the other hand they hold a notched stick ...”
There is more information concerning the ‘Israel Stele” in the book Dictionary of Biblical Archaeology by E. M Blaiklock and R. K. Harrison, pages 254-255:
“... The text itself comprised of twenty-eight lines in which the pharaoh boasts of his triumph over the Lydians and other foreigners. This monument attracted wide attention because Israel is mentioned in the last section, this being one of the rare references to Israel in ancient nonbiblical documents. Me[r]neptah’s victory over the enemies to the north are described in normative poetic expression for such commemorative hymns, His reference to Israel is as follows: ‘Israel is laid waste. his seed is not; Hurru is become a widow for Egypt.’ The reference to Hurru is related to the Hurrians, or the biblical Horites.
“For Bible students the inscription is extremely important. First, it is as official recognition of a people called Israel in extra-biblical documents and in the earliest mention of Israel known to us in such literature. The words ‘his seed is not’ are a conventional phrase applicable to any defeated or plundered people. It should not, therefore, be applied to the slaying of male children of the Israelites by the Egyptians, as some writers have suggested. Similar expressions are found at least five times referring to other people.
“In contrast with the other enemies, preceded by the determinative for ‘nation’, the word Israel is designated as a ‘people.’ The fact that such a determinative was used preceding the name Israel might indicate that from an Egyptian viewpoint they were considered a people not yet permanently resident in the political (national) sense of the term ...
At this time, it would be appropriate for every White Israelite to thank Yahweh for the fact there is at least one monument out of ancient Egypt (though not respectful) which recognizes our heritage!
You will also notice this monument mentions the Hurrians which I spoke of extensively in lesson #25. In the next lesson, I will be addressing the significance of the Egyptian-Hurrian connection and how it fits into the whole scheme of things. There is a lot more to this Egyptian history than we have ever been told. If we don’t understand the full story of Egypt, we cannot understand the entire story of Jacob-Israel, let alone Esau!
