The Coming Judgment of the Nations

Part Five: Turkey

by Peter Salemi

www.british-israel.ca

Turkey will be a key Player in the upcoming event called the "Great Tribulation." What will Turkey do to the modern Descendants of Israel? How will God judge Turkey?

The Turks are a partner in NATO. They have a political relationship with the Israelis. The Bible says that these current conditions will end, and Turkey will soon become an enemy of of both the USA and the Jews.

Turkey Identified in the Bible.

So where is Turkey in the Bible? Can Turkey be traced back to the Edomites of the Bible?

In the Book of Genesis, Isaac and Rebekah had twin sons, one Jacob and one Esau. She asked God what was going on inside her during the time of her pregnancy, and God said, "And the children struggled together within her; and she said, If it be so, why am I thus? And she went to enquire of the LORD.

"And the LORD said unto her, Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels; and the one people shall be stronger than the other people; and the elder shall serve the younger." (Gen 25:22-23). Esau, when he came out was "Red" like a garment (25:25), therefore inherited the name Edom (25:30).

When it came time for the birthright to be handed down, Jacob's mother Rebekah made sure Jacob received it instead of Esau, see Gen 27. When Esau came after the blessing was given, Esau begged for a blessing as well. Isaac then prophesied, "...Behold, thy dwelling shall be the fatness of the earth, and of the dew of heaven from above;

"And by thy sword shalt thou live, and shalt serve thy brother; and it shall come to pass when thou shalt have the dominion, that thou shalt break his yoke from off thy neck" (Gen 27:39-40). These prophecies were to take place in the end time. Genesis 48 and 49 shows the birthright blessings were to take place in the "latter days." So there is no reason why this prophecy of Esau shouldn't take place during the same time.

Esau's blessing is explained, "At length, in reply to the weeping suppliant, he bestows upon him a characteristic blessing. 'Away from the fatness.' The preposition (מי mîy) is the same as in the blessing of Jacob. But there, after a verb of giving, it had a partitive sense; here, after a noun of place, it denotes distance or separation; for example, Pro_20:3 The pastoral life has been distasteful to Esau, and so it shall be with his race. The land of Edom was accordingly a comparative wilderness (Mal_1:3). 'On thy sword.' By preying upon others." (Barnes Notes, emphasis added). Esau will be separated from the blessings of Jacob, instead they would be a warrior people, and not a people to be fruitful whatsoever. The rest of this prophecy will be explained later in the article.

Esau married into the Hittite race, "And Esau was forty years old when he took to wife Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Bashemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite: " (Gen 26:34) . The Hittites were a Mongolian race of Kittim mixing with the sons of Heth of Canaan.

“The Hittites as shown both on their own and on Egyptian monuments were clearly Mongoloid in type. They were short and stout, prognathous, and had rather receding foreheads. The cheek-bones were high, the nose was large and straight, forming almost a line with the forehead, and the upper lip protruded. They were yellow in color, with black hair and eyes, and beardless, while according to the Egyptian paintings they wore their hair in pigtails, although this characteristic does not appear in the Hittite sculptures. They would seem to have come, therefore, from the northeast of Mesopotamia, and to have worked south into Palestine and west into Asia Minor” (Jewish Encyclopedia under “Hittites”). For more details on the Hittites read our booklet China in Prophecy. Esau also married a daughter of Ishmael, see Gen 28:8-9.

These are the sons of Esau/Edom:

By Adah (Bashemath): (Hittite)

1. Eliphaz-And the sons of Eliphaz were Teman, Omar, Zepho, and Gatam, and Kenaz. And Timna was concubine to Eliphaz Esau's son; and she bare to Eliphaz Amalek: these were the sons of Adah Esau's wife. (Gen 36:11-2).
2. Husham son of Teman son of Eliphaz  in the "Land of Temani" (Gen 36:34).

By Aholibamah (Judith): (Hittite)

1. Jeush
2. Jalam
3. Korah

By Bashemath (Mahalath): (Ishmaelite)

1. Reuel-And these are the sons of Reuel; Nahath, and Zerah, Shammah, and Mizzah: these were the sons of Bashemath Esau's wife." (Gen 36:13).

Gen 36:20-43 The Horites that reigned in the land of Seir. Esau however succeeded them and took over that land and destroyed them, see Deuteronomy 2:12.

 

During the time when Nebuchadnezzar was conquering the known world, God said, "Make thee bonds and yokes, and put them upon thy neck, "And send them to the king of Edom, and to the king of Moab, and to the king of the Ammonites, and to the king of Tyrus, and to the king of Zidon, by the hand of the messengers which come to Jerusalem unto Zedekiah king of Judah;  "And now have I given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant; and the beasts of the field have I given him also to serve him. "And all nations shall serve him, and his son, and his son's son, until the very time of his land come: and then many nations and great kings shall serve themselves of him. "And it shall come to pass, that the nation and kingdom which will not serve the same Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, and that will not put their neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, that nation will I punish, saith the LORD, with the sword, and with the famine, and with the pestilence, until I have consumed them by his hand" (Jer 27:3, 6-9).

 God was sending the King of Babylon, and he took and destroyed many nations. Edom was one of those nations, see also Jeremiah 25:9-21. When Nebuchadnezzar invaded the region he took them into captivity with the result that most of them disappeared from history for hundreds of years. Others were forced by John Hyrcanus “to integrate into not only the Jewish state but also into the Jewish religion” according to Iain Browning in his marvelous work Petra, p.30. These were called the Idumeans. With the fall of Judah under the Romans, Idumaea disappears from history after 70 A.D.

So where did Edom end up?

One of the leader tribes of Esau was Teman. As quoted above, Husham came out of the "land of Teman." The biblical account of Job records an interesting side note of history. One of Job’s friends is mentioned in Job 2:1—Eliphaz the Temanite, the father of the Temanites and the son of Esau. Eliphaz was a leading figure among Esau’s descendants (Ancient History—The First 2500 Years).

 Historical sources like the Early Kings of Persia by Shea and Universal History, Volume V, indicate that many of the Temani ended up in Turkestan, and Central Asia. The rocky plateau was called the "land of Temani." We find the city of Basra in Iraq—possibly a slight variation of the biblical Edomite city of Bozrah (Genesis 36:33; 1 Chronicles 1:44; Isaiah 34:6; 63:1). In Central Asia Strabo identifies two tribes, "The country beyond the Strymon, which borders upon the sea and includes the parts about Datum, is occupied by Odomantes, Edoni, and Bisaltae, some of whom are an indigenous people, the others came from Macedonia and were under the government of Rhesus...In Armenia...Odomantis, and some other places, the latter of the country about Artaxata,) they simultaneously aggrandized themselves, by taking away portions of the territory of the surrounding nations" (vol.1, chp.7 v.36; vol2. chpt.14:5). These lay in northern Greece and Armenia. Peter Delev in his article "The Edonians" says that the Odomantes and Edoni share common ancestry, and therefore related. The ruling family of the Osmanli Turks was the Ottomans who descended from the Odomantes. "Ottoman" is an English derivation of the word "Osman." "Osman" comes from the Turkish word "as’-man," which is derived from the Turkish name "Othman.," Othman was the founder of the Ottoman dynasty. The Bible speaks of "O TEMAN" (Obadiah 9). These Otttoman Turks descend from the Odomantes or the Temani of Edom. These Osmani Turks are the "Oghuz Turks...and one clan from them were the Seljuks...[and] Osman, a Turk who may have been an Oghuz" (The Penguin History of the World, J.M. Roberts, pp.360-61, 372-73). A descendant of Husham was Alphidun who had two sons, firstly Tur, who ruled over the Edomites in Central Asia. This may be the origin of the name Turkestan, Turk. or Turanian. The second son was Irege. Irege’s son Manougher was surnamed Phirouz, the, “Perses” of Greek legend. Persia may be named after him (Compendium on World History, Herman Hoeh, vol.2 chpt.11). Omar (Gen 36:11), is a very common name among the Turks. Turkey is modern day Edom!

Edom's location is also described in the Bible in the end time, "Thou shouldest not have entered into the gate of my people in the day of their calamity...Neither shouldest thou have stood in the crossway, to cut off those of his that did escape..." (Obadiah 13, 14). Turkey's location is at the "crossroads of Europe and Asia" and makes it a country of significant geostrategic importance ( sources, Mango, Andrew (2000). Ataturk. Overlook;  Shaw, Stanford Jay; Shaw, Ezel Kural (1977). History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey; Vol.1, Empire of the Gazis. the rise and decline of the Ottoman Empire, 1280-1808. Cambridge University Press).

Map of the Bosporus and Dardanelles. This crossway is called the "gate of my people." Edom would control the gate that once belonged to Britain-Israel.

Isaac's Prophecy

Isaac promised Esau a Birthright. Isaac said, "Behold, thy dwelling shall be [away from] the fatness of the earth, and of the dew of heaven from above;

"And by thy sword shalt thou live, and shalt serve thy brother; and it shall come to pass when thou shalt have the dominion, that thou shalt break his yoke from off thy neck" (Gen 27:39-40). The dwelling of Esau Turkey lacks natural raw materials and resources. It is a barren rocky land, "And I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness" (Malachi 1:3).

The Turkey would make their gain and livelihood by the sword, by warfare. Israel would gain dominion by produce, commerce and trade. The passages are all in contrast between Israel and Esau.

During the Seljuk Empire, the Turks "...began the translation into Turkish the major works of Arabic and Persian scholarship..." These works of course encouraged conquest and war. During this time between the 10-12th centuries A.D. many lands in the Middle East were conquered by them, Syria, Palestine, Iraq, Asia Minor etc...(see The Penguin History of the World, J.M. Roberts, pp.361). These conquests created the "Second Turkish Empire."

Also during the reign of the Ottomans, they created a "special corps" called the "Jannisaries" these were "obedient and ruthless," these "were the instrument by which the Turkish government maintained a hold on its mixed populations" (The Middle East: a physical, social, and regional geography By William Bayne Fisher, pp.166-67). By the sword it maintained its empire!

Then the prophecy says, "shalt serve thy brother [Israel]...when thou shalt have the dominion, that thou shalt break his yoke from off thy neck." When the Turks conquered, this "opened Asia minor to the settlement of the Turks" (ibib, p.361). This "touched off [a] crusading zeal in the west" (ibid, p.361). Turkey had their dominion, and there they stayed even till today in Asia Minor. The crusades mainly composed of Israelites in Britain, France, "Anglo-Norman Nobles" (The companion to British history By Charles Arnold-Baker, p.380). Turkey however "broke" that "yoke" of the crusades off their neck. In the "final crusade to the Middle East...the Egyptian Sultan and his general Baibans drove the Christians out of Palestine to stay until 1917" (God Cares, p.294, C. Mervyn Maxwell). Afterwards, the Turks took Constantinople in 1453, and went right to the gates of Vienna in the late 1600's.

Ezekiel's Prophecy & World War One

Ezekiel prophesied that Israel would take back the Middle East from Esau. "Edom hath dealt against the house of Judah by taking vengeance, and hath greatly offended, and revenged himself upon them;
"Therefore thus saith YHWH GOD; I will also stretch out mine hand upon Edom, and will cut off man and beast from it; and I will make it desolate from Teman; and they of Dedan shall fall by the sword.
"And I will lay my vengeance upon Edom by the hand of my people Israel: and they shall do in Edom according to mine anger and according to my fury; and they shall know my vengeance, saith the Lord GOD" (Ezekiel 25:12-14). The Belfour Declaration in 1917  "welcomed Jewish into Palestine...But there were...deep misgivings among the Arabs. Frustration and racial tensions erupted and anti-Jewish demonstrations in 1920, 1921 and 1929 when nearly 900 Jewish settlers were nearly killed or wounded" (Lawrence James, The Rise and Fall of the British Empire, pp.406-7). These Turks and Arabs [Dedan] were against the Jews [Judah] immigrating to the home land, therefore God took vengeance on Edom-Turkey by the hand of Israel-Britain. World War One, Jerusalem was taken from the Turks, and put into the possession of Britain by General Allenby. The Empire disintegrated, and Arabs states became British Protectorates.

Obadiah's & Jeremiah's Prophecy

The Book of Obadiah deals with Turkey in the end time. We know its an end time book because in the end of the chapter we see Israel coming back to the land, and "And saviours shall come up on mount Zion to judge the mount of Esau; and the kingdom shall be the LORD'S" (v.21). The kingdom of God is set up, and the "saviours" of Israel, the resurrected church of God will judge Esau.

However we must link Jeremiah's prophecy with Obadiah's to understand its progression from the fall of the Ottoman Empire to its present state and its future.

Let's start in verse one, "The vision of Obadiah. Thus saith the Lord GOD concerning Edom; We have heard a rumour [lit. "report"] from the LORD, and an ambassador is sent among the heathen, Arise ye, and let us rise up against her in battle." Jeremiah 49:14 concerning the judgment of Esau states the same thing, "I have heard a rumour from the LORD, and an ambassador is sent unto the heathen, saying, Gather ye together, and come against her, and rise up to the battle" 

K& D writes, "The plural שָׁמַעְנוּ (we have heard) is communicative. The prophet includes himself in the nation (Israel), which has heard the tidings in him and through him. This implies that the tidings were of the greatest interest to Israel...The next clause, 'and an ambassador,' etc., might be taken, as it has been by Luther, as a statement of the import of the news...The plural nâqūmâh (let us rise up), in the words of the messenger, may be explained on the simple ground that the messenger speaks in the name of the sender. The sender is Jehovah, who will also rise up along with the nations for war against Edom, placing Himself at their head as leader and commander (compare Joe_2:11; Isa_13:4-5). עָלֶיהָ, against Edom, construed as a land or kingdom, gener. faem. The fact that it is the nations generally that are here summoned to make war upon Edom, and not only one nation in particular..." The messenger most commentators say is an angel of God stirring the nations to go against Edom. God uses Israel as his battle-axe against wicked nations, see Jeremiah 51:20. God led a great assembly of nations, Israel as well, the British, to conquer the Ottoman empire. "In 1900, at the dawn of a new century in the 700th year of its existence, the Ottoman Empire began to die a violent, climactic death. The forces that destroyed this old and once powerful state catapulted the Middle East, Europe, and indeed the world, toward increased instability and chaos" (article, The Fall of Ottoman Empire, Roger Lee ).

"Behold, I have made thee small among the heathen: thou art greatly despised." (Obadiah 2; Jeremiah 49:15). The Turkish Empire is but a tiny fraction of what it once was.  "By 1900, the Ottoman Sultan could claim rule over a domain that stretched from the deserts of Libya in Africa to the snow-covered mountains of Armenia and Kurdistan. This ruler controlled the oil fields and marshes of southern Iraq and the mountain valleys of Bosnia on the Austrian border. The Sultan's flag flew along the shores of the Adriatic Sea near Italy in Europe and down to the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula in West Asia. Between these geographic extremes, lay a vast and diverse empire containing multiple ethnic and religious groups, many of whom disliked each other more than they disliked Turkish rule. These groups, over the hundred years prior to 1900, had begun to identify themselves as distinct national groups rather than as subjects of the Ottoman Empire.

"The disintegration of the Turkish Ottoman Empire accelerated in the Twentieth Century. By 1923, the Ottoman Empire was destroyed, replaced by a significantly smaller country simply known as 'Turkey;' a nation stripped of most of its non-Turkish lands and peoples." (ibid, emphasis added).

After the Ottoman Empire lost its great status and became the "Sick Man of Europe," a hatred and dread for the Turkish people remained. This was a lingering of ethnic and religious loathing against a people of unknown background; It was a vile revulsion by Christians against the Muslim Turks-a people that did not profess a belief in their man-god. "The Turk is a great barbarian," stated 16th century German humanist John Adolph Muelich. In the German language, turken ("to Turk"), still means "to hoax, to deceive." So the Turks to this day are greatly "despised."

"The pride of thine heart hath deceived thee, thou that dwellest in the clefts of the rock, whose habitation is high; that saith in his heart, Who shall bring me down to the ground?

"Though thou exalt thyself as the eagle, and though thou set thy nest among the stars, thence will I bring thee down, saith the LORD."" (Obadiah vv.3-4; Jeremiah 49:16). Like all empires, they all think they are exempt from destruction, and collapse. They are deceived, and full of pride, and think who can bring this great empire down.

"If thieves came to thee, if robbers by night, (how art thou cut off!) would they not have stolen till they had enough? if the grapegatherers came to thee, would they not leave some grapes?

"How are the things of Esau searched out! how are his hidden things sought up!" (Obadiah vv.5-6; Jeremiah 49:9-10). Clarke's Commentary says, "That is, if thieves entered thy dwellings, they would not have taken every thing; they would have laid hold on thy wealth; and carried off as much as they could escape with conveniently; if grape-gatherers entered thy vineyards, they would not have taken every bunch; some gleanings would have been left." But Esau would be stripped of everything. The Turks were stripped of all of their possessions (as quoted above). Nothing was left to them but their home country left small and despised among the nations.

Jeremiah adds, "his seed is spoiled, and his brethren, and his neighbours, and he is not...Leave thy fatherless children, I will preserve them alive; and let thy widows trust in me. " (49:10-11). Gill writes, "his children, as the Targum; and his brethren, the Ammonites and Moabites; and his neighbours, the Philistines; or as many as were with him, and belonged unto him:" Modern-day Jordon, Syria, and Palestine were all possessions of the Ottoman Empire.

"He is not" means, "his kingdom is not; he is no more a people and nation, but all destroyed by the sword, or carried captive; or there should be none left of his brethren, and neighbours, and friends, to say to him what follows: 'leave thy fatherless children', &c. So Kimchi and Ben Melech say this phrase is in connection with the Jer_49:11." (ibid). His friends the Syrians and the people of Jordon say to Edom that they would take care of who is left of the Ottoman Turks in their lands. The Palestinians in the East, who dwell in Jordon and Palestine are the remnants of those Ottoman Turks. Isaiah 11:14 shows Edom in the east side of Palestine with Ammon and Moab. At the end of Obadiah the lands of Edom in Palestine are taken and given to Israel. The inhabitants of Esau are dwelling, "And they of the south shall possess the mount of Esau; and they of the plain the Philistines: and they shall possess the fields of Ephraim, and the fields of Samaria: and Benjamin shall possess Gilead.

"And the captivity of this host of the children of Israel shall possess that of the Canaanites, even unto Zarephath; and the captivity of Jerusalem, which is in Sepharad, shall possess the cities of the south" (Obadiah 19-20).

"All the men of thy confederacy have brought thee even to the border: the men that were at peace with thee have deceived thee, and prevailed against thee; they that eat thy bread have laid a wound under thee: there is none understanding in him." (Obadiah v.7). Turkey established Multi-Culturalism in its empire. Minorities maintaining their culture and heritage, yet under the flag of Ottoman rule, paying their taxes and obeying the law. It was a confederate of states within the state. "However the fragmentation of the empire into ethnically based nation states in the late 19th century, followed by the events of WWI, and the Turkish war of independence, meant the republican Turkey strived to achieve a unitary state and looked upon non-Turkish nationalism within Turkey as a threat" (Turkey, By James Bainbridge, p.51). It was this that ultimately brought down the Turkish Empire. Lack of unity, hatred for the Turks in its own realm, a truly amazing fulfillment of this prophecy.