Britain Key to World History
by Comyns Beaumont
III.
THE "WONDER" IN THE LAND
In the earlier years of King Hezekiah's reign efforts were made to strengthen the defences of
Jerusalem, which had been left in a parlous condition by King Ahaz. The wall was built up to
the height of the towers, another wall was added, the army was reconstituted and new arms were
supplied in abundance. Consequently when Shalmaneser died, the tribute which the Judeans had
been forced to pay to the Assyrians was not forthcoming, because they believed themselves
sufficiently strong to ignore the demand.
Sennacherib, when his emissaries had been treated with derision, including among others Judah,
eventually sent a large and powerful army against the recalcitrant city, an army composed of
many nationalities, and laid long and close siege to it. Gradually as it tightened and the plight of
the people became more precarious, with the fate of Samaria doubtless in their minds, fear became
widespread. They had seen and heard Rabshakeh. They—or their rulers—recognised his desire
was not tribute, for had they not stripped the Temple of all its treasures to provide it? No, the
intent was to overthrow the kingdom of Judah.
"Jerusalem is ruined," cries Isaiah, "Judah is fallen!" A little later he pulls aside the veil yet
further: "It is a day of trouble---and of perplexity by the Lord of Hosts in the valley of vision,
breaking down the walls and crying (reverberating) to the mountains. And Elam bore the quiver
with chariots and horsemen and Kir uncovered the shield . . thy choicest valleys shall be full of
chariots and the horsemen shall set themselves in array at the gate . . . ye have seen also the
breaches of the city that they are many."[66] "Let us eat and drink—for tomorrow we shall
die."[67]
Such was the desperate situation, with, be it noted, Persian chariots and cavalry and infantrymen
from Media before the walls and gates, where many breaches had already been effected. The
triumphant Assyrian king, the Nabuchodonosor of the Book of Judith, had previously defeated
the proud Arphaxad, King of Media (Kir), and the Persians (Elam), who were now swelling his
armies, and Jerusalem was on the verge of collapse. Isaiah cited above is represented partly in
the future tense, the usual ex post facto custom accorded to the prophets, although he mentions
the breaches in the present tense, as having happened.
In addition the city was suffering from a grievous pestilence. As Jerusalem was thus tottering,
the king himself was laid low and in extremis. At this crisis he was visited by Isaiah who said
sternly, "Set thine house in order: for thou shalt die and not live." Hezekiah wept sore and prayed
to the Lord, whereby the prophet relented, ordered his attendants to place a poultice of figs on
the sore, and told the king that the Lord would deliver his city from the Assyrians, that he would
be well enough to visit the Temple on the third day, and that he would reign for another fifteen
years. Hezekiah evidently felt some doubt respecting this optimism, as was somewhat natural
in the circumstances, and asked for some sign or proof. Thereupon Isaiah offered a remarkable
sign or omen. In the garden of the royal palace stood the sundial of Ahaz, and the prophet said
that the sun should be retarded by ten degrees backward: "so the sun returned ten degrees by
which degrees it was gone down." In other words, that day was lengthened by ten hours.[68]
Whether the prophet offered such a test is of itself of no major importance to this investigation,
or whether he actually forecast that Hezekiah would visit the Temple on the third day and reign
another fifteen years. The crucial factor is that according to the account given, the retarding of
the sun by ten hours beyond his wonted time indicated something phenomenal in the heavens,
of which we must assume Isaiah was aware. It signified a total day of thirty-four hours. This
recalls a sentence in the Book of Enoch (Ethiopian edition), which says, "In these days the sun shall rise in the evening and as a great chariot journey to the west, causing distress as it goes."
The sun could not, of course, have performed so eccentric a course as to return by ten degrees
on his track. On the other hand, a comet, approaching the earth very closely and throwing its
light when the sun sank, could and would have shed its rays as Enoch says. Seneca, for instance,
described the comet of 146 B.C. which appeared just after the death of Demetrius, King of Syria,
as little inferior to the sun in size, a circle of red fire, and sparkling with a light so bright as to
surmount the obscurity of the night. The comet that seemed to menace Jerusalem in A.D. 70,
when Titus was besieging it, was called Xiphias, says Josephus, because its tail resembled the
blade of a sword. Many records describe comets as like great suns, and it may be believed such
was the case in the period of Hezekiah.
The prophet Zechariah, grandfather of the king, a Levite noble of great distinction, explains the
lengthened day in question in these words: "It shall be one day---not day nor night---but it shall
be light." In a striking passage also Isaiah, whose words should be read properly in the past tense,
describes plainly those crucial hours:
Thou shalt be visited by the Lord of Hosts with thunder and earthquake and great
noise, with storm and tempest, and the flame of devouring fire---And there shall be
upon every high hill, rivers and streams of waters in the day of slaughter, when the
towers fall--Moreover the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun and the
light of the sun shall be sevenfold as the light of seven days...
And the Lord shall cause his glorious voice to be heard and shall show the lightning
down of his arm, with the indignation of his anger and with the flame of a devouring
fire, with scatterings and tempest and hailstorms. For through the voice of the Lord
shall the Assyrian be beaten down which smote with a rod.[69]
The preliminary to this is a verse which describes how the enemy were encamped around David's
city and had laid siege to it with a mount and forts. Isaiah's meaning is clear beyond cavil. There
was earthquake, storm, tempest, great thunder, and blazing fire, the collapse of buildings and
towers, following on the phenomenal brightness of the sun—or so he terms it—shining seven
times with the power of his usual might, intimating that the celestial body was about to fall on
them. And that was how the Assyrian was beaten down, despite his superior arms. Enoch confirms
this brilliancy of the celestial body, saying, "The sun shall shine more brightly than accords with
his order of light." It stands to reason, with a half-light previously, with the thunders and lightning,
also devouring fire, apart from the tempest, that it was no sun on this occasion. In Esdras we
find, as the threat was approaching, this advice: "And the Sodomitish sea shall cast out fish, and
make a noise in the night which many have not known---and salt waters shall be found in the
sweet, and all friends shall destroy one another; then shall wit hide itself and understanding
withdraw itself into his secret chamber."[70]
And Isaiah gives similar advice: "Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers and shut thy
doors about thee: hide thyself, as it were for a little moment until the INDIGNATION BE
PASSED OVER.[71]' Recollect, with all this, the previous untoward events, such as the
prolonged drought, drying up of rivers, and various other plagues, including invasions of frogs,
insects, etc.[72]
While the king lay tossing on his bed of sickness, Isaiah and many others would have heard the
rumblings of an approaching tempest in those tortured hours when the unending day dragged
onwards and the "sun" again rose towards evening time, throwing a strange, garish, and glaring
light upon an apprehensive world. Then doubtless the wise ones did conceal themselves in secret
underground chambers until the fury or indignation of the Lord had passed over. We may surmise
that King Hezekiah was conveyed to safety, probably deep in the underground tunnels of the
City of David.
Zechariah has preserved the most complete and dramatic version of this terrible event, he a priest
"who had understanding in the visions of God," and who was the father of Abi, the mother of
Hezekiah, hence the king's maternal grandfather. He was a leading noble in the reigns of Uzziah
and Ahaz, and like other prophets is represented in ex post facto prophetic language:
I will gather all nations together against Jerusalem to battle; the city shall be taken, the houses
rifled, and the women ravished; and half of the city shall go into captivity and the residue of the
people shall not be cut off from the city.[73]
Zechariah confirms and even enlarges on the hopeless situation of Jerusalem as described by
Isaiah. The city, or part of it, was already in the power of the enemy hordes with all the excesses
attendant on the helpless population who fell into their clutches, but seemingly while one half
of the city was looted the rest as yet stood up behind their defences.
There then follows a vivid description of the celestial event of that fateful twilight, yet which
was destined to prove Judah's salvation. Zechariah describes how the Mount of Olives was split
in two, and how streams of water poured into the "nearer and farther" season that tremendous
night, which was "not day nor night":
Ye shall flee to the valley of the mountains; yea, ye shall flee like as ye fled from
before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah in that day the light shall not be clear or
dark---living waters shall go out of Jerusalem, half of them toward the nearer sea
and half of them toward the hinder sea.---
It shall be lifted up from Benjamin's Gate unto the place of the first Gate, unto the
Corner Gate and from the Tower of Hananeel unto the king's wine-presses---
Jerusalem shall be safely inhabited.
And this shall be the plague wherewith the Lord will smite all the people that have
fought against Jerusalem. Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon
their feet, their eyes shall consume away in their holes, and their tongue shall
consume away in their mouth.[74]
Here we have the description of an eye-witness able to tell us precisely what damage the
earthquake caused and name the actual parts of the city which had suffered most. We have the
vivid description of the eerie light before the blow, the crash upon the Mount of Olives which
is split in two, the shaking of the city as the earth rises and falls in the sickening motion of all
earthquakes, followed by the draining of the seas and waters by a tidal wave and their furious
return, accompanied by tempest and floods, which pour with violence into the two seas, and
finally the flight of the survivors in panic to the mountains—anywhere to escape this appalling
visitation. Yet Jerusalem remained standing, a miracle of God! And the even more astonishing
miracle whereby the invading host was destroyed in one great blast which burnt them with fire
even where they stood. Such is Zechariah's graphic story!
Assuredly drama could never surpass the events of that night of prodigies, beginning with the
threatening apprehension of a night that never arrived; first of all a terrifying brightness; then a
continuous strange and luminous twilight with an immense circular red sun perceptible to those
who dared look through a mystical nimbus which increased rapidly in size hour by hour as it
approached nearer and nearer; its edges flashing coruscations of dazzling lightning accompanied
by growing thunders and reverberated among the surrounding mountains in long ominous rolls,
each more menacing than the last. Nature, meantime, awaiting the inevitable hour lay hushed
and still, the silence only broken by the twitterings of frightened birds or by the screams of
terrified humanity until with a sudden deafening roar the crash fell---
Many tens of thousands of lives were lost that night in more places than one. Egypt---Havilah--
-Amenta---True, a part of Jerusalem lay in ruins, yet, amid the desolation, the beautiful city so
justly extolled by the prophets, survived the holocaust around her. Her affliction was great indeed,
as Isaiah laments in a petition for mercy in these eloquent words:
Be not wroth very sore, 0 Lord, neither remember iniquity for ever: behold, see, we
beseech thee, we are all thy people. Thy holy cities are a wilderness, Zion is a
wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation. Our holy and our beautiful house, where our
fathers praised thee, is burned up with fire: and all our pleasant things are laid waste.
Wilt thou restrain thyself for these things, O Lord? Wilt thou hold thy peace and
afflict us very sore?[75]
But what of the enemy who surrounded the city and held half of it in his cruel grasp? That same
night, struck down and burnt with fire, as Zechariah states, Isaiah confirms it in a terse sentence:
"Then the angel of the Lord went forth and smote in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred and
fourscore and five thousand: and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all
dead corpses."[76] He describes the event as a "BLAST."[77] It was, indeed, a mighty blast
which consumed them by violent waves of magnetic flames so that they lay in vast clusters one
hundred and eighty-five thousand charred and mutilated corpses.
The effect on the remainder of the Assyrians was immediate. Sennacherib broke off the campaign
and returned hurriedly across the river to his capital, Nineveh, where he was shortly afterwards
murdered. Berosus, the Babylonian Chaldean, sought to gloss over an event that shook the world
to its foundations, saying that when Sennacherib was returning from his Egyptian war and on
his way to Jerusalem, he found Rabshakeh with his army in danger for "God had sent a pestilential
distemper upon his army," which might be described as a considerable understatement. Herodotus
reports a garbled account of how Sennacherib was besieging Pelusium and that Sethos, the
Egyptian king, faced by the refusal of his soldiers to fight for him, prayed before the image of
Ptah at Memphis, who told him to go forth and face the Assyrian host. Thereupon Sethos collected
certain artisans, traders, and market people and marched them to Pelusium. In the night vast
numbers of mice gnawed the bows and armour of the Assyrians, and being unarmed in the
morning the motley Egyptian force decimated their ranks and the remainder fled.[78] Yet the
true story of the holocaust must have spread abroad for we read that the King of Babylon sent a
special embassy with letters and gifts to Hezekiah, whose mission was to "inquire of THE
WONDER that was done in the land."[79]
That blast! It certainly was a Wonder! A vast host suddenly "consumed," to use Zechariah's
word, at the moment when Jerusalem lay at their very feet. Their camp was silent, their bodies
distorted, and numbers were buried under rocks and stones that fell on them, as described by
Ezekiel, who terms them Gog and Magog, names well-known in the antiquities of Britain but
not elsewhere.[80]
Yet it must be appreciated that the experience of Jerusalem, apart from the spectacular and moral
effect, was but a small portion of the result of that unending night and the vast face of the malign
comet. We may glean from the records of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the apocryphal Book
of Wisdom, the lurid picture of the frightful devastation experienced in the epicentre of the
visitation in Egypt, all couched in the usual prophetic strain except for the Book of Wisdom.
Isaiah says, "And the Lord shall utterly destroy the tongue of the Mizraimite Sea; and with his
mighty wand shall he shake over the river, and shall smite it into seven streams and make men
go over dry shod. And there shall be a highway for the remnant of his people which shall be left
from Assyria."[81] Was not this a reference to those Hebrews and others who escaped so
mysteriously from Pharaoh across the Sea of Suph or Sedge, truly a "tongue" of the Mizraimite
Sea? Ezekiel portrays the fate of Egypt graphically:
The land of Mizraim shall be desolate and waste---from the tower of Seveneh unto
the border of Cush---No foot of man shall pass through it, nor foot of beast, neither
shall it be inhabited forty years: and I will scatter the Mizraimites among the nations.
And I will make the land of Egypt desolate in the midst of the countries that are
desolate, and her cities among the cities that are laid waste shall be desolate forty
years: and I will scatter the Mizraimites among the nations.[82]
What a profound destruction is here implied! A great region defined, say, from Wessex to the
Western Highlands of Scotland and including part of Ireland, uninhabitable for forty years, a
desolation amid other destroyed lands! Jeremiah, speaking of the "cup of wine of the Lord's
fury," mentions among those who drink of its bitterness: "Pharaoh, king of Mizraim, and the
princes and all his people; and all the mingled people---and all the kings of the Philistines, and
Ashkelon, and Azzah (Gaza), and Ekron, and the remnant of Ashdod, Edom, and Moab, and the
children of Ammon---Dedan and Tema (Tamar), and Buz and all in the furthermost corners."[83]
All these infer a tremendous catastrophe.
It was Isaiah's "Day of Slaughter" and this is seemingly borne out by Ezekiel's thirtieth chapter
which records that great fear overcame Cush when the slain fell down in Mizraim and her
foundations were broken down, naming Pathros, Zoan, No and Sin among those famed places
rendered desolate. At Taphnes the day was darkened and the "arm" of Pharaoh was broken.
Finally we should probe slightly into Wisdom.[84] From chapter xi onwards that work is mainly
concerned with this subject. It says, "Thou tookest away the multitude of their children and
destroyedst them altogether in a mighty water. Of that night were our fathers certified afore." In
this Book the word Egyptian is avoided and Sodom or Sodomites is employed, the name of
Gades or Tartessus, classic scene of the end of the Titans. In that long night the Mizraimites were
drowned and consumed by fire. It is vividly portrayed, as for example:
For the ungodly that denied to know thee were scourged by the strength of thy arm:
with strange rains, hails, and showers were they persecuted---and through fire were
they consumed---For when righteous men thought to oppress the holy nation—they
being shut up in their houses, prisoners of darkness and fettered with the bonds of a
long night—lay there exiled from the eternal providence. No power of the fire might
give them light: neither could the bright flames of the stars endure to lighten that
horrible night, image of that darkness which should afterward receive them.[85]
Observe the phrases "a long night" and "that horrible night." In the following passage reproaches
are cast at the Gadites or Tartessians dwelling in the western lands, the traditional scene of
carnage, because they forced into bondage those "friends--that deserved well of" the city of
Sodom:
For they (Hebrews) were yet mindful of the things that were done while they sojourned in a
strange land, how the ground brought forth flies instead of cattle, and how the rivers cast up a
multitude of frogs instead of fishes---
And punishments came upon the sinners not without former signs by the force of thunders, for
they suffered justly according to their own wickedness, inasmuch as they used a more hard and
hateful behavior towards the strangers.
For the Sodomites did not receive those whom they knew not whence they came: but these
brought friends into bondage that had deserved well of them---Therefore with blindness were
these stricken, as were those at the door of the righteous man, when, being encompassed about
with a horrible great darkness, everyone sought the passage of his own doors.[86]
The "righteous man" suffered with the sinners, and the complaint of the Hebrews appears to have
been that the people of Sodom did not show them friendship or accommodation and were
punished accordingly by the Flood or the Great Catastrophe. There were the plagues, then fire
consumed them also, when they were surrounded by a "horrible great darkness," in the course
of a "long night," seeking shelter in their houses, and thus they went down to the grave. The
Israelites, seeking to move south, escaped the holocaust because they had been previously
forewarned.
Such, then, derived from the Scriptures, were the main effects of this tremendous visitation from
on high, of such magnitude and force that for forty years tracts in the land of Egypt remained
unapproachable and compelled the few who could escape to flee to other countries. We see a
succession of earthquakes and electric phenomena, accompanied by tempest and flood which
destroyed besides cities and property, great numbers of human beings, and yet spared Jerusalem
for the most part and simultaneously devoured the flower of the Assyrian army then besieging
it.
It must have been a vast catastrophe which committed such world-wide depreciations, and it is
not surprising that the King of Babylon not only sent a special embassy to discover the facts, but
described it as "the Wonder in the Land." The description of the phenomenon given by the
prophets Isaiah and Zechariah precedent to the actual event, the day lengthened by ten hours, or
seemingly so, and the enormity of the destruction caused throughout so many other countries
and especially Mizraim proclaim that the source of the disaster was the collision of a comet with
our earth, depositing vast quantities of stones and rocks, creating terrible earthquakes, causing
widespread volcanic eruptions, bringing with it magnetic and electric flames, and followed
immediately by a tempest and enormous floods.
This occurred simultaneously over an immense area in the north of Europe, although as in the
case of the "Drift" distribution of material it was irregular in its incidence, some parts utterly
destroyed and others almost escaping as may be said in the case of Jerusalem, which fortunately
lay outside the main area of actual contact. Jerusalem, it seems, from the descriptions which have
come down to us, was devastated by earthquake, caused by the passage overhead of the cometary
body, as has happened in dozens of instances in modern times when large meteors have caused
magnetic oscillations, from a flood due to cloudburst, and flaming fire preceding the comet itself
which destroyed by blast the Assyrians round the city.
It was the Flood of Noah, whose habitat lay in Scotland, as I have shown in my previous work,
known to the Greeks as the Deluge of Deucalion, in which the actual main regions are denoted.[87]
'
* * * * *
It may appear strange to the average reader why this terrible catastrophe, which brought so many
earth changes in its wake, should have been hidden away in the Scriptures so that to get at the
circumstances it is necessary to have recourse to the prophets, and, in most cases, to veiled
accounts couched in the conventional framework of prophecy, whereas the somewhat stark story
of the Flood is told in Genesis as though it were an event that had taken place ages before their
time. The reason partly, in this destruction of the ancient world, was that the celestial visitation
was treated as holy and had to be veiled in mysticism, and partly because of the deceptive and
misleading chronology of the Old Testament.
Nevertheless certain discrepancies reveal the flaws. There is the case of Sodom, otherwise Gades
or Tartessus, whose destruction is plainly evidenced in the Book of Wisdom. In Genesis the
burning by fire of Sodom and Gomorrah is told as a quite separate event from that of the Flood,
whereas in Wisdom it is definitely shown as happening about the time of the Exodus. The
catastrophe of Sodom is wedged into the period of Ab'Ram and Lot, but that this was a fabrication
or a haddishah is seen in statements in Isaiah and Ezekiel, for the former speaks of Sodom and Gomorrah as existing in his own period. "Hear the word of the Lord, ye rulers of Sodom," he
cries, "give ear unto the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrah. To what purpose is the multitude
of your sacrifices unto me, saith the Lord." Then, after chastening them for their "vain oblations,"
he adds, "If ye be willing and obedient ye shall eat the good of the land: but if ye refuse and rebel
ye shall be devoured by the sword: for the mouth of the Lord bath spoken."[88] If words signify
anything at all it is perfectly obvious that in Isaiah's day, when these words were spoken or
written, he is reproaching Sodom and Gomorrah for their lapses and threatens them with the
sword if they did not cease their idolatry. It is impossible to conjecture that. Isaiah was using
this reproof of a region which had been destroyed centuries before. The inference is that Sodom
then flourished, was backsliding and too friendly with the Egyptians, a situation quite conceivable
when the true geography and situation of the Gadites is able to be appreciated.
Ezekiel, living about a hundred years after Isaiah, compares Sodom and her "daughters" with
Jerusalem and Samaria, and he implies that all three were overthrown by human agency, using
Sodom as an illustration in such a manner as suggests that her fate was a comparatively recent
event. His words do not even bear the implication that Sodom was completely obliterated, but
rather that it was defeated and enslaved. It was invaded and defeated, but also suffered from the
devastation that overwhelmed what had been Paradise. In the following passage he is comparing
Sodom with the fate which was suffered by Samaria:
Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fullness of bread and
abundance of idleness was in her and her daughters, neither did she strengthen the
hand of the poor and needy. And they were haughty and committed abominations;
therefore I took them away as I thought good.[89]
The suggestion then is that Sodom was too wealthy, too luxurious, and did not assist the poor
and needy, the latter phrase being very similar to the accusation in Wisdom. She also committed
"abominations" by worshipping other gods. The comparison made by Ezekiel of the fate of two
cities can only belong to his own comparatively recent times. What happened to Tarshish or
Gades would make such a comparison logical, but if it referred to some very ancient city it would
have been an anachronism.
The wealth of Sodom is extolled by Josephus: "At this time," he says, "when the Assyrians had
dominion over Asia, the people of Sodom were in a flourishing condition, both as to riches and
the numbers of their youth."[90] Of what time is he speaking? Of the period before the region
in question was destroyed, which Genesis would have us believe dated to the age of Ab'Ram,
when the very name of Assyria was scarcely known? We find many events of contemporaneous
Bible history which it were inconvenient to tabulate in their rightful setting, are pigeon-holed in
the Pentateuch. It would not have suited the scheme of Bible chronology to have told the story
of Sodom in its true synchronisation, so, like Exodus, it is wedged between two totally different
subjects in Genesis. Yet it was the abbreviated account of the thirteen years' war as conducted
by the Assyrians and their allies. It was then, and only then, that Assyria launched out to obtain
dominion over our British lands.
Let us examine the Genesis account a little more closely than is usually accorded to it. It seems
that Amraphel, King of Shinar (Assyria), Arioch, King of Ellasar (Asar, the name given to Odin's
followers), Chedorlaomer, King of Elam (Persia), and Tidal, "King of Nations" (probably
Scythians and the sons of Gog Magog), invaded the domains of Bera, "King of Sodom," and
four other kings. The Sodomites fought a battle in the vale of Siddim, "which is the salt sea,"
were defeated, and as a result "served Chedorlaomer" (paid tribute) and in the thirteenth year
they rebelled. In the fourteenth year Chedorlaomer and the allies returned and smote the
"Rephaim" (giants), in Ashteroth-Karnaim (Ashdod or Pelusium), the "Zuzims in Ham"
(elsewhere "Zanzummim"), the Emims in Shaveh Kiriathaim, the Horites in Mount Seir, to the
plain of Paran. They turned and marched to Kadesh, when once again out came the King of Sodom and his same allies, and also again they fought a battle in the same vale of Siddim and
were defeated.'[91]
Several references in this report suggest an alien origin. There are errors, such as "Zuzim" for
Zanzummim, and a looseness, for it is difficult to believe that after thirteen years, with the same
kings or leaders on either side, they took part in two battles fought on the same exact field. The
Vale of Siddim where these battles were said to have been fought is described as the "salt sea,"
presumably near the ocean, and that it was full of "slime pits." Slime is an old word signifying
bitumen or tar, and Josephus, calling this site Lake Asphaltitis, formerly the Vale of Siddim,
says that the country of Sodom bordered on it, and that, owing to the impiety of its inhabitants,
it was burnt by lightning.
He explains further that this bitumen or pitch was used partly for caulking ships' hulls and partly
for medicinal purposes, as it is to this day. The origin of this asphalt lake, which in the time of
the Maccabees had shrunk to little more than a pond or mere, was that some part of the celestial
body struck the earth in this particular locality and left behind the lake of pitch as a souvenir.[92]
It is no very unusual occurrence with certain so-called earthquakes (although the earthquake is
the result of the impact), and as a rule such lakes dry up soon on the surface, but can also penetrate
deep into the earth and form oil deposits.[93]
If Josephus' description of the locality be correct, which we have no reason to doubt, it takes us
back to the environs of Bristol, the site as alleged of the original Sodom or Gades or Tarshish.
About 12 miles east of that city is the Sodbury area and about the same from Bath to the south,
where arc the small towns of Old Sodbury, Chipping Sodbury and Little Sodbury, in proximity
to the Bristol coalfield. The origin of the name is lost, but it is significant! In the vicinity of Old
Sodbury, on the edge of a plateau with a steep descent towards Bath, placed on the main road
between Bristol and Malmesbury, stands the ancient little town of Sherston, previously
mentioned. Its original Saxon name was Sceorstown, I may recall, otherwise Scots' Town, but
how came the Scots to found a town in these parts? George Syncellus (tenth century A.D. monk),
in his Chronicles, says that the Scythians overran Bashan and that their camp was called
Scythopolis, namely city of the Scyths or Scots. Syncellus can only be referring to the account
in the Book of Judith when Sennacherib (Nabuchodonosor) sent his general Holofernes and a
great army to the west, who pitched his camp at Scythopolis. Allowing for the difference in
composition between the didactic and elementary Book of Genesis, there is little doubt but that
it was the same war and the same event as regards the invasion in the fourteenth year.
Genesis, indeed, after relating the story of this battle offers a fantastic anti-climax. According to
it the victors, having looted the captured cities of Sodom, retired, taking Lot as a prisoner,
whereupon Ab'Ram immediately armed his servants numbering 318, attacked the victorious (and
huge) Assyrian army, routed it, and pursued the enemy to Hobah, near Damascus. Here they
slew Chedorlaomer, rescued Lot and his goods, and, after his return, the King of Sodom—who
was previously according to the account slain by the Assyrians at Siddimmet Ab'Ram in the Vale
of Shaveh after he had disposed of all the enemy kings and their armies.[94] Josephus attempts
to make this story more palatable by saying that Ab'Ram, with his followers and neighbours,
pursued the Assyrians, found them carousing and intoxicated, destroyed most of them, and the
next day continued the pursuit to Hobah.[95] It is as absurd as the Genesis legend, but both have
a certain family resemblance to the account Herodotus relates, already given, when the Pharaoh
similarly collected a number of untrained domestics in warfare, opposed Sennacherib's army at
Pelusium and annihilated it. The most likely interpretation that can be offered is that at this time
of panic, when the Assyrians before Jerusalem were destroyed by the blast, and earthquakes with
other terrifying phenomena were shattering the earth seemingly, and humanity, the survivors
were hastily retreating eastwards to return to their own countries, and were followed up by some
hastily gathered levies who assaulted them.
More important is another, albeit confusing, story in Genesis. It describes how the King of
Sodom, after the overthrow of the Assyrians—hence after the catastrophe—met Ab'Ram "at the valley of Shaveh, which is the King's dale."[96] Present at this meeting was "Melchizedek, King
of Salem," who "brought forth bread and wine: and he was the priest of the Most High God."
This king blessed Ab'Ram, "and he gave him tithes of all." Who was this monarch thus extolled?
The name Melchizedek analysed appears to consist of the words Mek (or Melq), king, and
"Hizedek," whose name was variously given as Isidek, Hizedk, Hezeki, and several others.[97]
This Hizedek, King of Salem, was King of Jerusalem, whose name was derived from leru or
Hiero, Holy, and Salem. We may conclude, therefore, that the king was Hezekiah, who met
certain persons in the King's Vale after the Great Catastrophe. Josephus uses a notable phrase
regarding him. He says he was "without dispute the righteous king.”[98] The word "righteous"
points to a remarkable phase of Hezekiah's character and reputation and throws a flood of light
upon the past. Whether he offered tithes to anyone on this occasion must remain an enigma.
PLATE X EDINBURGH CASTLE SEEN FROM PRINCES STREET GARDENS
The author seeks to prove that it was originally the site of the City of Zion or the Citadel
of Jerusalem
What did happen shortly after the Great Catastrophe is likely to have been confused and uncertain.
The person described in Genesis as Ab'Ram may have been the Sethos mentioned by Herodotus,
the son and successor of Amenophis, called Sethosis, Ramses, Manetho, however, indicates that.
Amenophis himself returned to defeat the invaders after thirteen years and drove them into Syria:
After this (thirteen years) Amenophis returned from Ethiopia with a great army, as
did his son Rhampses with another army also, and both of them joined battle with
the Shepherds and the polluted people, and beat them, and slew a great many of them,
and pursued them to the bounds of Syria.[99]
Cheroemon, another Egyptian historian, cited by Josephus, says that Amenophis left his wife
and child behind him when he fled into Ethiopia, who were hidden in certain caverns, and that
when this son, called Messene, reached man's estate, he pursued the Jews to Syria, about 200,000
men, and then received his father out of Ethiopia. It sounds very apocryphal since the youth
could have scarcely reached man's estate in those thirteen years. It is more probable that
Amenophis has been confused with the King of Ethiopia, for Sesostris called himself or was
called the Ethiopian King, as well as Egyptian, and that an Ethiopian army, perhaps with the son of Amenophis, came in pursuit of the fleeing Assyrians. Ethiopia, as we know, was Cush, and
we learn that the Cushites were marching against Sennacherib:
So Rabshakeh returned (after threatening Hezekiah before the walls of Jerusalem) and found the
king of Assyria warring against Libnah; for he had heard that he was departed from Lachish.
And when he heard say of Tirhakah, king of Cush, "Behold, he is come out to fight against thee,"
he sent messengers again unto Hezekiah.[100]
Rabshakeh was evidently hoping that Hezekiah might surrender at the last hour before he knew
of this move. These varied reports agree in the main particulars. There was this thirteen-years'
war, the same war as that told mythologically of the Giants against the Gods, when the
Giants—Gog and Magog—were thrown under stones and rocks by the intervention of the god
Hercules or Melcarth, to whom were attributed such acts. Whatever name the invaders were
known under collectively they were directed by Sennacherib as king, but politically and even
militarily by Rabshakeh, which is comprehensible when we regard the career of that extraordinary
firebrand.
As to the statement attributed to Manetho that Amenophis in person played a leading part in the
expulsion of the Assyrians and followed them to the frontiers of Syria, it would destroy the
evidence produced to indicate that he was Sesostris, and was the Pharaoh of the Exodus—which
agrees even with Bible chronology —as also that he had previously indulged in wars of conquest
against many of those who in turn devastated his country. According to Exodus he was drowned
while pursuing the fleeing Hebrews, a claim which fits in with the traditions that Osiris was
buried in Memphis and that the body of Set—the debris and detritus washed down to the
sea—found its outlet by the Tanitic branch of the Nile, which, as was said earlier, may be applied
to the big river estuary of the Parrett in Somerset and which flows into the sea near Taunton, or
Tan Town. On the other hand, we find Diodorus, speaking of the Pharaoh who became Osiris,
saying that he was marching with his army into Ethiopia when the Flood occurred, and Manetho
saying that Amenophis led his army into Ethiopia after he had found himself faced with the vast
army of the Assyrians. Finally, there is the legend for what it is worth of the Spanish Gypsies
that the Pharaoh of the same catastrophe, together with his army, was driven into a hole in a
mountain and destroyed. The truth is that the end of the Pharaoh of the Exodus remained unknown
and tradition relied on hearsay. That his young son survived and helped to take part in the drive
of the frightened forces from overseas who had lost their morale amid the awful scenes of
destruction which came from above is quite likely. He became the Ramses of the twentieth
dynasty, and was later seemingly elevated to the position of Horus in the reconstruction of the
Underworld cult.
In a sense this resolves itself into an academic problem. It is only of importance in regard .to the
main question, which is to place before the reader as nearly as possible a correct synchronisation
of events in the memorable age we are examining, one which bore with enormous repercussions
through the succeeding ages, and which took place in a setting not in the Near East but in Britain.
There is one further aspect of this involved period that requires some additional consideration,
and that is the position of Joshua, Moses' general. Although Joshua is introduced early in the
period of the Exodus, and although we are told the Hebrews, because of their grumblings and
disobedience, were not to be led back to the land of Canaan, Joshua was very soon leading a
trained army to those parts, fighting a series of battles and leading trained soldiers. They were
newcomers into the country, who spoke with awe of the giants they had seen as they spied out
the land, and the great cities "fenced up to heaven," people whose tongue they understood not,
for, as Mr. E. E. Jessel remarks, "Hebrew was not the language of Moses' followers."[101] Who
then were these newcomers, who knew so little of the inhabitants whose cities and lands they
conquered, finding little opposition to their arms in spite of brave isolated defences? Were they
the Saxon invaders, who at some unspecified but very early date entered Britain from the direction
of Belgium and moved westwards until they held Wessex, those newcomers who resettled the lands of the Egyptians, and, as was seen in the tell-tale evidence of the division of the land,
removed the former landmarks and laid out their fields on a totally different system from that of
the Celtic peoples?
The biblical account of the fall of Jericho is an outstanding example of the trained forces he led,
for here stood another great walled city, situated in a plain with a barren plateau between it and
Scythopolis.[102] The walls collapsed when the Levites blew their trumpets, we are told, seven
priests who blew with seven trumpets of rams' horns, who compassed the city seven days,
preceded by armed men with the Ark accompanying them, and on the seventh day after marching
round the city seven times, the walls fell down flat.[103] Can anyone except he be of blind faith
believe that fairy tale? The truth is that Joshua possessed firearms, no other than the "rods" of
the Assyrians, and that was how he was able to defeat and overthrow the brave defenders in their
isolated cities and towns. He almost said so to his followers at Shechem when he had finally
conquered the land, and explained how they had achieved victory: "I sent the hornet before you,
which drave them out before you, even the two kings of the Amorites; but not with thy sword
or with thy bow."[104] The term hornets is used more than once, as "I will send hornets before
thee which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite from before thee"; or, again,
"Moreover, the Lord thy God will send the hornet among them, until they that are left, and hide
themselves from thee, be destroyed."[105] In Wisdom, "wasps" is employed as a synonym for
the same purpose. Is it difficult to estimate what these were that enabled Joshua to march through
nations?
We have the allusion to the rams' horns, which weapons blew down the walls of Jericho.
"Hornets" which went before were assuredly the missiles used for the "rods" or "horns"—horns
of iron, be it understood. We read of "horns of iron" in the Book of Chronicles, "to push the
Syrians." There is the very plain reference in Zechariah, son of Berechiah, during the captivity
in
Babylon. Some "angel" showed him four "horns," and when Zechariah asked what they were,
he was told, "these are the horns which have scattered Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem."[106] These
euphemisms explain themselves and throw a clear light upon the true reason why and how Joshua
attained his easy victories.
The account of Joshua's defeat of "Adonizedek, King of Jerusalem" is open to considerable doubt,
although the mere mention of that city implies the far later period of Joshua's activities, since
the Israelites only went there in David's reign.
According to the Book of Joshua, after he had captured Ai, otherwise Aijalon, and the city of
Gibeon had capitulated, "Adonizedek" induced the kings of Hebron, Jarmuth, Lachish, and Eglon
to unite with him and attack Gibeon for its desertion to their cause. A battle is described near
Gibeon where the five kings were defeated with great slaughter and fled to a cave at "Makkedar"
(cp. Chedor) from whence they were brought out and hanged upon trees.[107] We must doubt
the truth of the claim that the King of Jerusalem was fighting in the neighbourhood of Gibeon
in the west, or that he was hanged on a tree. His name is precisely the same as Melchizedek,
except that the prefix Adon signified Lord, used in place of Melc, king. In short, the king so
mentioned answers in name to Hezekiah.
IV.
THE FIRST MESSIAH
More than any other king of Judah, Hezekiah was outstanding, to use the word of Josephus, as
"the righteous king." Furthermore, he can be claimed as the first Messiah of the Judeans, the
original of other claimants to that title.
Theologians have regarded Melchizedek as in some way connected with the ancient Messiah
belief, and some have considered him to have been a divine personage. For centuries, as all know,
the Jews jealously harboured the belief in some long-expected Messiah who was to arise and lead them triumphantly against their enemies. It was a very ancient credo, associated with the
Antichrist legend, but the origin of it had long been lost. It may be recalled that the Messiah they
anticipated from prophetic utterances had to possess certain clearly defined and outstanding
qualities, to be born of a virgin and to be of David's royal line; he had to be a warrior and priest;
he had to overthrow all the adversaries of his people in a time of severe stress and tribulation;
and he was to lead the nation to great prosperity and power.
Every one of these requirements was fulfilled in Hezekiah.
The name given to the Messiah (or Ha-mashiah) was Immanuel, and we find Isaiah making an
early reference to a child destined to be born of a virgin. "Behold, a virgin shall conceive," said
he to Ahaz, a most unpopular king, "and call his name Immanuel." He indicated that before this
child should be old enough to distinguish between good and evil—that is to say, in his early
childhood—"the laud that thou abhorrest, shall be forsaken of both her kings."[108] Those two
kings were, of course, Ahaz enemies, Rezin, King of Syria, and Pekah, King of Israel or Samaria,
which "smoking firebrands" made war against Ahaz, whereby the King of Judah bribed
Tiglath-Pileser, King of Assyria, to come to his help and thus paved the way for the subsequent
Assyrian aggressions. "Hear ye now, O House of David," said Isaiah contemptuously to Ahaz,
"Is it a small thing for you to weary men, but will ye weary my God also?" It was then he gave
the king the sign that a virgin should conceive and bear a son to be called Immanuel, and that
before the child could even cry "Papa" and "Mamma" (the translated text says stiffly "my father
and my mother"), these two enemies would be disposed of with the riches of Damascus and the
spoil of Samaria.
There should be really no doubt but that this virgin-born son to be named Immanuel ("God with
us") was Hezekiah yet to be born, or that in the following chapter he is also referred to as
"Maher-shalal-hash-baz," a veiled meaning said to signify "speeding for booty he hastes to the
spoil," when Isaiah registered the birth of the child. It can only relate to Hezekiah when the
prophet, speaking of the King of Assyria, says, "He shall pass through Judah; he shall overflow
and go over; and the stretching of his wings shall fill the breadth of thy land, O Immanuel." It
could not refer to Ahaz; it was a synonym for his successor. Moreover, that this young prince
was selected by Isaiah and the leaders of Judah to become the divine instrument for the restoration
and regeneration of Judah is palpably clear in the following words:
For unto us a son is given; and the Government shall be on his shoulders and his name shall be
called WONDERFUL COUNSELLOR, MIGHTY GOD, EVERLASTING FATHER, PRINCE
OF PEACE.
Of the increase of his government and of peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David,
and upon his kingdom to establish it and uphold it with judgment and with justice, from
henceforth and ever and ever.[109]
Hence the "righteous king"! These words, like so many others, have been twisted and wrenched
out of their true context by theologians bent on demonstrating that Isaiah prophesied the coming
of Christ many ages later. Had such been the case he could not have used the phrase "upon the
throne of David," but it is clear to all who desire clarity that the "son" given was Immanuel and
that this name was designated by the prophet to denote Hezekiah and no one else, as the
king-to-be. He and he alone answered to the signs and omens of the Messiah; he was supposedly
of David's royal line; his mother was supposedly a virgin; and he established for the last fifteen
years of his reign, after the overthrow of the Assyrians, a period of unexampled peace and
prosperity. To him was credited the triumphant overthrow of her enemies by the mediation of
God.
The virgin who was to conceive this god-child was the "prophetess" Isaiah mentions: "And I
went unto the prophetess; and she conceived and bare a son. Then said the Lord to me, 'Call his name Maher-shalal-hash-baz,"' having a cryptic significance. This name did Isaiah record and
had "faithful" witnesses in Uriah, the High Priest, and Zechariah, the Levite prince and
prophet.[110] When we speak of a "virgin" birth it presumes a woman who gives birth to a child
without the agency of a human father. So was it deemed in this instance, for it was presumably
not Ahaz' child. The mother of Hezekiah was Abi or Abijah, the daughter of Zechariah, he who
had "understanding in the visions of God."
As Abi was a prophetess she was an alma of the Temple, all of whom were sworn to perpetual
virginity and should any lapse from strict chastity it were punishable with death. It doubtless
presented a grave dilemma when this priestess was discovered to be pregnant, the more so in
view of her illustrious father. Perhaps the prophetess persuaded Isaiah of a celestial contact such
as we frequently find was the firm belief in Greek legendary as in the case of Dana, mother of the
divine Perseus, and in other instances. All we may deduce is that Isaiah in his wisdom decided
that the Lord was the father of the child soon to be born, and hence we are justified in forming
the conclusion that the son born, Immanuel or Hezekiah, was registered as of divine birth, his
mother a virgin, and a sacred deed was drawn up to that end, and was witnessed by the High
Priest and the father of Abi.
There can be very little question that, whosoever's son he was it was not Ahaz, if we accept the
text as accurate. It is true that both the Books of Kings and Chronicles state in their perfunctory
manner that Hezekiah was the son of that monarch, and to the whole nation this would have been
accepted. It is, however, noteworthy that although the text mentions his mother's name, it is given
separately and with no indication that she was the wife of Ahaz. The alternative possibility is
that if Ahaz were his father, that king made Abi, an alma of the Temple, pregnant, and to escape
the consequent dilemma the divine birth was devised.
In this question we should study the career of Ahaz. We are told that he burnt his children in the
fire of Hinnom and that Zichri, an Ephraimite, slew his son Maaseiah. During his short reign the
Samaritans perpetrated a terrible raid on Jerusalem, the King of Syria carried away a multitude
of captives to Damascus, the Edomites and Philistines made devastating war on him until he
invited Tiglath-Pileser to come to his aid, who also sucked the state dry. His reign, in short, was
disastrous. "The Lord brought Judah low because of Ahaz, for he made Judah naked and
transgressed sore against the Lord."[111] So detested was he that when he died the rulers refused
to accord him burial in the sepulchres of the kings. How he met with his end is not specified, but
it should be recognised that these kings were all subordinate in power to the priests and prophets,
and they had a short way with unpopular kings in those days.
The indications are that Ahaz met with an untimely end, and the young boy Hezekiah, supported
by the three powerful men, Isaiah, Uriah and Zechariah, was placed on the throne, and that they
governed in his name until he reached years of discretion. If this were so they reveal wise
statesmanship on the part of Isaiah and his coadjutors, for in those distressful years the monarchy
had become discredited and drastic steps were needed to preserve it. If to us to-day the idea of
attributing divine origin to a prince through a virgin mother may sound grotesque it should be
recollected that in the distant past such matters were by no means uncommon.
Immanuel or Hezekiah could have been but a small child when Ahaz died. The kings of Israel
and Syria were only overthrown by Tiglath-Pileser three years before Ahaz met his death. It is
true that both Kings and Chronicles state that Hezekiah was twenty-five when he succeeded
Ahaz, but this is manifestly incorrect. For instance, Ahaz is accorded a reign of sixteen years in
these two books, but we are also told in II Kings that he became King of Judah in the seventeenth
year of Pekah, King of Israel. Pekah was succeeded by Hoshea in his twentieth year, and Hoshea
reigned only nine years. As Hezekiah succeeded Ahaz in the third year of Hoshea it is apparent
that Ahaz reigned for only six years in all, not sixteen, and if he were aged twenty when he
succeeded, it is obvious he could not have had a son of twenty-five, which was about his own
age.[112] Moreover, if Hezekiah could only lisp words three years before Ahaz' death, it is evident that he was only a child when he was placed on the throne. His really responsible reign
appears to have only started from the time of Judah's salvation.
In the earlier years of his reign efforts were made to strengthen the defences of Jerusalem. Then
came the siege, the demand of Rabshakeh for unconditional surrender, half the city in the hands
of the enemy, the extraordinary "wonder" of the blast and earthquake together with the sinister
celestial visitation, all occurring literally at the very eleventh hour—and finally the aftermath.
The destruction of human life in Judah must have been considerable, for we find Isaiah saying,
"Except the Lord of Hosts had left us a very small remnant we should have been as Sodom, we
should have been like unto Gomorrah."[113] In these terrible words a vivid picture of what
actually happened is conveyed.
It was the habit or system of the compilers of the Old Testament to conceal under the guise of
prophecy actual events, frequently using the major or sometimes the minor prophets who were
themselves probably quite innocent of the words attributed to them. Such is peculiarly the case
with Ezekiel, of whom personally so little is known except that he was among the captivity by
the River Chebar, and yet from chapters xxv to xxxix inclusive appear a series of fulminations
and details of the awful destruction wrought by the Great Catastrophe. The list includes Ammon,
Moab, Sidon, Egypt, Assyria "there,"[114] Elam, Meschech and Tubal, Edom, Jerusalem and
the land of Israel, and finally Gog of Magog. These fifteen chapters have been recognised by
theologians and Bible experts to be interpolations and quite distinct from the remaining chapters
assembled under the name of Ezekiel, having nothing in common with what precedes or follows
them. Unquestionably they are the work of later redactors or scribes who thus preserved in the
guise of doctrine the fate of the devastated lands.[115]
My remarks here are mainly confined to what is said in regard to those called Gog and Magog.
"Son of man," says the Lord, "set thy face against Gog, the land of Magog, the chief prince of
Meshech and Tubal---Behold, I am against thee, O Gog." The Lord, we are told, will put hooks
in his jaws, including his army and horsemen, and those who accompany him, among others
Elam, Cush, Gomer, Togarmah, all of them from the north. "Thou shalt come from thy place out
of the north parts, thou, and many people with thee." They come riding on horses, a mighty army.
Then says the writer, "In that day when my people of Israel dwelleth safely shalt thou [Gog] not
know it," an allusion to the blast. These savage and hungry hordes go to the "land of unwalled
villages to take spoil and prey." They go against Sheba (Beersheba), and Dedan, and Tarshish,
its merchants and "all the young lions thereof," to loot them of their wealth. They march against
Israel ( Judah) also--whereupon, "my fury shall come up in my face---in that day there shall be
a great shaking in the land of Israel---I will rain upon Gog and upon his bands, and upon the
many people with him, an overflowing rain, and great hailstones, fire and brimstone---and I will
turn thee back, and leave but a sixth part of thee, and will cause thee to come up from the northern
parts and will bring thee upon the mountains of Israel.---And I will send a fire on Magog and
among them that dwell confidently among the isles---Thou shalt fall upon the mountains of
Israel."[116]
There can be no mistaking the purport of this detailed account so strangely concealed in the
middle of Ezekiel, which supports both Isaiah and Zechariah, the only difference being that the
writer gives the name of Gog of Magog in place of Assyria and stresses Gomer, Elam, Meshech
and Tubal amongst others in this "mighty army," of which we gather only one-sixth escaped and,
according to Isaiah, 185,000 were killed in a flash outright, so that the total mixed hordes round
Jerusalem at the time approximated to about 223,000 in all. In an earlier chapter the writer is
told to wail for the multitude of Egypt and "the daughters of famous nations unto the nether parts
of the earth." There is, therefore, no doubt but that we obtain here the record of the toll of life
and civilisation at the period of the Great Catastrophe. We are told how these various armies
went against the much-envied west, to Beersheba, Dedan and Tarshish with its wealthy merchants
and "young lions" of the tribe of Gad; of the great shaking in Israel, hailstones, brimstone and fire rained upon the mass of the enemy; and that this enemy came from the most northern parts.
This was no passing celestial disturbance, which was also to ravage the northern home of Magog,
but of universal upsetting of the civilised world of that time. As I said before, and repeat--it was
the Great Catastrophe. It could only be.
The account does not end there. We are told in some detail what happened to these tens of
thousands of corpses who served under "Gog," and their burial place in the vicinity of Jerusalem,
and, though as customarily couched in the phrase of prophecy, it should be read as in the past
tense as of an event that had taken place:
In that day I will give unto Gog a place there of graves in Israel, the valley of the
passengers (passers-by) on the east of (by) the sea: and it shall stop the noses of the
passengers: and there they shall bury Gog and all his multitude, and they shall call
it the valley of Hamon-Gog. And seven months shall the house of Israel be burying
of them, that they may cleanse the land. And they shall sever out men of continuous
employment to bury with the passengers (passers-by) those that remain upon the
face of the earth to cleanse it.---And, when any seeth a man's bone, then shall he set
up a sign by it, till the buriers have buried it in the valley of HamonGog.[117]
This detailed description of the actual locality, the months it took to bury the putrid corpses of
the invaders, placed in the vicinity of a highway where passers-by, if they saw a man's bone
protruding through the soil or stones, were told to set up a mark or sign to enable the grave-diggers
to see and inter it—all this affords absolute proof of the destruction of the Assyrians or "Gog of
Magog." Jeremiah calls it the Valley of Slaughter, and it was also known as the Place of Hinnom,
the Valley of Rephaim or Giants, and finally as Golgotha, the Place of Skulls. The ravine or
valley stood on the road to Hinnom, not far from the high place called Tophet. The valley became
in later times the city dung-heap and is immortalised because it was the traditional site of the
Crucifixion. But it lay not in the present Palestine. Like Jerusalem it can be and is, later, definitely
identified to this day in Britain.
Who then were "Gog" and "Magog"? Scandinavia, more particularly the present Sweden, has
been claimed by her early antiquaries like Johannes Magnus as the place of settlement of Magog,
and Magog, according to Josephus, was the progenitor of the Scythians, who, as shown
previously, were very much mixed up with the early Goths, and that they were believed to be
Goths finds some confirmation in the fact that their burial valley was called Golgotha, the skulls
of the Goths. If we accept the testimony of various early writers on the subject of the Antichrist
legend, we learn a few other factual matters. One account says that they were Hyperborean
Scythians, a savage people destroyed by Michael; another account says that the Hebrews were
enclosed in a land beyond the Persian stream having wandered to a far-distant land and were
called Magogoei; Commodian says that they were Goths and the nations gathered to withstand
them, who came with the Antichrist.[118] They were accompanied by "monsters, serpents,
scorpions, and dragons," words whose meaning the reader may interpret.[119]
And who, in this veiled description, was "Gog" himself? Says another version of the Antichrist
legend, "Gog was he of whom the prophets prophesied," but Gog, "Prince of Rosh," Meshech
and Tubal, and all his hordes together with Magog, persecuted and was destroyed without mercy
by the angels Michael and Gabriel.[120] That there was some significant event behind all these
guarded traditions we need not doubt. We see Gog apostrophised as "Prince of Meshech and
Tubal," who are identified by Josephus as Iberians dwelling in what is now a part of Russia. As
Moschians and Tibarini they served in Xerxes' army of a later time.[121] The Moschians,
according to Josephus, were the "sons" of Mosoch, and there was a city "even now among them
called Mazaca," otherwise Moscow.[122] Tubal gave his name to the Siberian province of
Tobolsk, on the River Tobol. The Iberians (or Hebrews), according to Plutarch, stretched as far
as the Moschian Mountains (Urals), and who had conducted them to these distant parts, or caused
them to be conducted? Was it not Moses, or Zalmoxis, or Zoroaster, and does not the description
( Page 134 )
of their armament in their fanciful simile tally with that attributed to Silenus and Dionysus? Who
was "Prince of Rosh," Russia, or Persia? In other words, was not the wrath of the writer of the
passages in Ezekiel visited upon Moses as "Gog"?
It is no crucial part of the claims I am advancing whether Moses and Gog were intended to be
identical. What is my main object is to elucidate as plainly as possible the last days of the
prehistoric world before and during the Great Catastrophe. Gog himself is immaterial from this
angle, but it is also my purpose to show that all these tremendous events of the time
geographically took place in Britain and nowhere else. Let it be recalled, therefore, that the giants
Gog and Magog have held a prominent place in the folklore of Britain from a long distant day
so that all remembered of them are their names as giants. The name is yet preserved in the
Gogmagog Hills of Cambridgeshire, and for many centuries the effigies of Gog and Magog
adorned the Guildhall in the City of London, although they were destroyed by German bombs
in 1940. Those particular effigies only dated from 1707, but there were others long before them.
No other country except Britain has cognisance of these invaders except the Holy Land in
circumstances which I claim prove definitely that all happened in "this Isle" of Isaiah.
V.
THE AFTERMATH
In the first year of the reconstituted reign of Hezekiah considerable reforms were introduced and
two solemn feasts celebrated in order to commemorate the gratitude to the Deity overwhelmingly
felt by all the survivors for having saved them from destruction either at the hands of their enemies
or from the wrath of the Almighty. I use the word "reconstituted" because it is evident from the
context that certain events took place which could only have applied after the siege and
earthquake, when the king was no longer a minor in a state of tutelage
.
The compiler of II Chronicles tells of the elaborate purification of the Temple which had been
polluted by Ahaz, and states that Hezekiah in the first month and year of his reign called on the
priests to sanctify it. This may have so happened, but it is at least doubtful whether the event
does not properly refer to the period after the siege, for the elaborate celebration appears to relate
to the Feast of the Tabernacles which could only have come into operation after the period of
the "Wonder." Isaiah, as we have seen, speaks of the damage to "our holy and beautiful house"
caused by the Assyrians.
During these seven days of solemn observance everyone quitted their homes and dwelt in the
forests and woods surrounding Jerusalem, making shift with roughly constituted shanties or
booths or branches of trees or anything to give them temporary shelter. On the eighth day they
carried these branches or boughs in triumph to the Temple, and held high festival. This same
festival they restored after they returned from the captivity in Babylon, repairing to the Mount
of Olives to cut down branches for the purpose, as Ezra taught them had been ordered by Moses,
now their great prophet.[123]
The reason given to the people who now first became known as the Jews was that the children
of Israel had had to dwell in such booths of "the boughs of goodly trees, and thick trees, and
willows of the brook," during their long sojourn in the wilderness, although they certainly could
not have found such arborean shelter or brooks with willow trees in the Arabian desert.[124]
The festival actually commemorated the awful experience when the people of Jerusalem fled in
terror to the mountain glens and forests to seek such protection as they could obtain from the
earthquake and tempest, sheltering under such rude structures as they could hastily find as cover.
That this was the real reason is made clear by Zechariah, who, after relating the horrors of that
occasion, ends by describing how "everyone that is left of all the nations which came against
Jerusalem shall even go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of Hosts."[125]
Such was doubtless the true explanation of the Feast of the Tabernacles, and to this day the
Jewish head of a household who observes the Law erects a booth in his garden or somewhere convenient to his residence and where his family lodge for seven days. At the conclusion of
every meal he repeats words in which, after stating that he has obeyed the Lord's command, he
asks that in the coming year he may be accounted worthy to "sit in the booth of Leviathan." The
good man may not understand the reference to Leviathan, but those acquainted with my previous
volume will be aware that the composite monster, called variously Set, Cetus, the amphibious
monster which destroyed land and sea, and is engraved on many Scottish prehistoric stones, or
Rahab, the Whale, otherwise the cometary body, was in addition known as Leviathan, that
amphibious vast monstrosity, much of which plunged into the ocean. So he—our good man—is
commemorating the escape in the Great Catastrophe.
The Rev. G. H. Box, D.D. (former Davidson Professor of Old Testament Studies at London
University) says on this subject:
It should be observed that the Leviathan plays a prominent part in haggadic (Talmudic
anecdote) legend, especially in connection with the Messianic time. The monster is
to be killed and the flesh is to furnish food for the righteous at the Messianic
banquet.[126]
We are aware that Isaiah's references to Leviathan relate to the period of the Great Catastrophe,
like most of his so-called prophecies, the amphibious monster being, as I have stated, Set, the
Destroyer. That the festival was related to the Messianic time was because Hezekiah was hailed
as the Messiah. This ceremony was ordained by Hezekiah and the priesthood in the first
reconstituted year of his reign, for the excellent reasons given, and the Mosaic claims to its origin
are doctrinal and false.
But more important even than the Feast of the Tabernacles, also commemorated for the first
time, was the Feast of the Passover, most solemn of all Jewish feasts, for it immortalises that
terrible night when the Angel of the Lord smote the Assyrians and their many allies, and
consumed them by blast and fire, but PASSED OVER THE ISRAELITES IN JERUSALEM,
and hence its name. Proof that this was the true origin of the Passover lies in the fact that Hezekiah
and the priests desired to hold the first commemoration on the fourteenth day of the first month
of their new year, but owing to certain difficulties of a temporary nature it had to be postponed
until the middle of the second month, partly because the priests could not make the essential
preparations for the first date and partly because it gave insufficient notice to those sons of Israel
in distant and scattered parts.[127]
King Hezekiah caused a proclamation to be made from Dan to Beersheba—signifying those
most distant and scattered parts in the west where some Israelites had managed to escape death
—which such short notice prevented them from foregathering in time. The royal invitation to
the great festival was in these words, "Ye children of Israel, turn again unto the Lord God of
Ab'Ram, Isaac, and Israel, and he will return the remnant of you that are escaped out of the hands
of the king of Assyria." As a result of the summons we are told that some mocked at it, but many
attended the killing of the Paschal lamb on the fourteenth day of the second month. It was made
the occasion of singular devotion, gratitude and generosity. The king and his princes donated
large numbers of bullocks and sheep as a thank-offering.[128]
It will be observed that Hezekiah's proclamation made no mention of Moses at all, who we are
supposed to believe had inaugurated the Passover some six hundred years earlier! On the contrary,
it invited the kindred of Ab'Ram to take part in the feast of thanksgiving, that remnant who had
escaped from the Assyrians.
When about a century and a half later the converted Israelites to Judaism—although great
numbers were not racially Israelites at all—recognised the Passover, it was claimed to have been
established by Moses, as is stated in the Book of Numbers. Proof that it was diverted from its
real origin to serve the Mosaic cult is seen in the fact that the rabbis adopted as an arbitrary date had only selected in the first place
by force of circumstances. Thus the Paschal Feast was able to be solemnly observed thereafter
on the fourteenth day of Nizan, the second month, if circumstances prevented attendance on the
first day of the first month. This fact proves that the rabbis took the date from Hezekiah and not
from Moses. It invalidates the pretence that the Passover commemorated the night when the Lord
passed over the houses in Egypt whose occupants had previously smeared their doors, lintels,
and side-posts with the blood of sheep on the shameful occasion when all the first-born of the
Egyptians were murdered except in such cases as they or their parents had purchased immunity
from the rascally horde who were Moses' followers.
To those who believe that divinity doth hedge our path it is time that the truth should be
recognised, that the Feast of the Passover solemnly commemorated the night when the Lord's
Angel passed over Jerusalem, and left it yet standing, rather than that it commemorated a very
hideous crime. Such matters should be weighed up and known.
Moses was plainly known to Hezekiah's generation only as Rabshakeh, Sennacherib's
mouthpiece, political and priestly leader of the Sakai or Goths or sons of Magog, whom he had
apparently led against the Judeans. Except for such traces as have been mentioned he and his
doctrines were unknown to the people of Judah until far later. I would cite here a passage from
Mr. Jessel's book on the Jews which shows that in the reign of Josiah, eighty-seven years later,
in a period when history had yet to be written, the king only heard of Moses and his Laws for
the first time and by reason of a peculiarly sly priestly manoeuvre:
We find occasional references to Moses, his laws, statutes, and commandments—
interpolations of the scribes to pave the way for the astounding discovery made in
the reign of Josiah. The story goes that Hilkiah, a High Priest of the Temple, in this reign "discovered" a scroll hidden away somewhere in it, which proved to be a portion
of the Mosaic Law, which was then read to the king by one Shapham, a scribe.
We should remember that the Temple at this time must have been built nearly 300
years; yet the account makes it clear that these laws were not known, for when the
king heard them read he rent his clothes and very incontinently blamed his fathers
"for not having hearkened to the words of this book." Assuming that this incident
occurred (reported in II Kings xxii), it would prove that within six hundred years of
the Mosaic revelation all the remembrance of that stupendous event and the
portentous miracles which accompanied it had entirely passed away, which is about
as likely as that the English nation should possess no record of Magna Charta.
The conclusion is a startling one. There never had been any monotheism among the
inhabitants of Canaan before the discovery of this book, which was mysteriously
hidden away in a temple of idolaters built by an idolater. . . . Nothing was known of
Moses or about any code of laws he had given the forefathers of the then ruling race
of Canaan. As far as the king of Judah was concerned, he only heard of Moses and
his laws for the first time from Hilkiah's book.[129]
Thus do we probe to the truth in these matters and begin to realise that this murky enforcement
of the Mosaic cult was, in fact, a political deception imposed on the world by those who wished
to regularise their claim to a country which they ultimately largely conquered, except for parts
of Scotland and Wales, and to which they had no shadow of right except the sword. That is one
thing. It is another that this deceptive faith, based on "magic" force, should have imposed for so
lengthy a period on the world a culture that has historically worked little for the amelioration of
the world in general, shows no altruism or generosity or toleration, and hence the iconoclasm of
Jesus Christ who dared all by turning on His own people and stripping them morally naked,
whereby He was crucified, as any other saintly figure is likely to be so treated to-day, or, if not
crucified physically, stands the risk of being ruined by the power of Mammon and its unseen
influences.
What lay behind this remarkable transformation scene in religious faith among the priests of
Judah in Josiah's reign, which led to the ultimate downfall of the kingdom of Judah to the
imperious dictates of the King of Babylon, whose city had another and equally famous classic
name? They were seemingly bribed. Dr. A. Kuenen, in The Religion of Israel, suggested that
what Shapham read to Josiah were chapters iv, 44, xxvi, and xxvii of Deuteronomy. The first
concerned the first-fruits payable to the priests and tithes to the Levites, and the second the dire
punishments to be sent from heaven to those who neglected to obey these commandments. If
this were so it indicates that the priesthood in Josiah's reign had been secretly influenced by the
Mosaic power in Babylon which gained their ear by promises of lavish payments and gave them
illimitable control over the people.
This lay at the base of the success of Moses' revolutionary policy, a clerical oligarchy, and sowed
the seeds which ultimately caused the overthrow of the Jewish monarchy and destroyed the
freedom of the nation. If we accept the conclusions of Mr. Jessel—and it is difficult to escape
his logic—it is plain that Hezekiah and the great men of his day, including Isaiah and Zechariah,
had no conception of Moses or his pretensions, other than that they regarded Rabshakeh as a
sworn enemy of their nation.
Hezekiah, apart from David and the shadowy Solomon, was regarded as the greatest king of the
Israelite people, was famed for his princely virtues, his justice, righteousness and clemency, and
on his death was buried in the "chief of the sepulchres" in the city of David. He was the "root of
Jesse," "the Branch," and the Messiah eulogised by Isaiah in his eleventh chapter, who had
recovered his people from various parts. That this amiable prince owed much—and even this
may be an understatement—to the astuteness of the great prophet and statesman, is undoubted,
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for, as I have inferred, Isaiah had the genius to proclaim the son of the alma as the Messiah or
Saviour of his nation, their champion, and above all else the selected of the Lord of Heaven by
whose especial aid the machinations of the enemy hordes were utterly defeated, themselves
annihilated, and yet Judah, in the vortex of a world of suffering and ruin, was raised from the
abyss to the heights of prosperity and success. There is no mystery why Hezekiah became
recognised as the Messiah.
So it would appear that the Messianic belief which persisted throughout the following ages among
the Jewish world and which still persists with the secret policy of the Zionists to obtain world
domination by the power of money and secret intrigue—which is deliberately and wickedly
directed against the British of all nations —was first inaugurated, but for worthy motives, by
Isaiah. When Hezekiah became dust it remained an unsatisfied ambition so that when the Romans
could tolerate their uprisings and conspiracies no longer and made war on them, they sought in
all directions for their (as they thought) promised Messiah, who was traditionally to raise them
once again into a powerful and prosperous state, the ruling race in the world, a fanaticism which
led them astray, induced them to support impostors, and finally led to the ruin of Jerusalem,
which was razed to the ground by Hadrian, although it still flourishes under another name in
Britain.[130]
Perhaps a few further observations may be permitted on that extraordinary and perverse genius
of his age, known to us as Moses, but chameleon-like appearing in so many countries under other
names, yet of too strong a personality and characteristics to conceal himself. Beyond his amazing
activity two predominating qualities are always very marked. One was his bitter animosity
towards the Egyptians, or, as I may be permitted to term them, the Western Celts; the other was
his brilliant mastery of applied science of his epoch, which he managed so skilfully to adapt, or
find disciples able to do so under his direction, whereby, with the assistance of rapacious princes
and rulers, he was able to pile up armaments of superior calibre and bribe his allies by appeals
to their cupidity.
From Rabshakeh, with the support of the then powerful Assyrian kings, he favoured his friends
the Sakai or Goths or "Magogoei," against the original Celtic inhabitants of Britain, a great many
of whom he expelled overseas either by guile or by force of arms, and placed his own followers
in their countries; again, we can trace him as Zalmoxis, fleeing first from Egypt, making his
headquarters in Samothrace, the great centre of armament factories of his age, winning power
and support; leading many of them away to the east until he was ready for their services in his
policy of conquest; then, as Zoroaster, corrupting the Persians (who then impinged far into the
south-east of Europe), bending them to his objects, aiding them in their conquest of India as a
means to an end, and finally bringing back from the east the Goths or Guti, until in the guise of
Silenus he led his sinister forces to overthrow and enslave the disunited and unprepared nations
in the west. Whatever may be said of the moral aspects of this militant priest, his consummate
genius must claim our admiration. He was a very great if perhaps a cruel and evil man.
In my opinion a new comprehension of Moses, his aims and activities are essential to a proper
understanding of the lost past. We are very dependent on the Scriptures for any consistent record
of prehistoric times, but they are misleading because Moses is falsely presented for doctrinal
purposes, and, in fact, the Old Testament is really a Mosaic propaganda compilation. Bible
chronology has been ruthlessly tampered with from the time of the Babylonian captivity to this
end. He created the Jews in the sense of inaugurating a new monotheistic religion, but it was a
destructive faith, based on deception and material force, a selfish, cold, calculating worship of
a tribal deity, namely Bacchus-Dionysus, who was supposed to be solely interested in their
destiny and wellbeing, whereby their arrogance, intolerance and exclusiveness made them the
most execrated of peoples from the time of the Macedonians onwards, and to this day causes the
name of Jew to be detested and distrusted throughout the world. If they have suffered bitter
persecution it is because of their own inhibitions. They have few friends or real allies.
It should be remembered that, although this work properly terminates with the Great Catastrophe,
the first Jews who were permitted to return to Jerusalem in the reign of Darius, were in a great
many instances in no way descended from the people of Judah only some of whom were exiled
to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar. A study of Nehemiah's lists of those led back by Zerub-babel
(or Sheshbazzar), who totalled 42,36o persons in all, reveals only 8,200 who could be claimed
as sons of Israel, while, on the other hand, there were nearly 16,90o descended from progenitors
in lands and districts quite unknown to us, except those from Pahath-Moab, 2,818, and Elam,
1,254, who were Persians. There were 3,950 of Senaar, who throw a curious sidelight on these
newcomers, of Bigvai 2,307, servants numbering 7,337, evidently foreign persons, and 642
priests who possessed no pedigree at all.[131] As the Judeans took meticulous care to register
their families, why, on their return, so many priestly persons were without any record, is
suggestive. It was, in short, a heterogeneous collection, many attracted doubtless by promises
held out, who accompanied Zerub-babel and who formed the basis of the new Jewish nation in
Jerusalem. It would seem that the bulk of them came from the direction of the Baltic and the
mouths of the Rhine, and some from south-east Europe, still strongly Semitic. Both Russia and
Poland have possessed a Semitic population from early times.
But this may be said of the origin of the Jews. Neither these newcomers, drawn from so many
sources, nor the Semitic people who proclaim themselves Jews in our day, possessed any
hereditary right to a foot of soil either in the present Palestine—which was never their native
land—nor to the original Jerusalem whence they repaired in Britain. They had taken Jerusalem
by the sword from the Jebusites (or Encheles), and the same applies to the Saxons who settled
themselves mainly in the south of England. In these modern times when the Britons are pressed
by Americans and others to surrender their empire without any compensation or even thanks—but
the reverse—as in India, where they have sacrificed the lives of tens of thousands of their sons
and invested and lost untold millions of pounds, have given them justice and made them
prosperous, it is well to recollect the basis of such claims to territories.
The "Senaar," among those mentioned, is only another rendering of Shinar, where the city of
Babylon was situated, among rivers and canals. These may be claimed as the later known
Senones, a Gallic people of great influence in Gaul in the time of Cæsar, neighbours of the
Belgae. In 390 B.C., according to Livy, they invaded Etruria in Italy, and were described as
large-limbed, with yellow hair and blue eyes. Led by Brennus, they turned the Roman flank at
Allia, then captured, sacked, and burnt Rome. Richard of Cirencester and Geoffrey of Monmouth
both claim that these Senones, who had also settled in southern England long before, marched
under Brennus to attack Rome. Geoffrey says that Belinus and Brennus were sons of Dunwallo,
King of Britain, and that Brennus with his Senonian Gauls captured Rome.
Richard states that the Senones occupied all Britain south of the Thames. Nevertheless, they
were known to the Romans as the Iceni (cp. Seni or Ceni) and supposedly in Norfolk and
Lincolnshire as the Cenimagni (Ceni magni).[132] During the Roman occupation, the Iceni of
Hampshire, who then controlled the metal trade in the west country, carried pigs of lead, tin, or
iron, mostly by pack-horse, to their port near Southampton, thus avoiding the circuitous and
dangerous navigation round Land's End. Prasutagus, King of the Iceni, had so enriched himself
by this traffic that he made the Romans his heirs, hoping thus to assuage their greed, but as we
know, they plundered his family, violated his daughters, reduced the nobles to slavery, and thus
occasioned the uprising of Queen Boadicea, in Hampshire as in Norfolk.
As a result, the Silures under Caractacus (or Caradoc), rose in support of the Iceni and all Britain
was ablaze from the Forth to the Channel. That the Iceni were in Hampshire is confirmed by
place-names, as, for example, the New Forest was called Icenia, and is so named by Leland in
the time of Henry VIII. They had their settlement between the lichen and Anton Rivers, falling
into Southampton Water, with Winchester their capital. Thus we may find that the Iceni or
Senones, originally the Senaar, otherwise the Belgae, were descended from the Assyrians or
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Babylonians, of the same racial origin as the Phrygians or Trojans, and instead of being an Asiatic
people, were fair-haired, blue-eyed Gauls.
This is what Moses said of the Promised Land of which his followers were to be the heirs:
The Lord thy God bringeth thee into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of
fountains and depths, springing forth in valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley,
and vines and fig-trees and pomegranates (apples), a land of olive-oil and honey, a
land wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarceness; thou shalt not lack anything
in it, a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills thou mayest dig brass
(copper). When thou hast eaten and art full, then shalt thou bless the Lord thy God
for the good land he bath given thee.[133]
Good wine needs no bush! It is scarcely necessary to add that the land full of brooks and wells
and lakes, a land of wheat and barley, a land where formerly the olive and vine flourished, and
where iron and copper were mined—such a land will you seek in vain in the territory called
Palestine!
The ancient island of Britain is the key to world history in the past and she will be in the future.
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